Tinnies Debugged

Sydney Morning Herald

Saturday March 20, 1999

By DAVID LOCKWOOD

FORGET the doomsayers and their predictions: the coming of this Millennium is cause for celebration. Quintrex has created a new hull that irons away many of the bugs that have long plagued aluminium boats.

It used to be said you needed to befriend a chiropractor before going boating in a tinnie, but the new Millennium hull, formed by a giant computer-controlled press, takes the boom-crash out of small-boat travel.

Quintrex, which has sold more aluminium boats than any other Australian manufacturer, expects the advent of the Millennium to prompt a rash of trade-ins of older designs - including its own - and hopes for sales of 16,000 boats a year. Sales are booming, and the Queensland company is building a new six-hectare factory on the Gold Coast. Already it exports to 15 countries, including Turkey and Spain, though 90 per cent of production is sold in Australia.

The Millennium hull, unlike conventional aluminium deep-vees, is a variable-deadrise with a sharper vee running from the bow to stern, offset by concave sections on either side of the keel. On the water, this translates to improved ride comfort, stability and a much dryer ride. Coupled with a new transom design of prodigious buoyancy, the hull runs much flatter, needs less effort to reach planing speed, and is therefore better suited to the new wave of four-stroke outboards.

These attributes were apparent during a head-to-head test of successive versions of Quintrex's best-selling family boat. A comparison of successive versions of the 4.75 m runabout Bayhunter fitted with the same 60 hp Yamaha outboard was a real eye-opener.

Last year's model was wetter, harder-riding, more inclined to wander, and it had a tendency to porpoise and run with a choppy ride - though that became obvious only after I had driven the new Bayhunter.

All the new Millennium hulls provide ride comfort you'd be more accustomed to finding in a bigger hull, in a package that can be launched single-handed. They include the 4.35 m Top Ender, an open boat ideal for estuary fishing; the top-of-the-pops 4.75 m Bayhunter runabout, something akin to the Ford Falcon of the waterways; the 5 m and 5.60 m Freedom Sport bowriders for day boating; and the sea-kindly 6 m Blue Water centre console for offshore fishing.

Quintrex has matched the improved hull performance with new-fashioned moulded fibreglass helm stations, special starter kits that include fitted electronics, and trailers designed and adjusted for each hull. This has effectively closed the gap between refined fibreglass boats and aluminium hulls.

The rub is that the new models cost about 10 per cent more then the old; then again, they are better in all other respects. This is not marketing hype but something I report on with authority, having served more than my share of hard time in aluminium boats. Best of all, the new hulls, having been pressed into shape with relatively few welds, should last a lifetime.

So what's my prediction for the Millennium? It should silence the critics, sweep the awards and usher in a new era of more dignified trailer boating.

Details: Quintrex dealers in Sydney include Enterprise Marine, 1,416 Pittwater Road, Narrabeen, phone (02) 9913 7586, and Hunts Marine, 629 Princes Highway, Blakehurst, phone (02) 9546 1324.