Duchy Sport Review by Aquaholic

“The most classy wakeboat you’ve ever seen”

AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

This is a fascinating boat. This was originally a commission from a gentleman who wanted the ultimate wakeboarding day boat that’s built by Cockwells, who built custom-built boats as well as production boats. They built these Duchy’s like this Duchy 35 here. We’ve got a full tour of one of those on the channel.

This is a Duchy Sport. It’s about 35 ft long and in fact, having built this one, they’ve already had an order for another one and they’ve got all the tooling for this. This is actually going into production. So if you want one of these, they’ll build you one.

It’s a really cool-looking boat and the idea is that, rather than the usual sort of flash-looking wake boats, this is designed to look a lot more classic, a lot more subtle, kind of to riff off, the Duchy style like we’ve got here, but in a day boat.

Credits: Nick Burnham

EXTERIOR

So we’re gonna step on board and give you the full tour of this one. It starts right back here at the bathing platform because if we look underneath this one, the idea of this is somewhere for your wakeboards or indeed whatever else you want to put on here. So you want to put inflatable paddle boards or whatever else, that is a very useful spot to take them away.

We’ll head on forward. This is nice, you’ve got the sun pads that are just level as you’d expect along here however, you can drop the centre like this and makes it very comfortable to sit in and it means that when the boat’s running and if you’re just lying there watching the guys wakeboarding on the back, that’s a lovely place to sit yourself in and enjoy the ride.

So you’ve got this seating area underneath the hardtop. This chap here is a sink and a little hob. Again, owner specification you can have that if you want or not if you don’t.

And then I think what we’ll do is we’ll head forward. First of all, take a look at the business end so this is triple Helm suits across here. You’ve got the lift bolsters of course like so, and the helm position here, throttles are here, and we’ll talk about engines and things.

This is interesting because you’ve got navigation on this screen but this one is a custom-made operating system for the boat and what we’ve got on here is giving us ballast tanks, so you can put water into these tanks, sink the boat down and create a bigger wash. So when you’re wake surfing, you can adjust that. You can even adjust it on the fly. We can go into this [screen] , then you can go to other gauges for example that are on here, so tank gauges, battery status, all that kind of stuff comes out of there, you can go to lighting for example. So that operates the whole boat. But you can also link from your iPad or your iPhone into that and control all of this stuff from your phone.

There’s a big stereo system so you’ve got speakers here, but also a big subwoofer down here. There’s a fridge here as well and also, in fact, you’ll see there’s a fridge right back there next to that speaker.

INTERIOR

And if you come on down, there’s a sliding door across [entrance] here and then you’ve got this internal area. It’s not really designed for sleeping at all. It’s just a day boat. There is a drop table so you could kind of drop that down I guess and then fill it and make that into a sleeping area if you wanted but that was never the idea for this one. And the owner of this particular boat never wants to sleep on it and in fact, the owner of number two as well apparently is moving from a cruiser having realised that they never sleep on the boat. They wanted something that’s more cockpit orientated, so this is perfect for them.

It’s got some funky lighting underneath here [under cupboards] that is controlled by this little chap here which means that you can select the colours and the intensity and so on. And I have one of those on my own boat Smuggler’s Blues 2, they’re exactly the same and that’s the only similarity though sadly. Still, it’s nice to see.

It’s hatched overhead as you can see. There is a toilet here, again with all those sorts of funky lighting. They’ve made this quite big because it is a wakeboarding boat. If one wanted to come down here after they’ve been in the water and showers off, there’s plenty of space and a shower that pulls out of here like this and then that clips in up here. So that is the cabin.

Not a great deal to show you here, but I’m going to show you this though because these are the controls for your air conditioning and your heating. That’s a very well spec’d boat. And then you’ve got bits of storage about the place. There’s a hanging rail in there for example and so forth. So that is the cabin. It’s full-standing headroom there. As I say, you’ve got to think of this really as just a big speed boat because that’s exactly what the owner wanted and that’s exactly what this is. A big ultimate day boat, speed boat, or wake boat for somebody who wants something that’s a little bit special and this certainly is.

Let’s take a wander around the deck. So we can come around here, you’ve got these carbon-fibre grab handles everywhere. This is all artificial teak here and so is this. So it’s all very low maintenance but it looks kind of classic and stylish. The hard top is here. These carbon fibre rails again, on top. And if we come on up here, a big sunbathing area and then all this lovely sort of cappings and ball walks and so forth. Very similar in many respects.

So the Duchy 35, this is what I was saying right at the beginning, it’s designed to riff off of this style of boat and not be a super flash speed boat but do something that’s a little bit more charming, a little bit more of a gentleman’s launch shall we say.

You’ve got these fairleads through here so your ropes go on these cleats and then out through. The anchor locker is under the front here.

And that’s how she looks from here. Again, you can get the impression of that styling. It’s a lovely looking shape. Nice wide decks to wander around and then if we come back here, you’ve got the Duchy Sport logos you can see just there and on the side here. But yeah that is the ultimate speed boat, isn’t it? It’s fantastic!

Let’s go and look at the engines. They’re under here. We do have to remove the side sections of upholstery on both sides which takes a couple of seconds so I will magic those away using some video editing.

Excellent, let’s magic that back down and there we go, back in place again. That’s amazing, isn’t it?

SUMMARY

Let’s go and wander up to the bow and finish off. There we go, I’m gonna say huge thanks to Dave Cockwell of Cockwells who personally gave me a tour of this one. That was really kind of him. And a huge thanks of course to you guys for watching. Let me know what you think of this one. It’s something a little bit unique and a little bit different and a lot of fun and we’ll catch you on another one of these real soon take care, bye-bye!

The Duchy Sport is just one of the many impressive models in the Duchy Motor Launches range. To see the full list, here’s a complete overview of the Duchy range. If you believe this is the type of boat you’re seeking, please don’t hesitate to give us a call. If you want to know more, check out the launching of the first Duchy Sport and also, check out Aquaholic’s review on the Duchy 35, Duchy 27, and Hardy 42 Hybrid and Hardy 50 – two of the magnificent models in the Hardy Motor Yachts range.

See more details on the Duchy Sport here:

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