NIMBUS C11

The C11 sits at the top Nimbus’s sportsboat tree but can this twin diesel wheel house cruiser justify its hefty price tag?

- Jack Haines

While Axopar and Saxdor are snatching the headlines with their extraordinarily competitively priced outboard-powered sportsboats, Nimbus has been, rather more quietly, building a tidy range of boats all of its own. In fact, its entry-level T8 scooped the gong for Sportsboats & RIBs at this year’s Motor Boat Awards, but what we have here is at the other end of the scale entirely. This here is the Daddy of the Nimbus sportsboat range, complete with fully enclosed wheelhouse and a pair of Volvo’s 4-cylinder 320hp sterndrive diesels for good measure.

It becomes evident immediately that this is no rival to the Axopar 37, even though with outboards they may appear natural competitors. This is a very different boat. It’s more expensive, for a start, quite a bit more thanks to this one’s extensive specification but it feels a far bigger and more substantial craft – mainly because it is. The C11 is a whisker over 40ft in length and nearly three tonnes heavier than the Axopar without either boat’s engines in the equation. This boat’s rivals do hail from Finland but they’re more likely to be a Botnia, Nord Star or Sargo than anything Axopar currently produces.