Harbours all around our coast will be buzzing with small motorboats on a nice summer’s day.

Many of these boats will be well-known models from big yards that build them by the thousand. Many of them will also look not unlike many of the others.

For the majority of the owners, it’s all about practicality: ease of use, suitability for purpose, purchase and running costs, and so on.

These things matter to anyone who owns a boat. People’s priorities differ, however.

For example, does it matter to you what your boat looks like?

On the basis of what we see out there, appearance doesn’t enter the equation in many cases. For others, it’s the starting point – and why shouldn’t it be?

More often than not for recreational owners, buying a boat is driven by emotion rather than logic, and some people like to feel proud of what they own; to enjoy looking at it, and to savour the experience of being aboard in terms of what you might call ‘sensory satisfaction’.

It’s so much more than simply ticking the ‘practicality’ boxes.

If you just want a 25-30ft (7.6-9m) motorboat for day-use, overnighting or weekending, there are plenty to choose from.

If, on the other hand, you want one that’s built to your own requirements, that looks gorgeous, that’s equally happy inland or on the sea and that’s light enough to hitch up behind a car and trail to different waters – well, then your choice becomes rather more limited.

One of a kind Westons Point 27

The Westons Point 27 is one such boat.

At a glance, you’d put her in the same general category as Cockwells’ Duchy motor launches, the Bristol 27 by Star Yachts, and Swallow Yachts’ Whisper – all elegant, timeless and fuel-efficient craft designed to appeal to those whose desire is not to hurtle around kicking up an uncivilised wash in a thirsty, slab-sided plastic motorboat.

People who buy boats like the Duchies, Bristols and Whispers will often have come from the world of sail, as will those who are drawn to the Hardys (now also built by Cockwells), Nelsons and Seawards.

As an ex-sailor in a motorboat, you want to be able to hold your head up high after moving across to ‘the dark side’.

That’s not to say that elegance, restraint and civility in motorboats have to be the exclusive preserve of the sailor – current or past.

The owners of the first Westons Point 27 have some sailing experience between them, but are not in the category of lifelong sailors for whom the time has come to put away the winch handles and hang up the sail ties.

Searching for a boat to use with their family in and around Poole Harbour, they were introduced by a friend to Tim Frearson and Paul Kendall of Traditional Shipwright Services.

They had initially been looking at a boat from a different part of the country. Then, seeing the plans of one that appealed to them and that was built barely 50 yards from where they’d be keeping her in Parkstone Bay, on the north-east side of Poole Harbour, they put their faith in Tim and Paul to turn the drawings into something special.

The drawings showed a boat that looked unlike those modelled on 1930s-style motor launches, such as the Bristol 27 and earlier alternatives of broadly similar ilk such as Hedley Bewes’s Badnam Launch, designed by the late David Thomas.

The Westons Point 27 was designed by Jack Gifford in close collaboration with Traditional Shipwright Services, which specialises in the repair, maintenance and refurbishment of classic yachts, keelboats and motor launches.

It has built plenty of boats from scratch, too. This time, however, it would be entirely under their own banner, from conception to completion and beyond.

Having worked with Jack on a number of major refurbishments, Tim and Paul put their ideas to him, and the Westons Point 27 was born.

They wanted something based on the style of the Maine lobster boats, which typically have a rounded, slightly raked stem and a graceful sheer.

She was to be built in (western red) cedar strip, because wood is what the yard specialises in, it looks nicer than GRP (especially down below), and it gives a strength-to-weight ratio that’s hard to match except with very expensive, high-tech composites that don’t share wood’s appeal.

As we all know, wood treated with modern epoxy resins is extremely durable and, in practice, no harder to maintain than GRP.

If you’re into carbon footprints and so on, you’ll also be drawn to the idea of wooden construction.

Power to weight

The less a boat weighs, the less power is needed to drive it and, all things being equal, the less wash it will produce.

At around 2 tonnes including the engines, the Westons Point is light for a 27-footer.

Adding to her user-friendliness is the use of twin outboards rather than an inboard engine.

As Jack Gifford explains: “We all felt that outboards offered many advantages over the complexities of an inboard; servicing and cleanliness to name just two, so we intended to use outboards from the outset.”

Enclosed outboards have become increasingly popular in recent years and are now widely found on boats up to 40ft (12m).

Everyone involved in the Westons Point 27 wanted the outboards to be hidden, but without a raised cover to give the game away.

Various engines entered the running before twin 50hp Yamahas were eventually chosen.

As we found on our test run, they will produce speeds of up to 21 knots. That’s more than fast enough for the boat’s intended use.

“The brief was a real treat,” Jack told me, “a boat suited to the harbour, which made best use of the installed horsepower but without trying to overreach on performance. Truth be told, boating at 20+ knots isn’t always that much fun and we wanted to design this boat around a comfortable day out in the harbour and surrounding area, with the ability to get a move on when it was time to go home.”

In a recreational context, few planing motorboats under 30ft (9m) or so would be able to exceed 20 knots continually once the sea kicks up.

Even if they could, the crew might not be happy about it. So, now that we know how the Westons Point 27 was born and a little about her, what’s she actually like?

For a start, she really is a stunner to look at. Her lines are elegant and the varnished timber trim – mostly in light oak – contrasts with the pale blue of the hull to set them off a treat.

Tim and Paul explained that they spent many hours refining the lines of the wrap-around windscreen, mocking it up and looking at it over several days as they walked past the boat in the yard.

The curved side sections on top are in laminated oak, while the straight sections are solid. You’d be hard pressed to tell the difference.

The strips of 20mm tongue-and-groove cedar used for the hull were graded to put the most appealing sections on show inside the cabin.

On a boat like this, you neither want nor need interior linings or finishes of any sort hiding the structure.

All too often, their only purpose is to speed up production or create a smooth interior; they add weight and complexity while making little or no structural contribution.

It’s a far better use of materials when the joinery is part of the structure. That’s honest boatbuilding.

In this case, it looks lovely too. Vertical joints in the cedar are hidden behind the ring frames that run into substantial knees beneath the deckhead and are made from 2.5mm strips of laminated Khaya mahogany.

Glued and screwed to the frames and bulkheads, the cedar is sheathed with glass and epoxy inside and also externally, where it’s filled and faired before being painted with two-pack International Perfection Pro.

Oak trim is epoxied and then finished with Epifanes varnish.

In terms of hull shape, the Westons Point has a moderately veed entry that runs into flatter sections aft, as you would expect of a planing boat.

A soft chine starts just abaft the bow and becomes harder towards the stern.

Keeping level

Perhaps the most noticeable aspect of the boat’s handling is the absence of any hump during the transition from displacement to planing mode.

Neither did she show any tendency to weave from side to side at low speeds, as planing hulls often do.

This might be because of the iroko keel, which runs from about mid-length to just forward of the outboards and is 16in (40cm) deep at its aft end.

At up to 8 knots, she was fully in displacement mode. Nudging the revs up to 3,000 took her to 9 knots, when the bow lifted marginally and she was thinking about breaking away from the transom turbulence.

By the time we reached 3,700rpm, she was semi-planing at 11 knots while drinking a modest 15lt per hour.

A comfortable cruising speed would be 15 knots (4,200rpm), at which speed she uses 20lt per hour.

With a 55lt fuel tank under the aft end of the cockpit seating each side, this would give a range of around 80 miles, or double that if you cruise at 7 knots. Larger tanks can be fitted if you like, and deck fillers make for easy refuelling.

Should you have a rush of blood to the head and open the throttles all the way, she will reach 21 knots (probably more without the weight of three men aboard).

Fuel consumption increases sharply at the top end, from 25lt per hour at 17 knots to 37lt at 21 knots, so you’d probably choose to stick in the mid-teens unless in a serious hurry.

Perhaps more important than the difference in performance between inboards and outboards for any given horsepower is the noise level.

You can still carry on a conversation at normal volume between the helm station and anywhere in the cockpit.

With a centrally-mounted inboard, it’s highly unlikely that would be possible.

Having the outboards in an enclosed well keeps them out of the way and minimises the noise while bringing the weight forward of the transom.

That’s the principal reason for the absence of a hump.

Throwing the boat around in the relatively flat water of Poole Bay revealed no surprises, though she showed little tendency to bank into the turns and remained remarkably level.

As Jack Gifford says: “She was never intended as a rough weather boat, but she is designed to achieve RCD Category C.”

Boy-racer trials over, we headed back into the harbour at a more sedate pace, and I took the opportunity to study the cockpit in more detail.

The backrests of the helm and co-pilot seats have a central pivot so you can sit facing forward or aft with no need to rotate the seats.

Having to rotate them would mean mounting them further inboard, narrowing the access to the cabin. It’s a neat solution.

All the seats in the U-shaped cockpit are 5ft 7in (1.7m) long (including across the aft end).

Together they’d provide comfortable seating for six people around the large table, which stows away along the hullside outboard of the co-pilot’s seat.

It can also be lowered to create a large lounging area with an infill cushion. The fronts of the lockers beneath the seats are angled (from inboard to outboard) rather than vertical.

Apart from looking nicer, this feature creates a wider cockpit sole and means you don’t kick the locker fronts with your heels when seated.

Naturally, you can have a full cockpit tent that joins on to the sprayhood, or roll up the sides and aft end to leave a canopy.

It’s a spacious and comfortable cockpit.

Our test boat was built with a well at the forward end of the cockpit sole to create headroom below the originally intended hard top.

The owners subsequently decided against the hard top, so the well can either remain or be filled in with a grating.

A sump with a bilge pump is under the well. The rest of the cockpit is self-draining.

Two more bilge pumps are under the cabin sole and a further two right aft, one on either side of the keel, because the iroko extends upwards into the hull and effectively creates two separate compartments. Few 27-footers have five bilge pumps.

Weston Point 27: Looking the part

Choosing the right fittings and equipment is crucial on a boat like this.

The portholes, for example, took some finding, as Paul explained. “The boat was drawn with round ones, but we couldn’t find any of the right size that looked modern enough. Lots of the round ones look as though they should be on a 1930s Harrison Butler.”

Tim added: “We didn’t want it to look too ‘Captain Pugwash’ either. And the quality of some of the more modern ones just isn’t there.”

As with other important elements of the design, they made patterns and put them on the boat to make sure they looked right before committing themselves.

A further consideration is that the portholes needed to be in stainless steel to match the anchor and windlass.

To look through the ports from inside, you drop down into a cabin that invites you to take your time admiring the woodwork, soaking in the ambience and simply enjoying being there.

Much of the space is occupied by a generously proportioned V-berth, beneath which are the fresh-water and black-water tanks and the calorifier tank (run from 240V).

Abaft the berth to port is the galley, with two burners and stowage for weekend provisions.

Opposite this is a seat (with 36in/91cm headroom beneath the deckhead). It lifts to reveal the plumbed-in toilet with its macerator pump.

Two house batteries are under the cabin step, or can be moved forward to balance the trim according to the weight of the engines.

Verdict on the Westons Point 27

This isn’t a boat that you buy if you want maximum length or volume for your money.

She’s a boat for the sort of person who might buy a Morgan rather than just a car to get from A to B.

She’s an expensive 27-footer because she takes a long time to build – and you can see why.

You buy her because you want something that’s practical, beautiful and a pleasure to spend time aboard.