It was time to come in out of the sun, so to speak,��� said Jim Fuller, owner of the Nordhavn 43 Summer Skis.���We put in our time in the rain and cold and foul-weather gear.���

Marge and Jim Fuller aboard their Nordhavn 43 Summer Skis. A similar 43 (above) cruises along at 8.5 knots.

His message is clear. After having sailed for much of his life, Fuller, 65, wanted more from his boat. So did his wife, Marge, who is nine years his junior. Even more important than getting out of the weather, though, is their desire to travel rivers and canals, which aren���t particularly friendly toward a sailboat���s draft and towering mast���the Erie Barge Canal in New York and the Rideau Canal in Ontario, Canada, among them.

I see the question forming on your lips: Why spend a small fortune on an oceangoing long-range cruiser if you rarely, if ever, go to sea? The complete answer to such a loaded question requires more space than we have here, but Jim Fuller has a short version. ���If you want to have a boat that���s very, very comfortable and built to take more than any owner could take,��� he said, ���this is it.���

If the Fuller���s choice still doesn���t make sense to you, cast off your prejudices for a moment and let your dreams guide you, as many owners of long-range cruisers have. In the Nordhavn 43, the Fullers have a small ship, a model that grew out of the company���s circumnavigation aboard the N40 and addresses the smaller boat���s shortcomings as a world cruiser. Among these Fuller lists the small pilothouse and lack of comfortable seating therein, the single head and the lack of a proper sleeping cabin. What Jim means by a proper sleeping cabin is one that���s located over the boat���s center of buoyancy, where the motion in a seaway is at its minimum. On the 43, that���s amidships. The master aboard the 40 is in the bow.

More than anything, though, the 43 keeps alive the dream of a vagabond���s life at sea. When I visited the Fullers late in April, Jim was completing his preparations to fulfill a chunk of that dream. On May 16, he would cast off for a cruise from his home in Vero Beach, Florida, to Bermuda (840 nautical miles, five days), and after a two-week stay on the island, a 640-mile passage (three days) to Newport, Rhode Island���without refueling, mind you. Fuller has confidence in his crew and has no doubt about the boat���s ability to care for its humans.

Each Nordhavn rides on a true displacement hull.To help you visualize the shape, think of a duck paddling effortlessly along a pond. Add a relatively deep forefoot and fine waterlines at the bow, a long keel from which the prop shaft exists, and a large rudder.You���ve created the basic shape of a Nordhavn below the waterline. The keel gives these boats excellent directional stability, upwind and down, and helps damp the rolling motion common to hulls with rounded bilges. Dynamic roll damping comes from active fin stabilizers.

Nordhavn developed its Modified Full Displacement hull (a registered trademark) using input from a tank-testing program done at B.C. Research in Vancouver, British Columbia. Several refinements came out of this R&D, Maintenance Strakes (also a trademark) among them. These gentle bulges in the hull under the engineroom provide additional headroom, making maintenance easier. They also allow the engine to be mounted lower in the hull, increasing the boat���s stability. Almost of equal importance, the location permits a nearzero angle for the propeller shaft, which helps the prop work at optimum efficiency.

The tank tests also showed that these strakes increased the hull���s efficiency by two percent, realized mostly at higher cruising speeds. Hulls of this shape require very little power to reach their maximum speed, and they will cruise effortlessly a few rpm shy of maximum. The 140-hp Lugger diesel powering Summer Skis is dirt-simple and rated for continuous duty. It turns a 32- inch prop through a reduction gear of 3.97:1. The prop turns slowly enough to keep noise and vibration to a minimum. Top speed is 8.5 knots, and the normal cruising is 8 knots. At an ocean-crossing speed of 7 knots, Nordhavn predicts that the 43 will have a range of 3,360 nautical miles, at a fuel burn of 2.5 gallons per hour. Range will vary with weather conditions. For an extra margin of safety and peace of mind, the Fullers chose the optional wing engine. This 27-hp diesel has its own electrical system, 10-gallon day tank, transmission, shaft and propeller. It will propel the 43 to six knots in calm weather and three to four knots in snotty conditions.

Although Marge decided to stay ashore during Jim���s adventure to Bermuda, she shares his love for the cruising life and contributed a lot to making Summer Skis her boat, as well as Jim���s. She loves to cook, and this enthusiasm shows in the galley. She specified the four-burner stove, which also has a broiler (unusual) and an oven that���s large enough to bake a turkey.The huge and deep custom stainless steel sink that she specified accommodates large pots and pans, and its depth prevents the dishwater from sloshing over the counters when the seas get feisty. Fiddles���we don���t see fiddles on the counters of most cruising boats, the N43 among them. The Fullers have custom Corian counters in the galley, made with taller than average fiddles. Anything that���s on the counters stays there, including the occasional spill.

Marge also deleted the trash compactor and asked for a stowage cabinet in its place. A fivecubic- foot freezer lets her stow meats and dishes that she���s prepared before they leave the dock. ���We���re pretty self-sufficient,��� Marge said. Their watermaker and genset contribute to that self-sufficiency. Although they have to put in occasionally to buy fresh fruit and vegetables, milk, eggs and other perishables, they prefer quiet anchorages to marinas.

A relatively slow cruising boat won���t please everyone, but the Fullers love it. ���Cruisers, you know,��� Jim said, ���we���re basically people who are traveling in this mode of transportation. We���re not destinationoriented�Ķ we���re just sort of trip-oriented.

���If you want to get someplace in a hurry,��� Jim said finally, ���take an airplane.��� Contact: www.nordhavn.com