By Don Kohlmann

The first Nordhavn 63 in the Pacific Northwest was offloaded in Victoria, B.C. on April 19th, and is currently undergoing commissioning in Seattle. The offload was uneventful, as they tend to be. Once offloaded, we headed for Friday Harbor where we cleared Customs before heading south to Seattle. Once out from behind San Juan Island, we encountered westerly breezes in the 20-25 knot range that whipped up some steep, closely coupled chop at the eastern end of the full fetch of the Straights of Juan de Fuca.

We had no electronics aboard except for a laptop running Rosepoint “Coastal
Navigator”, which worked perfectly. However, we did not have an autopilot, so it meant hand-steering the 80 miles back through Friday Harbor, to Seattle. 20-plus of those miles were through the Straights in that quartering swell. The 63 tracked
beautifully, and was not at all taxing to steer. We also had the first of the John Deere 6090 main engines and the first of the John Deere 4045 wing engine. The 6090 and 5-bladed propeller seem to be well matched for the 63, and the engine ran flawlessly,
of course.

We arrived at Elliott Bay Marina near midnight after a day of running and using a number of the systems in the boat, including the air-con system in the heat mode (it was the Pacific Northwest in April after all), the microwave to heat up some Starbucks instant, the refrigerators, and a variety of lights, all of which worked well. There were are lot of build specifications on this boat, and credit goes to project manager Dave Harlow for tracking and executing them in build process.

The 63 will be in Seattle until approximately late June where it may be viewed by appointment. Contact us to make arrangements to see this or any other Nordhavn.

Don Kohlmann is sales manager of the Northwest Sales office. He can be reached at don.kohlmann@nordhavn.com.