For motorboaters like us, the main problem with the romantic notion of ‘getting away from it all’ is that in most vessels, we have a few days at most before we need to find the haven of a comfortable mooring and somewhere to refuel.

However, this American range of immensely sturdy displacement craft proved the exception to that rule last year when a flotilla of Nordhavns crossed the Atlantic, while other Nordhavn vessels have even circumnavigated the world. MBM had the chance to check out one of the firm’s most popular models, the 47, from a line-up that runs from 40ft to 86ft.

Take a look at the picture: if you think there is a lot of boat above the waterline, then remember that there’s a comparable amount below, too. The extra high freeboard forward – which provides massive reserve buoyancy to dig the bow out in head and following seas – pushes down to a deep forefoot and full keel to give a draught of almost six feet. The amidships portion of the underwater sections then bellies out more formidably, allowing the engine and substantial fuel tanks (with the best part of five tonnes capacity) to be set extremely low in the boat. This aids stability and allows a full two decks of accommodation above, while still giving an engine room with full standing, walk-in headroom. If the single engine option makes you uncomfortable then a smaller ‘wing’ engine can be specified – a set-up often found on fishing boats. The drive train of the main engine ends with a 34in (89cm) four-blade prop protected by the keel that extends beneath to support the formidable, door-sized rudder. ‘Formidable’ is again the best adjective to describe the actual hull and superstructure mouldings; one of the electricians fitting some of the nav gear on the day we joined the boat was astounded to find he had to cut through a good two inches of wall-like moulding to fit the flybridge instruments.

As to the general layout, the full-on wheelhouse – reminiscent of a ship’s bridge, with sitting room for all the crew – is one distinguishing trait, while the ‘Portuguese’ bridge that provides a protected walkaround is another. The saloon is back aft and open plan to a domestic-sized galley, while ahead of the midships engine room is space for either two or three cabins. The two-cabin option (seen here) benefits from a study area and, whichever way you go, there are two good toilet compartments with separate shower cubicles.
The target here is very much live-aboard owners, and hence styling is much more a matter of home-from-home comfort that will endure, rather than ‘putting on the Ritz’ luxury touches. Indeed, the “will it stand-the test of time” question is answered in part by super-solid woodwork, while practical countertops are coated with an anti-slip finish that tends not to mark.

In addition, every surface that warrants a fiddle not only gets one, but when you run your hand down them, they double as easy-to-find handholds with an inward curl that provide a natural finger grip. Other useful design details abound, like the weather doors in from the sidedecks and cockpit, which as well as being capable of being fully dogged down are split like a stable door, allowing the top half to remain open while ensuring there is scant chance of any wayward water finding its way in.

The same goes for the windows; the tops open like a sash rather than sliding fore and aft, which again maintains plenty of ventilation while still providing a bulwark against bad weather.

The open-plan saloon and galley lie right aft. The two facing settees of the former are comfortably proportioned; the larger starboard hand settee is clearly destined to double as a dinette, while both get an uninterrupted view out of the deep, cruise-liner type windows.

The galley work surface (granite or marble as standard) is fashioned to push out slightly into the saloon area, making a useful breakfast bar. That said, for the best morning views most of the crew will head for the settee/dinette in the wheelhouse.

The galley itself is superbly equipped both in terms of cooking and wet‘n’dry storage. There’s a five-ring hob, a super-sized fridge with freezer capacity and another freezer unit located in the forward accommodation. Other appliances include a trash compactor (useful on long-distance cruising boats where the accumulation and the proper disposal of rubbish often becomes a problem), a microwave and separate generous oven, while still leaving space for the optional dishwasher. A washing machine and dryer are housed in a full-height cupboard across the way. Even the sinks are on the generous side, with two no-nonsense rectangular units set smartly across the far corner, but with a view out, of course!

The stairwell up to the wheelhouse again demonstrates the builder’s eye for detail. Here, as elsewhere, red lights have been set into the treads to make moving about at night easier and safer. The wheelhouse is geared towards ease of use at night, too, even including an off-watch berth behind the L-shaped dinette.
You do not want for space at the helm station, either. There is plenty of elbow room as you pad from one side of the wheelhouse to the other. There’s provision here for a raft of electronic equipment too. It is also good to see that there was ample consideration given to paper charts, with a couple of dedicated, extra deep drawers among the myriad lockers and cupboards as well as a hinge-up chart table area. Over towards the starboard hand door, a wet locker, complete with overboard drain, is a thoughtful touch, forming part of a useful sideboard-cum-bookshelf unit.

The wheelhouse is also home to an industrial-looking electrical distribution panel and, given the amount of power that can be consumed and generated, its size and proliferation of readouts is wholly necessary.
An easily descended stairwell leads to the sleeping cabins, both of which have en suites, although in fact neither of these can be accessed to use as a ‘day head’ without entering the cabin in question. This is because the day head to the forward guest suite is up in the bows. That aside, both cabins and their associated ablution facilities are first class. The forward cabin is fitted with a generous study/office area in addition to boasting plenty of clothes storage. Its comfortable double, angled down the port hand side, can be supplemented by a neat pipe-cot arrangement that pulls out above the main berth. The en suite here is a solid, moulded affair easily kept clean, as is the main cabin, but both are then given the unusual touch of slate floors in addition to marble countertops. The yard will tile them or extend the superb teak and spruce flooring found through the rest of the accommodation, if preferred. The en suites both have separate shower cubicles (though the shower in the master cabin is decidedly larger) and are equipped with freshwater flush electric toilets.

The master cabin, with its central, five-feet wide double, is roomy and studded with stowage, but in such a way that no space is wasted. It is all impeccably planned for the live-aboard couple, with large wardrobes, built-in bedside lockers plus a dressing table and even a tucked-away laundry basket. For truly bulky items, the centre of the bed-base hinges up. Even in this hidden-away spot the standard of finish is particularly high, with the obscured joinery not simply given a quick lick of paint or varnish but given several coats for a proper finish.

getting on and off would pose a problem. Not a bit of it. Hefty doors in the substantial bulwarks mean you step straight from the pontoon onto the starboard hand sidedeck, or via the bathing platform into the cockpit. Once aboard and moving about, you could not feel more secure, with handholds wherever you reach out and coamings or guardrails running round at a well-judged height of 3ft 6in (1.07m). Both sides of the wheelhouse have doors out to the sidedecks, which are protected from the worst excesses of any water coming over the bow due to the extra wall of coaming – the ‘Portuguese bridge’– running across in front. Neatly let into the protective moulding here are port lights to the cabins below, allowing them to be kept open while at sea but with little chance of catching any water. Indeed, it is precisely this sort of neat design detail that marks out the 47 not just as a supremely strong boat, but as one geared towards comfort too.

Ahead of this, the raised foredeck exhibits the same excellent non-slip surface found throughout, but it is the actual hardware here that really catches the eye. There’s a heavily engineered stainless steel bow-roller fabrication to handle the ground-tackle and a fully watertight manhole that allows jump-down room to the cavernous chain locker.

Back aft, the cockpit opens up via an extra-wide door into the saloon. While the latter is not exactly large, there is certainly room for a couple of deck chairs hiked out from the lazaret area below. Lockers in the hefty transom coaming include provision for two or three extra large gas bottles, too.

Access up to the upper-deck area and flybridge is from the port hand sidedeck. Because the moulding runs the full beam and back over the cockpit, there is ample room here to stow a useful-sized RIB, as well as provide an extra entertaining area. The flybridge steps run past the funnel configuration, which houses the dry-exhaust system, and in this instance, the owner had opted for the larger of the two ‘stack’ options, which allows plenty of room for all manner of antennas and radar scanners. A crane had also been ordered in addition to the standard derrick arrangement. The flybridge feels well protected, with suitably generous coamings right round, plus a bird’s-eye view of proceedings. However, perhaps something more exciting could have been done here aside from the large curved bench seat aft and two helm chairs.

The standard main engine installation is a commercially rated 173hp Lugger turbo-charged unit. Never heard of them? Well, Luggers, based on John Deere agricultural engines, have a global service network and a good record for ruggedness and reliability, too. In addition, and as back-up for the Lugger, there is the option of a 40hp wing-engine complete with its own drive-train and folding prop.

Of course reliability is not simply down to a rugged engine: clean fuel and regular servicing are hugely important factors when offshore passage-making. Access to the engine and to the myriad of auxiliary machinery is therefore of prime consideration when the skipper also has to be a hands-on mechanic. Here, the engine space is a walk-in area with standing headroom, accessed though a door in the aft bulkhead of the midships cabin. This is not just any door, but a watertight seal that also curtails the amount of noise that escapes.

The compartment itself runs the full width of the vessel, with the main engine taking centre-stage, flanked by the wing fuel tanks that between them have a capacity approaching five tonnes. These feed a ‘day-tank’ by way of a polishing filter, before the fuel is pulled through the usual primary and fine-filters on the engine. The upshot is that the engine should not be compromised by dirty fuel; no bad idea when the fuel’s pedigree may be in doubt. We also liked the fact that the engine sports a protective rail and that all the belts were shielded behind sturdy covers. This ensures that while the engine is running no one down here will get injured.

The compartment sides are panelled in sound-deadening perforated aluminium, into which all manner of cave lockers are set. These allow access to ancillary items and storage – including a workbench area – while still keeping as much noise as possible boxed in. To help keep everything clean and tidy, the floor pan is one large GRP liner with a number of cut-outs through to the bilge area itself.

Working towards the back of the engine room, the wing engine sits to port with ample space for a beefy generator opposite, and again there is room to carry out required maintenance. A half-height watertight door between these, leads through to the lazaret, which is also accessible from the cockpit. The space here incorporates the tiller flat, while the boxed areas outboard house the 1000 or so amp hour domestic battery bank. This is wired through to a 3kW inverter system to provide AC power without necessarily having to flash up the gen-set. Re-charging this lot would certainly take some doing, were it not for the fact that the main engine runs a 270A alternator.

A short day-trip out from Nordhavn’s office on the Solent was never likely provide the best testing ground for a boat suited for circumnavigations. This baby is designed for battling the worst of conditions, and nothing the Solent has to offer would ever offer much of a challenge. And so it proved, with little to tax 40 tonnes of boat: any wash from tugs and ferries was knocked aside, while the stabilisers counteracted anything that might set up a roll.

This Nordhavn is not simply about taking on the elements, but living with them, often for days at a time. You can cover around 170 miles a day at a cruising 7 knots, which means that overall you need to eat, sleep, live and keep watch over prolonged periods without falling foul of stress and tiredness. The first inconvenience is always noise, but sound levels over most of this boat rarely registered over 60dB(A) and even in the master cabin, next to the engine room, there is little more than a soft background hum, as the engine sips its gallon an hour at 1800rpm. The second problem will be uncomfortable, wayward motion. This is where the stabilisers kick in; the fully automatic fin type fitted here making a noticeable difference when encountering the wakes of various commercial vessels plying their trade into Southampton docks. That big galley will also prove a boon while underway.

Clearly, the other concern one might have is manoeuvring this daunting vessel – and on a single engine, too. You can specify both bow- and stern-thrusters, and we nudged sideways into a berth with only a couple of feet grace either end without any problem. After that, the crew just steps ashore via the opening in the bulwark. Thrusters aside, the boat responds quickly to the helm, ducking through an about turn in a boat’s length on the wheel alone.

Visibility astern from either helm is a problem. It is almost impossible to see the bathing platform; clearly a pain when Med-mooring. The answer is probably a CCTV camera pointing astern, but that aside, the view while underway from the wheelhouse is excellent, with the forward-facing windows reducing reflections, of course. The other potential problem our sea-trials uncovered was the hull’s service speed and range. And although we had no difficulty pushing up to a decent displacement cruising speed of 7 to 7.5 knots and a range of a couple of thousand miles, the added resistance of the stabiliser fins and extra stern gear make a noticeable difference on the figures quoted for a standard boat without these deep sea necessities.

The standard specification is a hefty tome of a document. Even so, to get the vessel up to world-girdling stature, it is necessary to get stuck into the options list. Try the 40hp wing-engine installation, a suitable sized generator and heating/air-con for starters. You might also like to consider a water-maker as well as upgrading the standard mast and derrick arrangement for getting the tender over the side to an actual crane. The other two relatively major considerations are whether to have the boat with or without the flybridge, along with the extended funnel-cum-mast arrangement. The former is really a must and adds around £20,000 to the cost. Unless you are striving to keep the substantial air draught in check, then saving £4000 by refusing the boat a funnel seems churlish. It was surprising to find that the anchor, chain, and the compass were named on the options list.

The next question is how the Nordhavn stacks up in terms of price to what else you might consider, even if the competition (perhaps a Grand Banks or something in steel like a Stürier) has a different take on long-term cruising. While they are all in the same ball-park in terms of price tag, it is highly unlikely whether they’ll surpass the no-nonsense Nordhavn for passage-making.

Nordhavn Europe Ltd,
Saltmakers House,
Hamble Point Marina,
Hamble, Hants SO31 4NB.

Tel: 02380 456342
Email: europesales@nordhavn.com
Website: www.nordhavn.com/europe/