GOAT: Rodman 1250, Spanish sportsfisher with commercial roots

You always remember the first

I remember the first time I went on one of these, boat show Southampton, must have been the late 90s, at first I thought it was American, such is the design, a proper sportfisher or convertible style of boat, I was very wrong, they are made in Pontevedra, northern Spain.

I went aboard and started to look around, the more I walked around and the more impressed I became. It occurred to me that a lot of the old guard of these style of sportfisher boats should be worried, very worried. The design is simple and purposeful, the wide side decks, high bulwarks, uncluttered spaces, raised anchor platform, all the hallmarks of no nonsense good boat design.

The mooring gear, cleats, handrails all look and feel like they were purloined off of a larger, heavier vessel, this makes perfect sense, Rodman are the de facto supplier of patrol boats to Spanish customs and the Guardia Civil amongst other clients, that commercial boat ruggedness shows through.

Fast forward quite a few years and I have had the opportunity to sea trial a lot of this model, they are incredibly popular where I am, powered by Volvo or Yanmar diesels in straight shaft configuration, and some of the Fisher Pro version of this model had Volvo IPS pod drives, I can tell you, they navigate and handle exactly as you would expect, casting off bad weather with no more effort than it takes to lick a stamp.

One particular event I remember was going on a sea trial with a salesperson on a less than typical southern Spain day, it was raining and windy, this forced me to helm from inside, something I rarely do because a) I live in a mostly warm and sunny climate and b) I don´t like it, but, this was the only day they could come and had already seen the boat out of the water, so off we went. I remember thinking how excellent the visibility was from the large windows and how the simple interior did not give odd reflections, also not much bow rise, as it was a sea trial we have to have a quick blast to prove machinery is all good, I cant recall the exact speed, maybe mid 20s, it was choppy, I do know that no spray came over the bow, just rain driven by wind hitting the screen, no cupboard doors opened, no water leaks, no creaking or complaining, just right.

Such is the nature of boats, if anything is going to happen, it will happen at the most inconvenient of times. Feeling very impressed at how well the sea trial went, I was ready to moor alongside and get back inside to grab a hot coffee, the berth was on a floating dock in a bit of a cramped space as there was a 20 metre yacht moored if front with little space to turn, no problem I thought, twin screws, bow thruster, easy, even if there is a lot of wind, and, so the bow thruster decides it does not want to play, would have to do this the old fashioned way. I wasn't worried, but just mindful of the high bow and forward freeboard that could catch a lot of wind  when beam on to it and potentially push me into that large yacht. I have never tried a boat that I can remember that tracked as straight and true across the wind like this Rodman, it has a keel of sorts that gives it amazing low speed stability, the twin props are quite far apart giving you lots of control, it just went, in astern, beam on to the wind towards the floating dock as though it was the easiest thing in the world.

I want to humble brag a bit and think my many years of practice might have had something to do with it and indeed they probably did, but, I honestly think many other boats would have been a total handful, experience or not, high wind, reduced visibility from inside to see the dock (as I didn't fancy a soaking), no thruster to help (which turned out to be nothing more than a blown fuse) and it all went as easy as it possibly could have. The boat sale was completed the following day.

In the above video you can see the successor to the 1250, called the 1290, its evolution rather than revolution, the same hallmark qualities on its predecessor are clearly visible.

Summary

If you are in need of a European built, 12 metre, fisher style boat that feels like its made of Galician granite, that's practical, good looking in a purposeful way, incredibly safe, that will never date its style, then this is what you buy, period, it very much deserves to be on the GOAT list.

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