BLOG: New boat shakedown

After months of waiting, pages of hand drawn sketches, countless hours of thought and a much lighter wallet, the wait is finally over - I recently took delivery of a shiny new boat! 

By paying essentially full price for the rig I am granted the freedom to do as I please with the hull and comment objectively on all aspects of the rig. Having sourced the hull, motor and trailer independently, the first course of action was to insure the vessel and obtain necessary registrations.

I took the rig down to Dunbier HQ in Sydney to finalise the trailer rego and fill out the necessary paperwork. To their credit, Steve and his crew would not let me leave without insisting on realigning the hull, adjusting the brakes, shifting the axle to reduce weight on the coupling and giving the rig a thorough once over to ensure it would provide years of hassle free operation. Good service like that never goes out of fashion.

After getting the boat home I stuck the rego stickers on the hull, fastened the scuppers, threw some safety gear on board and called Mick Fletoridis up to join me on the maiden voyage. On arriving at the ramp the trailer was back down then the engine kicked over and put in gear to take some weight off the winch. Mick unhitched the boat and it glided off the trailer - the little weapon floats!

The break in routine stipulated a constrained rev range for the first few hours so Mick and I took off searching for a few fish while running across every ferry wake in the Harbour to "test" the hull. In reality I need to spend a few days in varying sea conditions for a true test but the deep vee definitely cut through the chop and the wide chines did keep Mick modestly dry while I did my utmost to get him wet.

As with all boats there were a few teething problems - that's no real excuse as I didn't pay for a new boat to be met with problems however the reality is that I'm a perfectionist when it comes to my boats and will never be happy as the pursuit of perfection is futile - look hard enough and you will likely find a flaw in practically every new boat deployed locally. I need to optimise the prop setup because the hull cavitates and may not be attaining the required WOT rpm, I also need to bolt on an electric motor, attach radios, fit a sounder and GPS along with a couple of "smart gauges" to interface with the Suzuki.

This will all occur over the next few weeks. In the meantime I can't wait to get out there and chase the usual suspects in and around Sydney. As the boat develops and unfolds over summer I will have my pencil sharpened and diary ready to note progress on the new boat shakedown along with capturing details on with how the overall package is performing. Stay tuned for more!