STORMING HEAVEN

  Wellcraft builds thousands of boats each year - fishboats, runabouts, 
cruisers, and, of course, Scarabs.  Yet Wellcraft doesn't build the latest
Wellcraft - the 45 Excalibur.  Instead, it imports the boat from Australia.
  Of course, the fact that one of America's top builders would go half way 
around the world for a high-profile flagship says a great deal about the 
flagship.
  The Excalibur is an extraordinary piece of work - it's beefy, roomy, 
smartly styled and comfortably equipped with state-side components.  It's
also the first in what may turn into a whole line of Australian-built 
Wellcrafts.
  But more important, the Excalibur is a veritable cutting horse of a boat -
an exceptionally agile performer.  It's one of the best-handling full-
fledged cruisers I've ever tested.

  The Excalibur is the creation of a builder on Australia's east coast, 
Riviera Marine, best known for traditional flying bridge cruisers (See a test
of one - "Another World" - in this issue).
  In his spare time, Bill Barry-Cotter, the driving force behind Riviera, 
loves nothing better that charging competitively across the wastes of the 
Tasman Sea in his 2,800-hp diesel-powered raceboat.  The bottom he uses is a
direct progenitor of the one on the new Excalibur - a straightforward, 21-
degree deep-V, with a couple of clever Aussie twists.
  First, the after third of the V is rounded like a half-moon.  Riviera says 
that this generates lift astern and gets the boat on plane more efficiently.
It also cuts down on the tenderness inherent in traditional deep-V hulls 
that, once on plane, are constrained to balance on a knife-edge.
  Second, although the chines of the Excalibur are narrow by comparison with 
American boats (3" wide vs. 6" wide on a Scarab), they expand into two 20" 
by 15" chine flats at the transom on either side of the drives on the 
underside of two bustle-like pods.  These chine flats provide a great deal 
of lift when coming out of the hole.
  And third, the Excalibur's hull carries a weight-forward bias, at least by
American standards, with the helm and tankage set well forward.

  I tested the Excalibur on a flat-calm day on Sarasota Bay.  After putting 
the Bennett trim tabs all the way up and trimming the Bravo Three drives all
the way in, I jammed the Zero Effort throttles forward.  The 45 literally 
leapt onto plane - in four seconds flat.  It was like levitating on a magic
carpet.  Amazing.
  Never did I lose sight of the horizon beyond the bow, even while sitting 
down.  The running attitude of the Excalibur never exceeds 2 degrees.
  Handling's just as impressive.  Despite a hefty seven-ton displacement, 
turning the Excalibur was pure, flight-like freedom.  Within minutes, I was 
carving donuts and figure-eights, squeezing every radius tighter that the 
last.
  One foible of most deep-Vs is a tendency to sharp turns the way any knife-
edge will.  The Excalibur turns like a hot little sportboat, not a big 
deep-V, because the after third of its knife-edge is rounded off, so water 
can pass smoothly sideways under the keel.
  Do the chine flats under the aft pods give you a rougher ride than a 
straight deep-V might?  In the calm of test day, it was hard to be sure.  
  But there's no doubt about tracking.  At cruise, I let the boat run free, 
with the bow trained on a water tower at the end of the Bay.  It flew 
straight as an arrow.  And since it tracked true with little input from me,
driving was really relaxing.

  When I got back to the marina behind the Sarasota Hyatt after the test, I
talked with Riviera's General Manager Wes Moxey, a one-time designer and 
builder of steel oilfield supply vessels and now the guy who superintends
the construction of the Excalibur.  He described his "hell-for-stout" 
construction methods:
  The boat's three major parts - hull, deck, and liner - are laid up in
separate molds with standard fabrics and resins.  The hullsides contain 
Coremat.  The foredeck is cored with 1" balsa.  Everything else is solid
glass.
  Next, with the hull still in the mold (to prevent deformation), fiberglass
sringers are glassed into the bottom, and followed up with a plywood-cored
cabin sole, a full collision bulkhead forward, engine-room bulkhead astern
and athwartship structural members, all of them glassed into the hull and
hullsides.
  Meanwhile, with the cured deck still in its mold (again to prevent
deformation), foam-cored fiberglass beams are glassed to its underside, 
athwartship, about 14" apart.  When the beams are cured, a fiberglass head-
liner in its mold is flipped over mechanically and lowered onto these beams
where it's bonded with a polyester adhesive.
  Now - and here we're getting into an approach that's virtually unheard of
stateside - numerous bulkheads (for hanging lockers, cabins, and overhead 
lockers) are glassed into the headliner and deck, upside-down.  Why?  It's 
easier to do a thorough glassing job when working over a surface, rather 
than under it.
  Once all of the components are cured, the engines, plumbing, electrical,
and other systems are in place, the penultimate step is to mechanically flip
the deck/liner/bulkhead component over, lower it into the hull and bond hull
and deck together with screws and glue first, then with a wide, heavy joint
of fiberglass.
  The final step is to completely glass all bulkheads inside the boat, all 
the way around, whether hanging from the underside of the deck or rearing up
from the bottom of the hull.  The finished product is so thoroughly and 
complexly glassed together that it's one unibody piece, as though hewed from 
a single chunk of fiberglass.

  There aren't many high-perf cruisers around quite like the 45 Excalibur,
although one colse-to-comparable offering is the British-built Sunseeker 41 
Hawk. (Jan. 95) With an LOA of 43', a beam of 10'10", a displacement
of 15,432 pounds and a jewel-like finish that's as distinctive as an Aston
Martin's, the Sunseeker retails in the U.S. for $268,000 with twin MerCruiser
502 Magnum EFIs and Bravo Two drives.
  That's more than the Wellcraft's stateside sticker with the same engines 
and Bravo Three drives - $241,000.  But the price differential can be 
accounted for, in part, by looking at standard equipment lists.  The turn-
key Sunseeker's includes everything, right down to fenders, docklines, and
silverware.  The Wellcraft's skips some things, like a 6kw Kohler genset 
($8,595), Muir Windlass ($3,495), 16,000-BTU Marine Air A/C ($5,875), and 
sunpad ($1,800).  Nor is the Wellcraft as finely chiseled.  Sunseekers have 
a justifiable reputation for fit and finish, as well as sculpted 316L 
stainless-steel hardware, Italian upholstery, lacquerwork, and burl cabin 
doors and dashboards.

  Although the Excalibur is built thousands of miles from Wellcraft's 
Sarasota, FLorida, headquarters, most components are the same as those found
on the rest of the fleet.  There's a Taylor stainless-steel-framed 
windshield, for instance, as well as a Norcold refrigerator, Attwood water 
heater and Rule bilge pumps.
  There are two Rules in the Excalibur's big gel-coated engine-room, by the 
way.  One, a Rule 200, is mounted with float switch on the bottom of the 
boat, aft, between the engines.  The otehr, also a Rule 2000, sits on a 
stainless-steel bracket about 18" above the first, an emergency backup. Great
idea.
  Glasswork is just as well-executed, as evidenced by the apparently seam-
less, two-pice fiberglass radar arch.  Separate PVC tubes are glassed into 
the boat to carry plumbing, electrical, and steering/control cables.  And the
fuel tank is UL-approved fiberglass, with bolted-in baffles.  Only top-shelf
stateside builders do fiberglass tanks - companies like Hatteras and Viking.
  Belowdecks, the Excalibur has everything needed for weekending - galley, 
head (with shower stall), V-berth and mid-cabin, where headroom is limited to
2'9" for teh most part, although Wellcraft/Riviera will try for more on 
future 45s.
  At first glance, the salon interior appears to be lacquered, but it isn't.
Instead, Riviera paints cabinet doors with six separate coats of Imron, 
lightly sanding in between.  The effect is smooth, cosmopolitan.  Countertops
are made of "Granulon," a fiberglass product with a thick, easily repairable
gel coat.  Touch it up.  And buff it off.
  Conclusions?  While Wellcraft's new 45 Excalibur is a strong and 
comfortable boat both above and belowdecks, the real news here is performance - 
not so much raw speed, but smooth, light-footed agility, the kind that 
promotes handling that instills confidence and promotes joy.
  Clearly, Wellcraft knows a good boat, whether it is from Sarasota or not.