A builder found…(maybe)

I am fortunate to live in Perth, which is home to quite a few aluminium boat builders. Not only that, but there are also builders just outside of Perth as well. So from a location perspective I am very lucky to have so many builders to choose from.

When I first started looking at Preston Craft boats a couple of things stood out. These were high quality boats that the owners pretty much never sold. In 3 years of looking at boats I had seen a grand total of 3 Preston Craft boats for sale on Boatpoint, and similar sites.  Initially I thought that this might be because they were a low volume builder, but it turns out they have been in business for a while and have made quite a lot of boats. They were just a little more low profile than some of the other builders. So this was a good start. On the quality front, I haven’t seen any of their 2^nd hand boats with quality issues, and its clear when you see the final product that Preston Craft work hard to provide the best product that they can.

I initially approached PrestonCraft over a year ago, but as I wasn’t ready to buy, I pretty much sniffed around and tried to get a feel for how they operated. The co-owner, Kevin, talked me through a bunch of questions that I had and we parted ways. Then earlier this year I was at the Mandurah boat show and saw Kevin, manning a stand with one of their boats. They had just shown the boat to a whole bunch of people from a local government dept through when I popped my head in.  So we got chatting about what they could do and what I was looking for, Kevin invited me to go and see them at the shop when we could discuss particulars when we weren't being interrupted by other curious bystanders.

As I alluded to earlier, I had been looking for a boat for 3 years, so I knew what I wanted in a boat. We discussed lots of detail, and I asked Kevin to arrange for me to talk to three previous buyers, so I could get the whole truth about Preston Craft as a business, and about their boats.

http://www.prestoncraft.com.au

I spoke to 2 owners of 7.5m Thunderbolts, as that was the style of boat that I was considering. Both owners raved about the boats. I also spoke to the owner of a 7.85 Thunderbolt. Below is some of the notes I took whilst talking to the owners.

• You can pop in at anytime to see your build.
• They are open to ideas, and typically encourage it.
• No issues with any of the quality
• Build time is fast, between 3-4 months.
• A few things didnt work out as expected, but that was largely due to not listening to Prestoncraft's advice.(mental note: pay attention to what the builder is advising, there might be a good reason to do it that way)
• 7.5 Thunderbolt weighed in at 3.05T, fuelled and watered.
• Make sure you get the Prestoncraft's custom made trailer. Its a lot better than other trailers that are available.
• Make sure things are clear with what you want, because interpretation is a personal thing, write it down, and provide pictures where possible.

One of the owners then offered to take me out for a few hours, for a test drive. As luck would have it it was a relatively rough day, with 2-3m seas and a decent breeze (which I prefered as it would show up any short comings). Although we started out from Point Peron near Garden island

Which being sheltered by Garden Island afforded us calm waters for part of the test. Nice for high speed testing, and getting a feel for how the boat sat in the water. I also took the opportunity to walk around and see how the boat dealt with a nearly 100kg guy transferring his weight around. Than answer is, surprisingly well, yes it moved but not as much as many other boats I've been on. After doing some anchoring, to see windlass operation. we moved out to the ocean side of Garden Island. This was where the decent seas I mentioned earlier were. After flying over a few waves, we decided to slow it down a little I brought the boat to about 2-3knts and turned beam too the wave direction. Some might say that it is poor seamanship to do this, and in principle I would agree, but the purpose of doing this was to see how much roll I could induce in the boat. Again I was surprised, yes it rolled, but not much, it tended to float relatively level up and over the wave tops. I get seasick easily, and in many other boats I would have been rushing to the rail, so from and hour or two out on the water I was impressed enough to negotiate a deal. So I had found myself a builder.