Stephen dusts off the boating challenge
by John Daffy 20 Mar 2018 22:33 PDT
Stephen Roberts was rapt to be welcomed aboard by AMM's Matthew Thomas, for the first sea trials on Stephen's Sea Class 4900 centre console © John Daffy
Escaping the dust and flies of the Pilbara region of Western Australia, to the waters and fish of the Whitsundays brought with it a major challenge for plumber and gas fitter, Stephen Roberts.
Having worked in the tough mining environment of Mount Newman where equipment has to be high quality or it will fail, Stephen wanted to find a boat that could handle everything from the abrasiveness of crushed coral beaches, to thick mud hiding rocks in very tidal creeks, from ripping tides and currents running against freshening breezes, to the thrashing and gnashing of heavyweight pelagics.
Something that could take a pounding, not flinch when the going gets rugged and above all, be first class in terms of safety.
His choice - a personally tailored, plate alloy Sea Class 4900 centre console from Australian Master Marine.
Armed with the real world experience of having owned five previous boats from various manufacturers, Stephen had a very clear idea of what he wanted.
And the accolades heaped on the AMM brand by another Airlie Beach resident living about 100 metres further along the road from his house, sealed the need to ramp the decision-making processes up another couple of notches.
"I had read a few reviews about AMM boats and I had seen one up the road so I thought I would pop into the neighbour's house and introduce myself. My neighbour was pretty impressed with his," Stephen said.
"I had a pretty firm idea of what I wanted which was a good start and then Matt and Bart (the Thomas brothers of AMM), were absolutely great to deal with."
"They kept in contact and sent through photos showing the progress of the build."
"Electronics and a one kilowatt transducer blew out the budget a bit, but it is good gear, Stephen said."
The electronics are a Raymarine Axiom 9 Pro with a I kW transducer as well as 3D side and down scans.
Stephen's Sea Class is fitted with an 800mm centre console to provide a centre steering position and some protection from the elements without taking up too much room; a large work and bait table; built-in berley bucket and muncher; dual batteries; hydraulic steering; live bait tank and deck-wash; a folding centre console seat with a hinged storage box below; plumbed kill tank and a folding, movable front seat.
His AMM Sea Class has extra sockets so the front seat can be relocated around the front of the boat on the casting platform.
There's a massive storage area under the front casting platform of the rig which sits on an AMM-built Off Road aluminium boat trailer equipped with massive 265/75/16 off road tyres.
Powering the rig is a Yamaha 115 XB.
But Stephen is keeping at least one link with the Pilbara - he named his Airlie Beach plumbing business Whaleback after the name of a mountain near Mount Newman in the iron ore belt of Western Australia."
"I liked the name," said Stephen.
One of the final reasons for deciding to go with AMM was the ability to tailor features to his exact liking.
Accordingly, he was able to order a centre console without a screen or T-top, specify a hinged transom door, a custom dive ladder, self-latching trailer hitch, and an extended one-piece drawbar on the trailer among other design features and equipment incorporated into the final design.
AMM's Sea Class range delivers plate alloy hulls running from 4.9 metres to 5.7 metres in tiller steer, centre console, runabout, bow rider, cuddy and centre cab configurations.
They supplement AMM's range of customisable offshore Weekender, Tournament and Centre Console models as well as special build hulls which range up to 10 metres.