Stepping aboard Finnmaster's largest ever day cruiser, the Finnmaster T9 T-Top reveals why Nordic sportsboats excel at high-speed weekending
Day cruisers have long been a speciality in the Nordic states. The likes of Flipper, Windy, Nordkapp and Yamarin have produced (and still produce) boats to the traditional day cruiser format, with pointy bows, full-beam cockpits, step-through windscreens and flat foredecks.
Styling and performance usually top the priority list, so sleeping accommodation often has to be squeezed into very tapered, low-profile sections beneath the bows and into letter-slot cavities beneath deep-set cockpit decks. Naturally then, you don’t expect great things from the T9’s cabins, particularly as it’s such a sleek and attractive looking boat with such serious performance potential, but the overnighting facilities here are remarkably decent.
The top-rated twin 400s work an absolute treat with this hull
As you head down the stairs, through a really wide sliding door, there’s a handy two-man changing seat to port. Ahead of that, the owner’s bed entirely fills the forepeak, and while that means there’s no access around the sides, the bed itself is so large that you could quite easily sleep sideways.
Big foredeck skylights bring plenty of natural light into the bow cabin and there are some lovely two-part low-level hull windows too. In addition to a perfectly serviceable wetroom-style heads compartment to starboard, there’s another double bed running fore and aft beneath the cockpit sole.
Forward-facing seats for eight people is impressive
It’s not luxurious in any way but it gets useful light from a window built into the step that delineates the raised forward helm area from the lower aft seating zone.
There’s also some surprisingly cavernous storage behind a door to port, and while some extra fabric linings to soften the naked fibreglass would be a nice touch, it does a perfectly decent job as an occasional cabin for two children.
The guest cabin is decent for kids or an occasional couple
Finnmaster T9 T-Top – The day spaces
With its 10ft 8in beam, the Finnmaster’s aft end also does plenty of things well. The fixed transverse walkway ahead of the engines is very narrow because Finnmaster is reluctant to waste any space that could be profitably used in the cockpit – and when you step into that cockpit, the scale of it is certainly impressive.
There’s a big L-shaped seating unit lining the aft end and portside, with a facing seat pod to starboard, neatly distanced from the transverse wet bar. This means you can stand at the bar unimpeded, as well as use the seat pod to face forward underway. In fact, when you add in the twin helm seats and the port co-pilot bench, as many as eight people can face forward, which is rare for this size of craft.
The sociable cockpit seating hides oceans of storage
As you would expect, you get extra flexibility thanks to an aft table that folds out and drops into the space on a telescopic push-button strut, transforming the aft deck into a sunbed. And if you head forward, past the helm seats, your passage to the foredeck sunbeds is also eased by means of a hinged overhead hatch in the front end of the T-Top, so you don’t crack your head as you’re climbing up through the screen.
In truth, as a prototype platform, the test boat’s T-Top does need a bit of work. Its struts come down inside the gunwales, slightly reducing the usable width of the cockpit by easing the backrests slightly inboard. It’s also bolted to the structure rather than moulded in, which feels a bit rudimentary; and it really doesn’t do much except provide shade, so it needs a bit of tweaking.
The foredeck is flat, low-profile and basic
– very much in the tradition of a sporting Nordic day cruiser
But we raised this point with our Finnmaster hosts and were assured that future T-Tops would be both more sophisticated and better integrated than this.
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The performance
This is a comfy boat for the skipper. The deep-set helm position gives you plenty of protection and confidence. The seats are also highly supportive, with lots of adjustability, and the dash, though compact, is well specced too.
A pair of 16in plotters fits the main tier of the dash very efficiently with only 5mm to spare around the edges, and while the Mercury joystick and Sleipner bow thruster sit neatly ahead of the twin throttles, you also get storage spaces and cup holders, plus a rubberised armrest for your throttle arm.
You get a joystick, a thruster, Seakeeper RIDE and an armrest for your right hand
When you get underway, the urgency from the twin 400hp V10s (the most potent rig available on this boat) is impossible to ignore. Within just a few seconds we’re flying along at 45 knots and there’s still plenty of grunt on tap to push you through to the test boat’s 53-knot top end.
There’s oceans of grip in the turn, too, as well as decent splash deflection and the kind of ride softness that enables you to explore all that poke without too much discomfort.
But with its big bed, angular rooflights and plunging hull windows, the bow cabin is much more pleasing
At 420L, the fuel tank isn’t huge. But if you drive at the optimum cruising speed of between 24 and 38 knots, you get fuel flow of around 3L per mile for a range comfortably in excess of 100 miles, even with 20% in reserve. And if you want to ease things back, even a pair of 250s will apparently see this boat scoot along at around 44 knots.
It’s interesting to note, however, that on a responsive performance boat like this, the impact of the Seakeeper Ride system is not 100% positive. While we’ve used this same system to outstanding effect on several other sportsboats, making for a notably softer, flatter ride with no discernible downsides, in this case it’s not all good news.
The layout
The super-fast movements of the curved blade dropping in and out of the water also seem to wash off a few revs and a little speed while slightly impacting on the steering. It isn’t critical by any means but it is perceptible, and on a finely tuned, carefully trimmed sportsboat, screaming along at 52 knots, that’s mildy annoying.
The simple answer, of course, is to let the RIDE system run until you’re on the plane and then, if the conditions are set in your favour, turn it off and enjoy the fully manual experience. We did exactly that, using the optional push-button interface (rather than the digital one) and it is, as intimated, very much the driving machine a flagship Nordic day cruiser ought to be.
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Price as reviewed:
£246,301.00 As tested ex. VAT
Verdict
This is not just the largest boat in Finnmaster’s Day Cruiser line but also the largest boat in the entire 16-strong fleet – and notwithstanding the fact that some of the details need tidying up, it delivers a lot of the things you would want from a Nordic day cruiser. It’s fast; it’s good to look at; it’s fun to drive; there’s plenty of open day space; and it will put four people up in decent comfort for a long weekend. It lacks the furniture convertibility and layout cleverness you might expect from an Axopar-style weekender, but if you like a simpler, more classical form of high-octane weekending fun, this boat is a very effective way to get it. CONTACT: www.finnmaster.fi
Details
LOA: 29ft 8in (9.04m)
Beam: 10ft 8in (3.25m)
Draft: 1ft 10in (0.56m)
Displacement: 3,450kg (light)
Fuel capacity: 420L
Water capacity: 90L
Engines: 425-800hp
Test engines: Twin Mercury V10 400hp outboards
