Thought I'd send you a couple of pics . Finally the weather God's played nicely. Another milestone achieved, first day offshore :D the sea was almost flat as a tack. Managed to get out to my old #1 fishing spot and located the old trawler wreck in 100 odd meters of water, set up my drift, baited the hook dropped em in and bang on the money first drop, we finished up with 1 Kingfish 9 kg, 1 Amberjack 10 kg, 1 cracker of Pearl perch.
We were smashed and unable to lift 4 other hits off the wreck :roll: we fished less than 40 minutes.
Made the trek back to Mooloolaba at full noise the winds had dropped off again to about 5 knots,
very pleasant afternoon. :D
The Seastrike 18 performed effortlessly once again, I'm still adjusting my new transducers so they
read clearly (this is a challenge-LOL), outriggers go on next week.
It great to see yet another Broadwater 5.1 now launched. This time from Glenn down in Melbourne Vic (Australia)
With his outboard all booked in, during the last few days he was running around wiring in the batteries and battery switch, bilge pumps, nav lights, sounder and sorting out the Hydrive steering system, wiring the cabin and cockpit lights, radios and speakers, washdown and fresh water pumps.
Two days later and with a beautiful day in Melbourne, although he said it was a little cool, Glenn and his wife Kim snuck away early to do a quick on-water test of the engine-prop combo.
With his Mercury 115 Hp 4 stroke bolted on, his top speed is 36 knots (67 kph) at 6000 RPM with a cruising speed of 24 knots (45 kph) at 4000 rpm.
Initial Launch photo's of the Day
Well… it took the surgeons 3 hours to surgically remove the smile from his face.
Kim and I are absolutely stoked !!
His comments about the boat , well he reckons the hole shot is pretty awesome!
Straight up on the plane and no hole in the water ! Kim was holding the camera
in the hole-shot video, just about blew her hat off her head and her out of her seat -
that's the big giggle about a third of the way through the video!
Impressions of the boat so far - very stable, sits nicely in the water. Very easy to drive.
Handles the nasty 1-3 foot chop we get in Port Philip Bay really well,
sat on 18 knots all the way in.
On Friday night in a 20 kt southerly with lots of wind-blown chop of about 2 feet, soft ride and comfortable.
Pops up onto the plane quickly, rides very flat.
Thanks Mark for a great design.
Anyway...back to wiring and sorting out the rod holders and bait board this weekend,
finish painting the sole (deck that you stand on) then I have to make up the windscreen -
have to gear up for snapper season and change the species of blood on the boat!
Thanks to my "First Mate" Kim for all the help and support!!
Kim is just as excited to finally get the boat wet as I am!
Its great to see yet another launching, this time from Conrad who lives in Malta (Europe) and is RipTide XR-457
He writes:
Hi all, I'm back and I'm super happy. I own one of the best boats in the world ! What a boat guys!
She performs like a 21' or better. 15 kts wind and she performed very well against wind and the water.
Just a little throttle and she's on the plane in just a second. 11 kts andshe's on the plane. 5000 RPM doing 28 kts. Very economical boat. She is a small boat with a lion heart.
Great to see another launching this week, this time from Darren in North Qld and his Tropic 14 !!
What a TOP JOB !!
He writes:
G'day Mark,
A few photos of a trip to "xxxx" creek last week in the awesome tropic.
(I can't say where it was..secret)
It’s the first chance I’ve had to actually fish for a solid week with it. We got a shit load of flathead
and a heap of big grunter around the 650mm biggest 680mm .I didnt take any pics till the last day .
Mate, this little boat is an awesome Barra boat. So bloody stable for luring and crabbing... absolutely love it and ... the comments I get from people is amazing
Its great to see the latest launching of yet another Sea Strike 18,
this time from the Visser brothers in the Netherlands.
What a top job !!.
They write:
Yesterday we splashed the ss, what a boat!! :D :D We made 4 hours on the Suzuki really great combination like this. This week we are planning to launch the Sea Strike 18 official, so this week we will do some small stuff like the antifouling, wrap and some red holders.
It’s a really nice boat, even in the bumpy North Sea here a round Vlieland. For now we are still busy with the registration here in the Netherlands. When we know how to do every thing, we will let you know Mark.
Hopefully the coming weekend we will splash it again and make some new nice pictures and movies.
Now we will start saving some money so we can start with the PT26.
I think that also will be perfect over here.
Here's a few photo's of when we were out a few hours ago in a North western wind force 7.
With the NW wind it’s the worst with the waves. When we went out it was a round 2.5 meter or 8ft sea height.
I didn’t have my lifeboat jacket on. Next time I would like to try with even bigger waves and also like to have a try with a breaking wave on the bow, just to see what the SS18 can handle.
(Designers Note.. this is exactly what the Sea Strike series was designed and engineered for... Serious offshore seas)
It was great to see Cameron from North Qld (Australia) launching his new Gulf Explorer 16.
What an awesome job he did building her !
He writes:
Soft launch completed. One up 50 Litres of fuel and no gear she goes 30 knot flat out and on the plane almost instantly. I was impressed given the size of the boat and small 50 hp motor.
Two up same fuel and normal gear running weight and things slow down a bit to about 26-27 knots but reving a bit high for comfortable cruising. Going up a pitch as the motor has way enough torque down low to plane quick. Seriously underrated motor.
Anyway...thanks for the comments guys.
Wrap finalised and going on Thursday week then the boat will be officially splashed!!!
"Such a beautiful afternoon, I couldn't help but go for a run and put a few fish in the boat."
Still playing with props at the moment. Whatever prop I put on though, the motor launches out of the hole.
The motor is still tight, so final performance may slightly improve.
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