Belzona 40cc
During the Miami International Boat Show earlier this year, I got together with Jesse Porben, Belzona Marine’s VP of corporate development, for a tour of the company’s new 40cc. Of course, I immediately zeroed in on the boat’s two most standout features, things that distinguish not just the 40cc but the entire Belzona fleet. First up was the patented “Easy Open” sliding gunwale door on the starboard side. Swoosh it aft and you’ve got a 40-inch-wide walkway with a sill that’s floating-dock flush.
Certainly, such a thing is cool for boaters in wheelchairs, but it’s also great for divers and snorkelers easing over the side, as well as a cockpit crew hauling in a big fish or for a couple of folks who simply want to sit in the sun and dangle their feet in the water. Are there other center consoles on the market with hullside doors that swing out or in? Yeah, but to my knowledge there’s nothing out there that offers the convenient out-of-the-wayness that a smoothly functioning, fully mechanical sideways slider does.
The second standout? Examine the windshield shown in the photos. You’ll notice that, as with numerous military and commercial vessels, it’s canted forward, not raked aft, the point being to cut glare, remove rain and spray via gravity, and, I suppose, rev up the profile a bit. Moreover, the entire thing is encompassed within a beefy fiberglass receiver that helps support the hardtop, so there are no intermediate mullions to obstruct visibility.
“We use a 10-foot sheet of acrylic to make this windshield,” Porben told me, “and we coat it for scratch-resistance.”
I found the layout of the 40cc to be conventional, although replete with standards that might be considered optional on some competing models. The helm sported a Garmin electronics package (with two big MFDs and a VHF), a Mercury joystick and a nifty VesselView engine info display. The cabin (with V-berth, retractable table, MSD and separate stall shower) was outfitted with a 16,000-BTU Webasto air-conditioning unit, electrified via a 7.5-kW Kohler genset. In the cockpit, a SureShade overhung a raft of fish-fighting essentials (including a huge fishbox) as well as an outdoor galley. And at the bow, I checked out both the cabintop lounger and the forward-facing bench. Comfy!
At tour’s end, my vague initial impressions had solidified. The Belzona is a true multitasker, with a repertoire that includes fishing, overnighting and plain ol’ fun-in-the-sun weekending on the hook. She also displays a high level of finish, solid detailing (with hardware through-bolted into laminated backing plates and SeaDek-layered decks) and a straightforward hullform, with little more to distinguish it than a 22-degree transom deadrise.
“With this boat, the bottom line was creating something that both satisfies and lasts,” Proben synopsized. “Our customer is the person who’s into keeping a boat for long-term enjoyment.”
Given the 40cc’s highly finished panache, her many-sided personality and her sporty reported top speed of 46.1 knots, I’d say Porben’s last point was spot on. If there’s a boat on the market these days that’s an obvious keeper, it’s gotta be this Belzona center console.