World’s Coolest Boats: Solent Spear – As ageless as helen mirren and almost as cool
The Solent Spear was designed for a purpose and hails from a no compromise era when seakeeping and style came before anything else
In an age of customer clinics, market research and a continual quest to be all things to all men, it’s great to come across a boat that was simply designed around one single person’s hopes, wishes and requirements. In the case of the Solent Spear, that person was Peter Morton and the year was 2004.
Peter lived on the Isle of Wight and commuted to the mainland every day. He was struggling to find a fast planing boat with the layout, and above all ability, to make that journey safely and comfortably, almost irrespective of weather – he dismissed most production boats as “flat-bottomed Tupperware containers masquerading as powerboats”.
The Spear owed more
than a nod to its Fairey heritage
So he turned to Casse Téte Marine Ltd to build him a boat, and Alan Burnard, the legendary designer who had previously penned the even more legendary Fairey range, to design it. In fact it was the last boat he ever drew.
The idea was to put the boat into limited production, and so two deck layouts were offered; one with a completely open cockpit, the other with an open-backed hard top. Even with the hard top, the Solent Spear was a great-looking boat, with more than a nod to that Fairey heritage in its deeply flared bow, wide side decks and low profile superstructure.
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Inevitably, this resulted in a fairly cosy interior despite its 35ft LOA, with just a vee-shaped dinette forward, quarter berths aft on either side that slipped back beneath the cockpit and a compact galley and heads.
From the off this was designed to be a fast capable commuter, not a fat cruiser, and outside was the place to be, either in one of the two high-backed captain’s chairs, or further aft in the sheltered cockpit area.
Cummins or Yanmar shaft drive diesels of around 375hp were offered, which gave a top speed in the mid-30-knot region. Interestingly, of the three boats actually built, one was fitted with Volvo Penta IPS drives. But the big news was the super-cool retro looks, the capable offshore performance and the cachet of owning such a classy hand-built British cruiser.
The low profile means the interior is fairly cosy
This is a boat that hails from the no compromise era when seakeeping and style came before anything else. It looked great, and it handled brilliantly!
To submit your suggestion for the world’s coolest boat, head over to the MBY forum.
Solent Spear specifications
Year: 2004
LOA: 35ft 0in (10.6m)
Beam: 11ft 0in (3.3m)
Power: 2x Cummins 375hp shaft drive diesel engines
Speed: 35 knots
Price when new: £235,000
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