Boat Review for PowerPlay 56 “Merengue” (Dated Jul 2004)

Story and pictures by Bruce Hodgens

This was an offer too good to refuse. James Dewing, designer and builder of the PowerPlay range of Power Cats in Townsville, Australia, asked us if we would like to join him for a long weekend aboard his latest 56 foot (17 metre) power cat for a shake down cruise. It didn’t take me too long to come up with an answer, let me tell you. This latest cat “Merengue” was launched 2 weeks ago for an American client who was planning on basing it in the Caribbean. The contract stated the motors had to have at least 60 hours on the clock and done an extended passage to ensure all the “bugs” were ironed out.

James planned a trip to the Palm Group of islands to the north of Townsville on Friday afternoon, then a run out to the reef for a day trip on either Saturday or Sunday, and after a bit more cruising around the Palms, a return home on Monday. The forecast was looking fantastic for most of the weekend, but a strong southeaster was due Monday. We arranged to meet at 3.30pm on Friday at the Breakwater Marina.

Finally Friday arrived. We had stocked the boat Thursday night, and it was all fuelled up ready to go. When we arrived at the marina James was already there with his wife and 3 children.

Barb and I loaded our gear and we were throwing the ropes off by 3.45pm. The plan was to get to an anchorage in North East Bay on Great Palm Island. We had only been there once because it is often too exposed, but with a perfect light sea breeze it would be fine. The cat was tied up to the fuel dock, so it was really easy to back it off and spin it around with one motor in reverse and the other in forward, and then off.

Once we got into open water, James and I started playing with all the toys (GPS, chart plotter, radar, auto pilot and all the other usual instruments). We soon had the course plotted out on the chart plotter. It was a total of 35 nautical miles, and since we were running in new motors we figured a nice easy 2 hour passage. With the twin Yanmar 370 HP ponies down below it would nearly be possible to do that run in an hour when they were run in. The trip down was smooth. The kids were watching a DVD in the saloon, the women were chatting, I was keeping an eye on the autopilot and our course, and James was fussing around the engine rooms, genset and water maker to see if all was well.

» LWL: 58 ft (17 m)
» BWL: 25 feet (7.5 m)
» Draft: 3ft 3” (1 metre)
» Displacement: 35,840 lbs (16,000 kgs)
» Motors: 2 x 370 HP Yanmars
» Fuel: 3,000 litres
» Water: 800 litres
» Speed: 2100 RPM / 18 knots
» Max speed: 3200 RPM / 28.5 knots
» Range: RPM dependant 20,000 KG / 441,000 lbs