Spotlight: Bar Crusher

I’m surrounded by plate-aluminium trailerboats in various stages of fabrication. High-tensile 5083 marine-grade aluminium, a squad of CNC routers and laser cutters, and a crew of trusty workers wielding MIG welders are fabricating dreams in a big shed in Melbourne.

There are impressive paint booths, trailers stacked up high, and orderly parts' departments. But the thing that grabs you most is the magic that turns those mundane sheets of 4mm and 5mm aluminium into beautifully formed hulls ready for a lifetime of boating adventure.

It really is quite bizarre. On one hand, there are lifeless sheets of cold metal. Not long after, a handcrafted boat rolls out the factory like a newborn baby at a maternity ward.

This boat will named, christened, cherished and treated as adoringly as a new family member. It will be a life-altering experience for the parents, creating lasting memories and images that will be the envy of a like-minded community. This is what boatbuilding is all about and it's what drives Bar Crusher.

"We grew up with a 4.5m tinny that we used to take all over the place to fish in the bays and along the coast in better weather. We knew the shortcomings of what was out there in the marketplace," Peter Cleland, the owner of Bar Crusher, says.

As the Melbourne rain beats down on the roof above, his boys deliver a take-away chicken curry to the staff room for our lunch and what becomes an extended natter.

When Cleland started out building boats, low-volume backyard operators were the ones knocking-up plate-aluminium rigs. With a background in manufacturing, and an interest in boats and fishing, he and his brother Warren started making Bar Crushers almost 20 years ago. They used the tools in their hands and those in their heads.

"We felt there was an opportunity to pitch a better product for passionate fishermen. That’s fundamentally what drove us. We looked at the aluminium segment of the market and it was dominated by the pressed-sheet tinny guys doing it on some sort of scale.

"They were very good at building entry-level to mid-sized general-purpose aluminium boats, but we felt there was an opportunity to build a stronger, better performing, softer riding and more stable offshore fishing boat," Cleland explains.

PRODUCTION PLATE BOATS
Back 20 years, plate-aluminium boats were the preserve of low-volume aluminium fabricators, usually a sideline venture, and built for cashed-up fishos. Some of these artisans did an outstanding job, but there were no production values in what they offered. Essentially, they were building custom boats. A few had a name, but many more were one-offs. Tellingly, most of these part-time plate-boat business don't exist today.

"None of them seemed to build a brand that gave people greater accessibility and consistency. We felt there was an opportunity to produce a range of boats that would be very attractive to bay, coastal and offshore fishermen.

"No-one had specialised in the plate-boat segment on any sort of scale," Cleland says, with the proviso that Trailcraft in WA did had a crack but failed for a number of reasons.

KIWI CONNECTIONS
Cleland and his brother began building Kiwi-designed plate boats under licence in Australia. The Elephant in the room is that brand of boat. There’s no mention of it in our chat. But we all know it was Surtees.

From those original boats, Bar Crusher refined and defined its product for the local market. And, we should add, Surtees and other big plate-boat companies have stepped up in recent times doing their own thing.

"We liked what we saw. They seemed to have a culture of building very strong boats, using a full-length stringer system in their sub-floors, which was different to anything we’d seen in Australia. So we went about bringing some NZ design technology to Australia," he says.

Soon after he started building those early boats under licence, back in 1999, trailerboat fishos noticed.

"With strong sub-floors they were designed to take a flogging," Cleland says.

This lay the foundation for the first Bar Crusher-branded boat built in 2003. It was a 560 model. Around then, the factory was building some 70-80 boats a year.

Meantime, Cleland expanded his dealer network using retail outlets that had fishing clientele. It was a targeted approach to hook that lucrative trailerboat-fishing market, which has endured everything the economy has thrown its way. Boats and fishing are just an intrinsic part of our way of life.

HUNDREDS OF BOATS A YEAR
Bar Crusher now claims to be the largest plate-boat specialist in Australia today. I fail to extract exact numbers to qualify that boast, other than to record Cleland saying "many hundreds of boats a year" over lunch.

The most popular models are the 575, 615 and 670 sizes for coastal fishing. These boats offer value for money, are economical to run, easy to tow and stow, and typically cost around the $50-80k mark.

"Something I’ve observed over my time in the industry is there’s been quite some specialisation that didn’t exist when we started. We specialise in high-quality, high-performance fishing boats whereas some of the bigger companies are more generalists and do a bit of everything," Cleland says.

"But the magic to our model is that we’re very focussed on the customer. Everything we know about the customer flows into our design. We go to events around the country and enjoy standing there and listening to people provide feedback," he adds.

AUSSIE ADVENTURES
While exports have reached as far as Ireland and Europe, 98 per cent of Bar Crushers are sold in Australia. It’s the passionate, footloose fishing-mad Aussie trailerboater who has shaped Bar Crusher today. And there’s no disputing the boats’ local application and appeal.

In Arnhem Land, guide Darren Nickolls from Dhipirri Barra and Sportfishing Lodge has five custom-built Bar Crusher 615XS boats; just days before our visit to the Melbourne factory, I found myself exchanging pleasantries with a couple of anglers in their 490C on Sydney Harbour; and after we conclude this interview in the Spring of 2017, and head to the Patterson Lakes boat ramp for boat testing, two other Bar Crusher sister ships happen to launch nearby. The snapper are on.

Bar Crusher owners are passionate and widely travelled and some have reeled in loads of miles on and off the water. One guy covered more than 900km in his boat on a Kimberley trailerboat adventure, another husband and wife crew with young kid went from Cairns around Cape York, while a pro cray-fisher in WA uses one for pleasure. Of course, there have been some impressive fish captures along the way.

But that bit is nothing news, as Aussie have been travelling far and wide with fishing trailerboats for decades. And in some ways, it’s a no brainer. Most fishos want a stable, durable, predictable, low-maintenance boat that’s easy to launch and retrieve, which is easily driven by a modern outboard without creating huge fuel bills.

"We build a good tool to go fishing," Cleland says, adding that ease of use is a big part of the equation these days.

TRAILERBOATING
All Bar Crushers come with trailers designed for the specific hull. Even the biggest 780 model, with lock-up cabin, vee berth, fridge and stove, is said to be easy to launch, retrieve and, importantly, tow on the road. You can do this solo, too, thanks to the Bar Catch trailer clip.

A choice of outboard engine exists, depending on the dealer. In respect of electronics, Bar Crusher has close ties with Raymarine and Garmin.

"It’s really satisfying building boats for those in the know," Cleland sums up, as we finish our lunch and end of our tour of the Dandenong yard that’s doubled in size in the last 18 months.

And, finally, the rain eases. Time to make our move. We hitch up the new 615BR — the first bowrider crossover model from Bar Crusher — and the 585 HT, which is the smallest hard top in the range. These are the two new Bar Crushers released in 2017 and our boat tests will surely follow.

If those sheets of aluminium could talk, they would doubtless recount many great journeys, adventures, fish landings and smiles from miles of life on the road less-travelled... not to mention the flogging along the way.

From all accounts, it's been a stellar year for the plate-boat brands and builders Down Under.

At the time of writing, we had 67 Bar Crushers listed for sale on our sites in this Bar Crusher search.