Please click HERE to read a review that appeared in the Australian newspaper boat review pages
Or please click HERE to read a post made to BoatDesign.NET
For your interest, i took the 5.5 out on Easter Monday . 2 - 3 metre swell, seas around 2 metres and 18 to 25 knots breeze on the way home - white caps everywhere. It was pretty ugly and if it hadn't been for the dhufish and a mate of mine that had travelled a couple of thousand KMs to test out the typhoon & the Denmark fishing- we would probably have got the hell outa there long ago. I know what the typhoon can handle so i was happy to stay a while after all else had long ago logged off. Anyway, on the trip back the typhoon just ate up the conditions. My mate ( he's been around boats all his life) couldn't believe how well she handled it. Screaming down the face of a 3 metre following swell without the slightest hint of her broaching had his knuckles turning white and his eyes bulging out of his head as he nervously waited for me to bury the boats nose into the back of the next wave and for the whole thing to turn into a catastrophe. His comment - "in any other boat of comparable size we would have been smashed stupid, broached several times and probably wouldn't have made it home in once piece. We would have had to limp home shitting ourself ready to be capsized - that is an unbelievable boat. For an ally boat in such rough conditions i can not believe how soft the ride was. - you simply could not have bought a better boat". He was also amazed at how much fishing space was in it. - i recon you got his vote Wayne.
Mark Hidding's comment regarding the boat being more manoeuvrable on the wave is spot on. I surf mine up and down and along the wave face and its never once left me feeling vulnerable. - that's now a qualified statement.. read on..
Some months ago i put its wave capabilities to a proper test. The motor spluttered to a stop whilst we happened to be sneaking back to the beach in between sets of good size surf. ( water in the fuel as a result of a pin size hole in the fuel cap was the problem- they have since stopped making those style of fuel caps) The first wave pushed us a little and the second in the set of 5, picked us up and as we slid down half way down the face of the wave - with no power to control our direction, the boat broached and hi-sided me till i was way up in the air eye to eye with the lip of the wave. The passenger ( an experience boatie - he's got ( i think.. a 6.5m trailcraft.. ) was sure the Typhoon was doomed. Fearing for his life, he jumped overboard ( phone & all) just as the wave started to crumble about us-( a bit scary too for him) It tried hard to roll us over but the downside pontoon just wouldn't go under the water. So it pushed the boat upwards till it was healed over so far that the water started flowing under the flat face of the hull and the boat just rocked back to it normal floating position ready to take the white water from the next wave until eventually we ended up washed up on the beach. Fishing gear and crap were strewn all over the deck but otherwise - all was OK. - No damage anywhere. We swung her nose back into the waves and held her there till Denmark sea rescue arrived with a LONG length of rope the stretched out beyond the swell line. In between wave sets, we hooked the typhoon up and dragged her back through the waves & swell and around to calmer water & the beach. I have spent plenty of years yacht racing and can tell you that i know what the "point of no return" feels like on a boat. At no stage did i think my typhoon was ready to go over. I had to hang on like a bastard to stop myself being thrown overboard and I know that if we had been in any other type of boat, once hi-sided as we were, the water would have rushed in over the gunwales and with the extra water weight and more waves to follow ,the boat would have capsized and rolled over on us for sure - history. All praise to the Typhoon. When the chips were down she ate the challenge and came up trumps !