26.

Trailer Boat Magazine

Supplied Courtesy Pacific Marine Media

530 PRACTICAL - MODEL BAR CRUSHER 530C

Get Practical

An aluminium boat with a deadrise at the stern of 18 degrees will be stability-challenged in a very serious way - unless there's a compensatory factor. Enter the Bar Crusher 530C, which does have an 18 degree deadrise but is also as stable as you could possibly want in a five-metre monohull fishing boat. The secret is its ballast system. Running the full length of the keel is a tunnel that is open at the transom and has "breather" holes at the other end in the anchor well. At rest, this tunnel fills with about 400lt of water, adding at-rest weight to the hull and lowering it in the water so the submerged chines can do their bit as stabilisers. When the boat moves forward, this water simply drains away as the boat drives. This system allows the boatbuilder to incorporate a deeper vee in his design so that performance is enhanced without sacrificing stability. It's not a new system, but it's certainly effective on the Bar Crusher.

The hull bottom is 4mm plate aluminium matched to 3mm side plate. It has a fine entry, no strakes, wide chines and very prominent spray rails on the forward chines. The hull is constructed with six longitudinal stringers fully welded to cross frames, which forms a structurally-strong, triangulated subfloor frame. A strong chequerplate floor is then welded on top of that to give a fully-sealed deck with a centrally-mounted 120lt fuel tank and a large underfloor killtank towards the stern. The fuel filler is in the floor, directly into the tank, between the two seats.

PAINTED LADY

The Bar Crusher appears to be constructed with exceptional craftsmanship - and that includes the paintjob, which even fishermen and divers will appreciate.

The foredeck, which looks a bit like a wave-breaker, is steeply raked back to the high-but-small windscreen built into an almost armour-like matt-black frame, which can be unclipped and swung down over the steering wheel, negating the problem of low-height carports. The vee-bunks in the small cuddy are vinyl covered and are the only concessions to creature comfort in the boat. Headroom is good; there's plenty of storage under the bunks, but small internal pockets will carry only small items. The cuddy is open to the cockpit. The ends of the wide bunks have footrests for driver and passenger - the driver's being more of a strong, non-slip step while the passenger has a rail only. A large, side-opening hatch - which sits on a substantial rubber seal - through the cuddy is the only way to get to the anchor as there is no sidedeck access to the bow. The anchor nestles into a bowsprit/roller combination flanked by a split bowrail. A reasonably-sized open anchor well is designed largely for rope, although you could also fit a reef anchor. Twin bow posts are mounted in front of that.

DROP IN THE BUCKET

The twin swivel seats are fully-adjustable buckets complete with small armrests and are on side mounts, which makes for a clean floor to roll out a swag or store tackleboxes. The dash layout is simple, with VDO instruments (mph only, trim, rpm, fuel) mounted in a carbon-fibre-effect panel. The switch panel and trim-tab control buttons are on the right of the Morse Teleflex wheel. Small sidepockets either side are useful for small items, and grabrails either side of the chairs and in front of the passenger are all well placed. The cockpit is large, with enormous gunwales (270mm wide) featuring six rodholders and a couple of rubberised non-slip panels stuck on for good measure. Sidepockets are long, wide and carpet lined on the bottom. The underfloor kill tank has been designed to accommodate a couple of decent-sized tuna or dive bottles, and behind that in the bilge is the livebait tank and bilge pumps.

STERN REMINDER

The stern features a full-width swim platform on which the Suzuki 115 four-stroke was mounted. A hinged, swing-down, very solid boarding ladder leads to a walkthrough space in the transom on the port side, and a berley pot is cut through the platform on the starboard. This lifts out quite easily for washing. Boarding grabrails that continue up and over the transom to form rear-quarter gunwale rails help out on either side. There are no rear cleats, so these rails double as tie-off points. A Teflon-insert baitboard - which has three rodholders and knife slots incorporated into it - is mounted centrally, but this can be easily replaced with a skipole. The starboard transom features a livebait tank that has a smoked-acrylic cover and hinges out. Beneath and centrally mounted are twin batteries and, for two-strokes, room for oil bottles. These are protected by a swing-down, full-width rear transom seat covered in a fairly tough, rubberised material. This seat, when raised, doubles as a door for the walkthrough.

PERFORMANCE

The boat performed very well, achieving 65kmh at wide open throttle (5200rpm) and a comfortabe cruise of 45kmh at 4000rpm. The boat performed best with the motor trimmed right out. It hung on brilliantly in tight turns and felt really secure on high-speed runs. There was no tendency to "fly", skip or chine-walk as many tinnies will do when the nose is poked in. The 530C backed down quite flat. With the rear door "shut" (i.e. the rear lounge in the up position) no water should come in. The sharp-hulled Bar Crusher was a very comfortable boat to drive hard, giving no hint at all of any nasty habits and, as I mentioned earlier, the stability was good. The boat sits on a custom-built Easytow trailer, which combines roller and Teflon strips. It should be fairly easy towing with most reasonable-sized cars.

Legal Note: The statements, observations and opinions expressed in the above excerpts are those of the boat tester and were formed after inspection and testing of the Bar Crusher boat described in the test. The opinion is provided by the author of the test and not the directors of Bar Crusher boats.The information in these excerpts is offered to assist prospective buyers to do their research. Bar Crusher Boats confirms that the information above may contain factual errors and no responsibility is taken for it's accuracy or completeness. Please refer to the legal notice by clicking on the words "Legal Notice" at the bottom of each page.