Hunt Surfhunter 29 First Glance

julyhunt29

You can look at certain boat designs and immediately tell from which part of the country they derive. The Surfhunter 29 fits that bill to a tee. There’s no mistaking it for anything but a Down East New England boat.

C. Raymond Hunt has designed boats for many decades, and its list of clients reads like a who’s who of the yachting world. All that experience counts for a lot when the design firm finally puts its name on its own boats.

Built in limited numbers, the Hunt Surfhunter 29 comes with your choice of straight inboard, sterndrive or jet drive coupled with either gas or diesel power.

The most common power to date consists of a 315-hp Yanmar diesel with the engine mounted amidships for superb center-of-gravity properties. A shallow prop tunnel lessens the shaft angle for improved thrust and fuel efficiency as well as lowers the draft to 3 feet. Preliminary sea trials show that with that power, the Surfhunter 29 cruises at a steady 28 knots and tops out at 32. The sharp entry and a relatively narrow beam-to-length ratio mean that this boat exhibits superb head-sea capability. She lifts onto plane at 12 knots with virtually no bow rise.

With the engine amidships, the cockpit offers more fishing room than most 29-footers. You can remove the optional transom seat to open up the cockpit for serious angling or just move it below so your guests have comfortable seating on the way out to the fishing grounds.

The semienclosed bridge deck provides great shelter underway and houses helm and companion seating as well as a comfy raised, L-shaped settee. Just on the aft side of the bridge deck, another cushioned seat faces aft for monitoring your trolling pattern.

Belowdecks, the Surfhunter’s accommodations consist of a very complete galley, large stand-up head with shower and V-berths forward. Throughout the Surfhunter, you feel an air of tradition, of classic New England austerity, though with an understated elegance of fit and finish that speak of a bygone era. And yet, the construction of each Hunt Yacht couldn’t be more modern.

In case you’re unfamiliar with C. Raymond Hunt, the company designed the original Moppie for Dick Bertram some 40 years ago. It eventually became the most successful sport-fishing boat in history, the Bertram 31. More recently, Hunt has designed production boats for many builders, perhaps most notably Grady-White. With that kind of pedigree, you can bet your last dollar that a boat carrying the designer’s name will be as close to perfect as possible.

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