Arksen Discovery 8 review: Is Arksen’s first ever RIB the adventure boat it needs to be?

The Arksen 8 combines rugged SUV styling with premium British craft, delivering a versatile, high-performance RIB built for true adventure

Ever since its inception, British adventure company, Arksen, has felt different. Yes, there are now all kinds of trawler yachts, pilothouse boats and RIBs that adopt “adventure” as a key part of their marketing profiles but here was a company that backed up its hardware with a proven infrastructure of adventurers from all kinds of disciplines that enabled you to use your boat in a more ambitious and rewarding way than you might ever have thought possible.

But even if you disregard that critical element of the package, the boats themselves have been impressive. At the top of the Arksen tree is the Explorer series of serious long-distance expedition platforms – not least the all-aluminium flagship 85 with its extraordinary 7,000-mile range; in the middle are the Adventure sportsboats, which are derived from XO’s tough four-season aluminium pilothouse craft; and in terms of open boats, there’s also now a RIB line known as the Discovery series. We’d already seen this boat a year ago at its Southampton Boat Show debut but here, on a brisk and lumpy sea off Chichester, we finally got the chance to put it through its paces.

Big, bright and beamy

Before we get to the drive though, it’s worth a look at the design because it makes really interesting use of the space. In the cockpit, for instance, the aft bench conceals a vast (and beautifully lined) 450L drained storage locker. That’s flanked by cushioned armrests with wireless phone chargers recessed into the lateral mouldings. And ahead of that, a pair of fold-down seats built into the back edge of the transverse wet bar can be strapped up to free up the deck space or dropped down for extra sociability at the dining station.

The wet bar itself is also cleverly conceived. There’s a fridge as standard, plus space for an electric Kenyon grill and a sunken wine cooler. There’s also room for a pair of optional Igloo cool boxes beneath the unit, which makes plenty of sense if you want to take your food, drink and seating ashore for a beach picnic. However you choose to spec it though, the fact that you get a wet bar and some central seats rather than just one or the other is a major plus on a boat of this size.

Where this boat really scores over the show boat we saw a year back, however, is in the detailing. There are sturdy gas rams on the lids and hatches and a long low-profile ladder that extends out from the starboard swim platform.

The tables are also cleverly devised. Built light and manageable with right- angled struts and flexible fastenings, you can lift and drop, rotate and pivot, so you can keep your dinner front and centre or shift your drinks and nibbles out of the way above the inflatable collar to open up the space. There are fore and aft infills for the two dining zones too, and these are similarly lightweight and easy to handle.

Further forward, the console is offset to port, opening up a very secure walkway to starboard, but thanks to some well designed grab rails, it’s perfectly easy to climb up and over the tube on the portside too. There’s also excellent access to the heads compartment, thanks to a door that encompasses the entire starboard corner of the console moulding.

There’s plenty of space in there for changing your clothes, as well as for using the loo and washing at the compact sink, and the natural light in this space is also uncommonly strong.

Surprising security

When you reach the bow, the impact of that substantially raised sheerline adds tremendous depth for a far greater degree of security than you would tend to expect of a RIB.

There’s space for a convertible four-man bow lounge up here and the fact that there’s a compressor in the console’s forward locker, with a hose long enough to reach all five chambers of that wide-diameter Hypalon collar, and sufficient power to inflate your high-pressure SUP boards, is particularly good news.

The forepeak, however, is a bit of an anomaly. On the one hand, the anchor is mounted on the stem to enable easy disembarkation. On the other, there’s an aluminium box section to add rigidity in the forepeak that is currently unused for any other practical purpose and remains open, creating a trip hazard directly behind the step-through bow.

Clearly, a lid would be a positive step, and so would a bow ladder, but either way, in addition to providing space for up to 12 people, the Arksen 8 combines its tough SUV styling and heavyweight build with quite a premium finish.

There are slick orange accents to ramp up the aesthetic impact, plus neat detailing in the stitched upholstery. The Esthec decking features some cool custom Arksen branding and while the catches for the fold-down seats are unlike any we’ve seen before, they’re also stylish, low-profile and brilliantly simple to operate one-handed.

Tough, dry and rapid

In line with its role as a proper sea boat, the Arksen uses a deep-vee non-stepped hull with a raised bow, a fine entry and a rugged 520mm Hypalon collar that retains a 490mm diameter even at the slightly squared-off forepeak. That provides plenty of splash deflection in a lumpy sea and we need that today because the winds are stoking up the swells into chunky four-footers.

The raised bow isn’t just dry though. It’s also confidence-inspiring from the helm, not least because, even when you sit down behind that elevated console, the step-through rails on the forepeak act like crosshairs in your eye line. And when you combine all of these traits with strong stability and excellent sensitivity to leg angle adjustments, the Arksen 8 delivers a really superb performance in a big following sea.

In fact, we find ourselves surfing a 4ft following sea at 20 knots with such composure that we feel perfectly comfortable throttling on to 42 knots and outrunning the ramps as they roll in. It’s a tremendous amount of fun and the ergonomics of the helm station certainly help with that. You get twin suspension seats and a pair of 12in MFDs as standard and the shelter provided by the console’s height is again very reassuring.

Oddly enough, the wheel isn’t adjustable on the test boat but the seats are – and while we’re getting plenty of protection from the helm, we’re also getting some good shade from the optional T-top, which keeps things simple and lightweight by using stretched canvas over a skeletal black frame.

And as for the engine choice, that’s also quite interesting. While you can spec it with a single 300 or 350, you can also have a twin rig totalling up to 500hp – and happily, we have the maximum twin 250hp 4.2L V6 outboards right here on the test boat. That means the single 495L fuel tank is replaced with a pair of 250L tanks for extra redundancy and that makes good sense. But it’s the sheer squirt on tap that really hits home.

There is simply no point in the range where the surge isn’t utterly immediate so you have to be quite circumspect with your throttles, particularly in lively seas like this. But just as you can control the pitch of the boat in a very positive and responsive fashion, so you can leap from 20 to 40 knots in the blink of an eye. That’s fun of course but it’s also a very handy trait when you want to pick a safe and progressive path through challenging waters.

As luck would have it, though, there was also an Arksen 8 with a single 350 in attendance, so we jumped at the chance to have a play with that too. And equipped with the new 4.3L V6 model (rather than the big block V8 of old), it did a great job.

Even in these seas, we pushed on to 42 knots and while the outright grunt wasn’t the same, the fact that it reduces the price, while still delivering a top end of around 48 knots suggests it’s a rig that will get plenty of takers. Just don’t expect massive fuel savings. At 30 knots, the 500hp test boat was running at just 2L per mile, and while the single rig might nip a fraction off that, the differences are almost too minor to be significant.

Arksen Discovery 8 specifications

LOA: 26ft 3in (8.00m)
BEAM: 9ft 6in (2.90m)
DRAFT: 1ft 8in (0.50m)
DISPLACEMENT: 2,500kg (light)
FUEL CAPACITY: 500L
WATER CAPACITY: 60L
ENGINE: 1 x 300-350hp / 2 x 200-250hp outboards

Arksen Discovery 8 costs & options

Price: from £199,995 inc VAT. Test boat includes the following options…
Twin Yamaha V6 F250 outboards: £28,575
Stretched canvas T-top: £18,810
Helm Master joystick control: £5,028
Cushion infills forward and aft: £2,850
Scanstrut compressor: £922
SBS trailer: £7,560

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