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Boat Test: Jeanneau Cap Camarat 9.0 WA and Jeanneau Cap Camarat 9 CC
The French yard’s latest offerings are both remarkably fast, capable craft. But which of the two is the better bet for your style of boating?
There’s a delicious guilty pleasure in jumping a boat so far out of the water that you get the props clear; that telltale fraction of a second as the engine revs suddenly flair, causing your adrenalin gland to do the same. It’s the same frisson of excitement, that same sense of lawlessness, that you get from briefly slipping the back end of a powerful rear-wheel drive car out of line on an empty wet roundabout – just for a moment, you’re Tom Cruise buzzing the tower in Top Gun.
But just like the car, it only really works if the boat is well balanced, if it feels born to do it – there’s little pleasure to be had opposite locking a camper van! The mere fact that we’re trying so hard to get the props out of the water on our sea trial of Jeanneau’s new Cap Camarat 9.0 models speaks volumes – it wasn’t always like this with the French builder.
A decade or so ago, if you’d visited Jeanneau’s boat show stand in search of a sporty 9m sportscruiser, you’d have been politely directed to the group’s Leader line, either the Leader 8 or its earlier incarnation, the 805. Great boats, capable, comfortable and spacious, they made excellent family cruisers, but no one ever attempted to get their props out, and with typically a single Volvo Penta diesel, they’d have been disappointed if they’d tried.
Today the market has changed, and so has the hardware. Twin outboards, each as powerful as its predecessor’s single diesel yet weighing less in total, offer performance that’s simply in a different league. Available in two distinctly separate model lines, one is an open walkaround boat, the other more of a large cuddy cabin, but confusingly it’s the cabin version that’s called the WA and the walkaround boat that’s called the CC (it actually stands for Centre Console, apparently).
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Only the heads is anything more than the bare minimum, it’s actually quite generously proportioned. The specification level backs this up. You’ll be wanting to add the Comfort Pack if you require hot water, the single gas hob (positioned in the cockpit) or 240V shore support.
If you’re really not bothered about what’s inside, then maybe you should check out that 9.0 CC . The aft section of cockpit is identical and the helm area is broadly similar, but rather than steps up to the flat foredeck, you stroll past the centre console at deck level to a bow area with a long, wide bench in the centre, backrest against the console. A further seat that curves around the inside of the bulwarks makes this a terrific social space – suddenly the whole boat is cockpit.
But enough of the layouts, we’re here for the drive. You can opt for a single 350hp outboard, but the twin Yamaha 4.2-litre V6 250hp outboards hanging off the transom of both test boats (one a WA, the other a CC) will do the Michaël Peters-designed hull far more justice.
Even flat out, whilst you and your crew will be glad of handholds like the stainless-steel rail that loops around the curved screen, you won’t feel the need to have a chiropractor on speed dial. Low-geared steering (it’s hydraulic, but not power assisted) means that hard fast turns are not wrist-flick quick but once you’ve wound it in, it grips every bit as tenaciously as it avoids cavitation.
Having fully explored the handling and taken the performance figures, there’s only one thing left to do. The gently rolling swell of a sunny Cannes afternoon provides all the temptation of an empty wet roundabout, and it’s time to buzz the tower. Pointing the nose out to sea, directly into the swell, we build speed gradually but relentlessly, the gaps between take off and landing steadily increasing but remaining utterly confidence inspiring as the hull soaks up our tomfoolery without complaint. Finally, with the needle touching 45 knots, we crest a big one. The Cap Camarat 9.0 CC leaps skyward and holds its trajectory just long enough to elicit the brief telltale tortured howl from the twin Yamahas, followed by a soft ‘whoomf’ from the hull as it transforms our landing into sheets of white spray that jet out low and fast. All four crew cheer – this is no camper van. 
For more information contact Jeanneau .
At a glance…
Build: GRP RCD: B6/C10 LOA: 29ft 11in 9.12m Beam: 9ft 9in 2.98m Engines: Twin Yamaha F250 250hp outboard Fuel: 400 litres (88 gallons) Water: 100 litres (44 gallons) Price: from £97,227 incl. VAT Price as tested £139,930 inc VAT
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