Kachina 34 Bolero: Performance Report
Kachina 34 Bolero: Custom builder offers outstanding value.
December 7, 2003
It would be difficult to find another 34' offshore boat for the same kind of money. (Photo by Tom Newby)
Every time you hear the price on a Kachina boat—any Kachina boat—you have to wonder how company owner and president Louie Majors does it. The boats are always dressed to the nines, come with unlimited paint schemes and are laden with goodies. For example, the 34 Bolero we tested in San Diego came with a pair of Mercury Racing HP525EFI engines, an AM/FM CD stereo with three amps, a TV with a DVD player and 280S K-Planes. Then Majors explained it to us.
"At the end of the year, what we do is take the amount of boats that we've built and we divide it into how much we've spent on either gelcoat or paint and the airbrush painters and/or gelcoaters or whatever it's taken to build these boats," he said. "So it's generally spread throughout the whole family of boats that we build throughout the whole year and no one person is held totally accountable for his or her paint job."
That doesn't explain the blue motors, the stereo and other goodies, but it helps.
Performance
Equipped with the aforementioned HP525EFI engines, the 34 Bolero also came with 1.5:1 Mercury Bravo One XR drives and stock Bravo One 15 1/4" x 30" propellers rotating inward.
The data sheet filled out by the manufacturer says the boat comes stock with K-Planes—and it did—and external hydraulic steering, but it didn't. As we tested it, the Bolero came with cable steering from the helm to the hydraulic "Brazil" valve inside the transom, which moves the starboard tiller arm attached to the inside of the drive. The port drive was actuated by a WPM saddle-type tiebar between the drives.
So equipped, the 34 Bolero required a bit of strength and skill to drive. That was a shame because the boat handled the power fine and ran through all our slalom and turning drills just dandily. A boat like this deserved full-hydraulic steering from the helm because, well, 80-mph offshore boats really do need it, for safety and performance.
That aside, the Bolero offered up no other surprises. It climbed on plane in 4.8 seconds with its tabs down and reached 75 mph in 20 seconds on its way to a top speed of 81.3 mph.
In the midrange, the Bolero was pretty snappy. It ran from 30 to 50 mph in 4.8 seconds and from 40 to 60 mph in 5.8 seconds.
Workmanship
At the ramp, we inspected the hull, which featured one small step about 10 feet forward of the transom, a modified V-pad keel and a notch about 8" deep and 3' wide. Of the four strakes, only the outer pair continued to the transom.
Gelcoat exhibited good shine over minor waves in the mold work, and the paint job for owners Tom and Karen Auston clearly required many hours of work. Protecting the hull and deck was an anodized extruded aluminum rubrail with a black rubber insert, installed with obvious care.
Up front, Kachina built a custom nav light into the deck. To either side of the bow area, elliptical powder-painted handrails gave front passengers something to hold onto.
Interior
Kachina created a deep bow seating area, with stowage under the benches and cupholders built into gunwale enclosures. In the midcabin, Kachina continued the more-for-less theme with two facing lounges and a mini galley. To starboard, the extra-long lounge featured stowage under the seat cushion and behind the seat back, both of which were roomy and long enough to stow a water ski, if you're so inclined.
To port, the lounge was a bit shorter than the other side, but it still had plenty of stowage under the cushion and seat back. At the rear of the cabin, Kachina fitted the boat with a positive-molded mini galley, which included a sink with stowage underneath, a refrigerator, a Sylvania TV with a DVD player and a Pioneer receiver for the stereo system.
In the cockpit, the 34 Bolero offered up such top-shelf accoutrements as Zero Effort controls and Mercury Racing mechanical indicator panels for the tabs and drives just forward of the throttles. The switches were located so that you could adjust them at full throttle without removing your hand from the levers, but there was one thing we'd change: The switches for the tabs were located beneath the indicators for the drives and vice versa. We'd either move the switches around or get another insert card for the indicator panel so the switches would be beneath the corresponding indicator.
Other than that, the helm featured Borg-Warner gauges smartly arranged so that they were visible in all but the uppermost position of the tilt steering wheel. Accessories were activated via one row of rocker switches above the wheel. There also was a remote for the Pioneer stereo fastened to the gunwale with Velcro, and powder-painted footrest rails bolted to the floor.
Forward bolsters were based on octagonal fiberglass pedestals with stowage underneath. Their backs featured grab rails and cupholders for rear-bench passengers. There also were handy grab rails on the port-side gunwale for the co-pilot and two more above and to the left of the cabin doors, which slid closed from both sides and latched in the middle.
The rear bench lifted up and out on single-pin hinges to reveal standard size stowage underneath. Large subwoofers took up a bit of that space, but Kachina also built stowage compartments into the gunwales and concealed them with smoked acrylic sliding doors.
Overall
It would be difficult to find another 34' offshore boat for the same kind of money. Even if you add the expense of a full-hydraulic steering system to the price tag, the 34 Bolero would still be a bargain. It is a solid 80-mph offshore boat that rings in at just under $150,000.
Hull and Propulsion Information
| Deadrise at transom | 24 degrees |
| Centerline | 34' |
| Beam | 8'2" |
| Hull weight | 7,500 pounds |
| Engines | (2) Mercury Racing HP525EFI |
| Cylinder type | V-8 |
| Cubic-inch displacement/horsepower | 502/500 |
| Lower-unit gear ratio | 1.5:1 |
| Propeller | Mercury Bravo One 15 1/4" x 30" |
Pricing
| Base retail | $99,990 |
| Price as tested | $149,990 |
Test Conditions
| Site | San Diego, Calif. |
| Temperature 73 degrees | |
| Humidity 61 percent | |
| Wind speed 6-8 mph | |
| Sea conditions 1' chop | |
| Elevation Sea level |
Acceleration
| 5 seconds | 31 mph |
| 10 seconds | 53 mph |
| 15 seconds | 65 mph |
| 20 seconds | 75 mph |
Midrange Acceleration
| 30-50 mph | 4.8 seconds |
| 40-60 mph | 5.8 seconds |
| 40-70 mph | 9.6 seconds |
Rpm vs. Mph
| 1000 | 8 mph |
| 1500 | 9 mph |
| 2000 | 23 mph |
| 2500 | 35 mph |
| 3000 | 46 mph |
| 3500 | 57 mph |
| 4000 | 68 mph |
| 4500 | 77 mph |
Top Speed
| Nordskog Performance Products GPS | 81.3 mph at 5000 rpm |
| Radar | 81.3 mph at 5000 rpm |
Planing
| Time to plane | 4.8 seconds |
| Minimum planing speed | 21 mph |
Fuel Economy
| At 25 mph | 1.5 mpg |
| At 35 mph | 1.5 mpg |
| At 45 mph | 1.4 mpg |
| At 55 mph | 1.3 mpg |
| At 65 mph | .1.1 mpg |
| Fuel capacity | 200 gallons |
For More Information
Kachina Power Boats
2200 E. Washington
Phoenix, AZ 85034
888-470-8039
www.kachinaboats.com.
