The new 355 Long Deck Nordic.

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The boat was tooled by Nordic's GM Thane and is built from scratch. Honestly the boat was more of an experiment and Thane did things that he thought would work that are typically different than the usual trains of thought. Wide Sponsons and a Narrow tunnel? There was a lot of people speculating how it was going to work after the initial photos were released on RDP.

Well The boat ran 117 mph right out of the box and they haven't had a chance to play with more props..

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And there it is that big beautiful tunnel.. Needless to say with it being a true tunnel the boat should be good for not only lake but offshore use as well! I'm really looking forward to seeing how this boat runs in rough water.

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I wasn't there for the initial water test but Tom (TommyGun) was and he told me the thing was on plane in seconds with zero bow rise and it pulled like a freight train out of the hole. I'm guessing those wide sponsons really paid off in that regard.

The boat was designed with either twin or quad outboard configurations! So you can run twin 400's (or bigger when they are released) or you can run quad 300's!

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One of the things I really liked about the boat when I saw it over at the factory was it has a large hang out area right on the transom. The rear is actually setup like a lounger and fits three people across easily. As you can see with the step down getting in and out of the water (or in the boat when it's on the trailer) is incredibly easy! Both of those little amenities are something that is rare to find on one of these ultra high performance cats.

When they build the trailer for this I think I'd skip the ladder on the front.
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This is the first boat and as we all saw this thing went from Hull to rigged on the quick to make it to the LA Boat show.

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I'm not sure if they were going for a kind of stripped down "race" look where saving weight on everything matters, or rather (more likely) things were in a big hurry to get it done / tested & to the boat show.. But I thought the switches looked kinda plane just stuck in the middle of the center console.

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The pattern in the sea deck and the seats is fairly decisive with regard to you are either gonna love it or you are gonna hate it. When I first saw it I had mixed feelings on it, but the more I look at it the more it's growing on me. I will say on this boat in particular at least it stands out and it's different. You can see they put a fiberglass inset with netting for storage as well as glove boxes on each side. I think there's a lot of opportunity in there for cool and different things, and one of the things I like about Nordic is they are a "true custom" builder so they will build it however you want!

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Again you can see they put USB power supplies all around the boat.

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People have been trying to decide what to do with grab handles for the back seat in performance boats for longer than I have been alive. Back in the day with the first poker run interiors they had the giant billet t handles.. Before that the hardcore guys would actually do interiors that would literally wrap around you so you'd have to squeeze into them.. I really liked the way Nordic did these simple vinyl straps.. They are integrated into the seat, non intrusive, and they work.. It isn't the "bling" solution by any means, but it's simple, and clever so I thought it was cool.

Pay attention to that because there's another boat coming up that I don't feel the same way about.
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Unfortunately the hatches were locked and Thane was with a customer so I didn't want to bug him. I'm looking forward to doing a full write up on the boat soon with on board video etc!! At that time we'll take a look under the hatches and see what's in there. Honestly I wouldn't expect much, because all of these twin 400 boats have to be built fairly minimalistic to be light enough to pull the numbers.

If ya want to know why it's the "Belle of the Ball?" It's almost 36' Long.. You can run it in the lake or the ocean (True Tunnel). It ran 117 mph right out of the box (meaning there's more in it) and it costs 350'ish... Compare that to what's out there and you are anywhere from 50-100K cheaper and you are going to have a hard time finding one that is going to pull those numbers!
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