Here are some words on my 5.3
I allowed myself a year to do my homework on what boat I was going to buy. I priced all sorts of boats from many dealers around the state and in my 4th week of looking I came across the Polycraft range of boats and every time I looked at something else I kept coming back to the Polycraft.
I started looking at a 4.1 but my good lady said I should get something I could pull a skier around with as our teenage daughter would like it. I then started looking at the 4.55 until at Agfest a rural show in Tasmania we had a look at the whole range together for the first time. Whilst standing in the 5.3 Cuddy Cab that was there, she said whilst pointing at the 4.55 “ Why don’t you get a bigger one like this instead of a little one like that”. This led me to finally purchasing a 5.3 Cuddy Cab.
To quote Polycraft their boats are made from “roto-moulded polyethylene construction system to build dual hull boats in one seamless piece. There are many advantages of using polyethylene in the boat construction process – it is not susceptible to electrolysis or osmosis, never requires painting, is easy to clean, UV stable, and requires little or no maintenance. The low density polyethylene used in Polycraft boats is naturally buoyant and has several times the impact resistance of traditional boat building materials such as fibreglass and aluminium.” The cab is then bolted to the hull and then fully poly welded around the outside joint to make it fully water tight.
I purchased my rig from Deegan Marine in Ulverstone in late May 2007 as a deal when the dealership changed hands from Lindsay to Hadley. The boat came with a Bimini over the seats up to the wind screen, Hydraulic Steering, VHF Radio and 115Hp Johnson 2 St (what must nearly be one of the last before BRP went fully with the E Tec.) I wanted the E Tec but as the Johno came as part of the deal I went with it. They are a great beamy boat with room for my family to easily fish from and also with the 115Hp Johnson it has heaps of power to ski with too. I have clocked the boat on running up the Rubicon River against the out flowing tide between Penguin Island and the Jetty at 60Ks (60.2 if you really want to get pedantic.) I have the standard aluminium prop that the motor came with and haven’t even checked what pitch it is. I have been told I may get some more speed with a 4 Blade Solas Stainless Steel Prop but at the cost and the fact I don’t really need the top end speed I doubt if I will even look into it.
I need to get some clears to fill the gap in between the screen and the front of the Bimini. I have found in the last few weeks with all this bad weather and trying to push the envelope a bit to get some fishing in I have been out in quite bad conditions. Whilst pushing back in across the weather I have gotten quite wet with the spray blowing back in the gap. I don’t think this is a problem with the boat as I have been in other boats in simular conditions and had the same problem.
I have found the seats to be miles too low and have roughly bolted some off cuts of 100mm square timber under the drivers seat to raise it up, this seems to be just about right for me and I am planning to make up a draw under the drivers seat to fit my knives and pliers etc in. Under the passengers seat I am thinking of making up a hinged box lined with a cement sheet lining so I can fit my little camp stove under the seat and flip it out of the way to have a brew etc when things are quiet. The seat boxes are great storage and I keep my tackle boxes in them. There is also a step where the steering wheel bolts in that pushes the wheel back a little close when I stand up at the wheel as I tend to. I am thinking of cutting off the smaller ring and bolting a piece of stainless steel plate the hold the wheel.
The Hydraulic steering is great to use and I love it. Compared to cable steering I have used before its just magic. I can set the boat up trolling etc and walk to the back of the boat and adjust my gear and know its not going to go around in circles on me. The Polycraft range of boats have a name for driving as if they are on rails and the 5.3 is no different. The small pontoons or sponsons on the out side edge of the rear of the hull make the boat sit flat in tight turns and can be a bit unsettling until you get used to it, I have found that I can now nearly give it full lock at full throttle if I brace myself first. This is an interesting manoeuvre with some one on the back on a ski biscuit!
The hull is very capable of taking out the rough ride that tinnies are for ever getting in trouble for, on a small wave chop the boat seems to skim over it with ease, on slightly larger waves you some times get a funny plop sound as some air gets caught in under the hull due to the sponsons. This is also noticed when at rest. The poly not only gives the boat a soft ride but another good thing in Tasmania’s cold water the Polyethylene double skin is great at keeping that cold out and it’s a lot warmer on the water than other boats I have used. There are also a couple of large bins moulded into the hull under the floor inside the cuddy that are great for use as catch bins and I have regularly kept fish alive in them until I have returned home and started to clean my catch. I do want to add a wash down hose / live bait pump to this to keep them better. I would have to think that they would easily hold around 200l of water but I have never measured it to be sure. I can fit the porta potty in there for the girls if I need.
The other good thing with the poly is that nothing likes to stick to it so it’s easy to keep clean and blood, guts and scales just wash off with a high pressure hose. I also find that a lot of the time I only clean the motor and brakes on the trailer and leave the rest of the boat as it won’t rust either. This some times catches me out as when I brush past the boat in the shed I get a coating of salt on me. The poly is also easy the work with and I have fitted several rod holders, a bait board and a ski pole. It so far has just been a process of deciding where to drill the hole and screw the item in with some All Clear silicon around it to seal things. It is supposed to be easy to repair by just poly welding any thing back up but so far I haven’t had to. The fact the colour goes right through is also a magic thing. I had to catch a run away yacht before it ran aground and in using my boat to bunt it around into a position so I could push it away from shore before I could tie onto it I scrapped the side of the cab with the yachts bow sprit. I have a nice gouge in the cab but unless you look for it you cant see it as every thing is white.
The boat came on a RM Trailer as specified by Polycraft. The trailer is a full bed skid style trailer that supports the boat when not being used as the poly may warp if it’s not held in its correct shape and rollers would make big dimples in the poly. The trailer has two full length skids that go up each side of the keel and a big “V” that aligns the boat as you drive it in. There are two supports that sit inside of the rear sponsons. The RM drive on trailer is blessings as my usual deck hands (wife and daughter) can’t drive the boat and are not strong enough to man handle such a big boat onto the trailer. I just line her up and drive right on, walk up to the bow and clip the safety chain on, easy as. The other boat owners at the ramp have a good look as I drive away whilst they are still winding their rig in. I have winched the boat onto the trailer the once as I was on a beach ramp and didn’t want to drive the car into the water to get the trailer deep enough to drive on. It took a bit of effort as the boat had to be wound up onto the trailer lifting it completely out of the water. Again once the boat started to line up in the “V” there was no way it wasn’t going to go any where but onto the trailer even with the cross wind that day. The boat and trailer weigh in at around 1600Kg so it’s no light weight but it was simple enough to winch right on but nothing you want to do every day.
I have had four problems with the trailer, the first one is that when I picked the boat up there was too much weight on the ball and I had to move the axel forward until I had around the recommended 10% of the total weight of the BMT on the ball. The second is the LED brake light that came factory fitted are really just old style bulb lights with LEDs in behind the old style lenses, they filled up with water and they died. I have since fitted some better sealed LEDs and have had no problems since. The third is the aluminium rivets that hold the blue nylon strips on broke as they are a bit short, I replaced these with longer stainless steel rivets. The main problem that many other cable type disk brakes may have is that you can’t remove the hub to check the bearings, until you have loosened the bolts that hold the axel to the springs so you can get to the bolts to remove the brakes, to then remove the hubs.
So far I have only had one problem with the boat and that was with the fuel system the breather lines which were not installed correctly. They had a belly in them so the fuel would lie in the breather and cause a blockage in the line so when you tried to fill the boat you had to pour the fuel in real slowly so it didn’t vomit back all over you. This was a real problem as it would take ages and ages to get fuel in. My local servo station owner used to laugh and say all boats that came in had that problem. I pulled up the hatch in the transom and took a photo with the flash on the camera and came into the house and looked at the picture and then went back out and played with the lines, took another photo etc until I had the breather pipes running up all the way from the tank and hey presto I can now fill the 130l tank in the boat quicker than I can fill my car!!!
So after around eight months of use I am rapt with my purchase. The boat seems to do every thing I want with ease. It’s a good looking rig that is nice and easy for me and my family to handle. I get a few looks at ramps when I just let it rest along the pontoon sides with no fenders etc as the poly is tough as and even more when in a couple of seconds from getting the trailer into the water the boat is up on the trailer and I am driving away. I don’t seem to get a great deal of attention that other Polycraft owners get with their coloured boats at the ramp as I don’t think a lot of people realise what the bigger all white boats are made of. I have put a few marks and scratches in it but most are not seen.
Would I buy another one? Yes I would