2022 NSEA 740S ready for real-world owners

Granted, it is the world’s only prototype of what will soon become a production boat featuring a luxury car-like suspension system that’s strapped to a pair of free-moving hulls. 

Using technology developed more than a decade ago by Nauti-Craft, the boat on display at this year’s Sanctuary Cove International Boat Show is a one-off trailerable carbon fibre/foam core proof-of-concept model that will soon spawn a larger alloy version.

So, how does it hold a Bathurst record?

“We were going past the track at Bathurst [on the way over from Dunsborough south of Perth] and we just had to drive around it,” NSEA software engineer Paul Rooke says.

“You can’t drive past Bathurst and not do it.”

The 7.4-metre NSEA 740S is very different to anything else out on the water. Its suspension system is on show, so the boat is jacked up to 100 per cent of its 600mm suspension travel to make it look like a tall catamaran with a big air gap built in between the hulls – under normal operating conditions it sits at 40 percent.

At the NSEA 760S’s core is an aluminium beam chassis that’s built into the bottom of the passenger pod, with rigid struts – two at the front and four down the back – running out at right angles to attach the hulls.

Fitted fore and aft on each of the hulls are hydraulic struts that attach to the pod, acting as electronic dampers to smooth out heave and roll even at rest.

Unlike a car, which has its dampers linked from side to side, the NSEA 760S’s dampers are also linked front to rear, so the hulls can even warp independently of each other.

The Australian designed and built NSEA 760S relies on clever software that can continually adjust the height of the dampers by more than half a metre – just like a luxury car reads and adjusts its active suspension to the bumps on a road – to smooth out the ride in the pod above and reduce slamming impacts by a claimed 80 percent.

It’s all very similar to systems developed for luxury car brands including Lexus and Land Rover, offroad icon the Toyota LandCruiser, and was even used by Mitsubishi in its World Rally Championship cars where it proved so effective that it was banned.

Rooke says a party trick is to place a flute of champagne on the NSEA 760S’s console and drive the boat at high speed – all without spilling a drop.

Nauti-Craft talks up other benefits of the independently suspended-hull system, including its ability to help prevent seasickness, as well as excellent grip from the twin hulls while cornering, generating up to around 0.3G of force when tipped in hard.

The boat is well equipped, featuring twin 200hp Yamaha fly-by-wire four-stroke outboard engines attached catamaran-like to the hulls. The engine fit-out includes Yamaha’s Helm Master EX system that gives advanced low-speed maneuverability as well as a host of advanced driving features such as station hold, autopilot and trolling modes that include pre-set driving patterns.

The systems integrate with Garmin electronics featuring dual 16.0-inch touchscreens, and a separate 12.0-inch multifunction display that can also show the settings for the suspension system – you can change settings on the fly to manage different sea states.

Other gear includes a Lone Star GX2 anchor winch with a camera – the anchor is integrated into the bow stem so you can’t see it from the helm – deck wash, the Garmin electronics suite, Fusion audio system, 12V/24V electricals, 105Ah 24V lithium-ion house battery and two gel starter batteries, electric-adjust seats, cork flooring, two bait boxes with one also plumbed as a live bait well, and more.

The hulls are each designed with three planing surfaces, with Rooke saying the NSEA 760S can hole shot “within seconds”. Once there, the 400hp on tap will push to a top speed of 48 knots, the hulls working away independently to keep as much contact with the water as possible.

A recreational version of the boat is yet to be built for a customer, but if you were to order one today – three people are already ahead of you in the queue, and you can get it as either a 760S hardtop or a 760R runabout – the NSEA 760S is likely to be priced somewhere north of $500,000.

NSEA’s version of the Nauti-Craft concept is scalable, with the company also teasing an NSEA 1060, a 10.6-metre alloy boat with 1.1 metres of suspension travel. It is teased as a proper recreational rig, complete with a hardtop that doubles as a flybridge.

Also in planning is a quad-hull system, but more on that later.