World’s Coolest Boats: Glider SS18 – A Powercat on Stilts!

The hulls were also neutral buoyancy, meaning that rather than bouncing over waves like a planing sportsboat, they’d blast straight through them like a torpedo. This also explains why the body of the vessel was mounted a good six feet above the hulls, allowing any waves to pass underneath it. The result was a claimed cruising speed of 40 knots and a magic carpet ride, almost irrespective of conditions.

The concept was the brainchild of superyacht captain Rob McCall, who’d enjoyed a spell skippering a wave-piercing fast cat ferry and, realising how smooth and stable it was, decided to adopt the same principles for a leisure boat.

The initial plan was for an (even more) ambitious 50-metre transatlantic superyacht but budgetary restraints meant that the prototype was scaled down to an 18-metre long dayboat. And it wasn’t just the design that was radical, the drive system was too. Four 300hp supercharged waterjet engines from Yamaha jetskis were installed, two in each hull, along with fuel tanks and water ballast. The cockpit itself featured five Corbeau racing seats and four throttles – one for each of the engines.

A faulty fuel pressure regulator on the day of our test meant that we only managed a top speed of 30 knots, a long way short of the claimed 56-knot maximum. However, cutting through a container ship’s wash at pace did confirm its uncannily smooth ride and wave-piercing ability – although we never got to try it in bigger seas.