STABI-CRAFT

If Stabi-Craft boats were books, they'd be a perfect example of why not to judge them by their cover. After testing quite a few of them now, I no longer see Stabi-Crafts as ugly ducklings but swans.

A soft, dry ride is a Stabi-Craft feature everyone can appreciate.

While testing the 559 Fisher seen here, it occurred to me that looks went unnoticed as I enjoyed its fine handling characteristics and simple, no nonsense, yet totally functional, construction. Stabi-Craft are all too easy to underestimate — to a point where an accurate evaluation of these unusual boats from the Land of the Long White Cloud requires a look beyond looks to appreciate their performance.

History has a way of putting things in perspective (maybe that's why they bored us with it at school) and it's worth revisiting Stabi-Craft because it speaks volumes about how they came to be what they are today.

In 1986, a group of fishermen working New Zealand’s infamous Foveaux Straits between Stewart Island and the South Island approached (a then fledgling) Stabi-Craft boat building company with their need for small, rugged and virtually unsinkable boats. In a nutshell, they needed to fish the awful conditions existing day to day in complete confidence their boats would get them home at the end of it.

With optional clears and bimini top, the 559 Stabi-Craft offered complete shelter from the bad weather that plagues too many fishing trips.

So began the evolution of boats which today continue to set standards in rough water safety and performance. To us who look at a boat primarily as a fishing platform though, there was still something missing - the kind of seat of the pants engineering excellence we (these days quite spoiled) Aussies expect of our fishing boats! Yup, a good fishing boat along with everything else it has to do; has to be good to fish out of.

Over the last few years Stabi-Craft interiors have undergone a process of refinement. Boats like the acclaimed ‘Frontier’ models were developed for an astute and already well served market in northern Australia, and then there are the ‘Fisher’ models — the 559 version of which I spent a very pleasant morning on Moreton Bay with.

Talk about being spoiled. In a part of the world where 18 foot offshore/big bay fishing cuddy cabs have been developed to fine art, you really have to be something special to stand out. In a part of the world where our day-to-day conditions include an unenviable collection of some of the worst river bars on the planet, and access to several of our best offshore fishing grounds involves full on beach launching, Stabi-Craft's refined Generation II hulls are certainly that.

The 559 Fisher's cuddy has a big hatch accessing an enormous anchor well in the bows.

At the Sanctuary Cove Boat Show this year they had a Stabi-Craft in a tankful of water. Yes, both the tank and the boat inside it were full of water — to show how they not only float upright, but keep the outboard's power head out of the water so it may continue to function.

Off the beach or over any bar crossing, this level of safety simply has to be considered — and it's hardly going too far to say that it'd be foolish not to! This is especially the case when the boat is so well set out to fish from, has excellent weather protection (albeit once a set of optional clears are added) — and rides better than an aluminium hull has any right to. Atop everything else, it remains a pleasant enough boat just to go boating in. That it looks a bit different somehow becomes a lesser consideration.

The 559 Fisher's cuddy has a big hatch accessing an enormous anchor well in the bows.