Excalibur 5.4 Open Runabout

Our day began most unusually, continued that way, and ended in much the same fashion. What was to be a jaunty little journey about Botany Bay was interspersed with some of the crazy things that can and do happen when you mess about in boats.

To begin with, the owner of our testboat met me at the ramp having just slipped from the jetty and fallen in the drink. Onlookers rated his effort an 8.5 out of 10 and, with a difficulty factor of 2.5, his was a prettygood dive.

Not one to come unprepared, however, he reached under his runabout's foredeck and retrieved a dry jacket. We sat on the gunwales, the memory of the mishap fast drying out, and explored the reasons why he chose the Excalibur 5.4 Open Runabout above all others.

What he wanted was a tough aluminium boat he could launch single-handedly, which offered protection from the elements and was seaworthy enough to tackle Botany Bay in a blow and venture outside from time to time.

A shift worker with the time to wet a line mid-week, he usually drifts for flathead on the vast shoals of Botany Bay. He had fished the day before with no joy, but was clearly taken by his new boat.

His Excalibur 5.4 Open Runabout was beautifully equipped with everything, right down to the Fisherman's Friend lozenges. We shared a nose-clearer and then discussed the boat's features.

THE JOHN DORY
Excalibur boats range from 5m to 7.5m and are available in any length in between. Founded on a dory-style hull, they have a raised bow with a fine entry forward which ends in a flattish run aft. The dory is, I think, a boat that is better by design.

The high, swooping foredeck is less inclined to ship water; you can button down the bow so the forefoot cuts through the waves, and the cockpit is typically big for its length.

On the Excalibur 5.4 Open Runabout I could feel the bow slicing the waves and smoothing out the ride. Only once did I perceive a thump on notorious Botany Bay, a stretch of water that often cuts up.

The owner told me the dory shape induced him to buy the Excalibur 5.4 Open Runabout. The hull is built from 5mm plate aluminium on the bottom, with 2mm rolled clinker alloy sides, subfloor stringers and transverse frames for rigidity, with a sacrificial wear strip and one strake a side.

There is said to be positive foam flotation underfloor and a 95lt fuel tank which is accessible via a riveted panel - following only minor surgery - beneath the loose cockpit carpet. The cockpit floor buckled slightly underfoot in parts, but the raised section forward gave a good view over the screen when standing, and you didn't need to slouch much to see through the screen when seated.

Typical of all the Excalibur boats, the 5.4 Open Runabout's cockpit has plenty of depth and a nice deep motorwell to keep the water out. The coamings are wide enough to sit on and come graced with a handy spread of deck gear.

A solid alloy split bowrail, a little sprit with a roller, a sufficiently large anchorwell with a dead eye, and a solid alloy bollard head the bow. There are nav lights on the runabout's sides, a clear five-piece opening windscreen, deck filler, four rodholders, aft siderails, and wide coamings from where we carried on our conversation.

SPEAKING VOLUMES
Unlike a lot of runabouts, partly due to the dory design, the Excalibur 5.4 has volume up front above the waterline. The boat almost borders on being a cuddy cabin, with a storage area in which you could hide in bad weather.

The owner had the bow packed with a spare coil of rope, lifejackets, tubs carrying hardware and tools, the clears for the bimini top and more. A small checkerplate step is positioned so you can reach the anchoring hardware through the opening windscreen.

The skipper and mate have polypropylene pedestal seats with fold down backrests that seem secure. The seats are mounted on storage boxes. A fire extinguisher is recessed under the copilot's seat, an EPIRB is nearby, and there is a handy grabrail on the dash.

Ahead of the skipper is an aftermarket bracket-mounted Raytheon L365 sounder, which gave a good readout at cruise speeds, and a Garmin 126 GPS which was easy to understand. The GME 27MHz is tucked neatly to the side, out of the weather.

There are tacho, trim, hour and fuel gauges, standard SeaStar mechanical steering, rubber-boot covered switches for accessories, nav lights, and a live-bait tank pump. A little tray beside the skipper could carry a can of lemonade and personal effects.

Sidepockets are filled with hessian bags and mooring lines, gaffs and landing nets, drinking water and clips holding two paddles and a boathook. The battery is mounted in the starboard corner, where the fenders are kept, and there is a convenient cut-out in the coaming for keeping Tupperware 'tackle boxes'.

To port is a livebait tank of perhaps 30lt capacity, which is rigged to a scoop and a 360GPH Rule pump. The deep motorwell had storage beneath it for a spare flat stainless steel fuel tank and spigots for an aftermarket bait-cutting and fish-cleaning board.

A boarding step, ladder and bimini top complete the layout, but for one important item. The owner, an ex-truckie, had fitted a big chrome electric horn valued at $59. I blew it several times, and several times more, to herald that we were finally on our way.

ADVENTURE BOUND
The owner had set up his beloved 5.4 Open Runabout for cruising and fishing. In March he will tow this boat to Sanctuary Cove behind a 2lt 1982 model Kombi, board the houseboat Shady Lady with another couple, and set out on a Queensland adventure.

I started the Tohatsu 70hp - chosen for its cubic capacity and the fact it is made in Japan with genuine parts not sourced from some third-world country - which idled a little gruffly before smoothing out at 3000rpm.

Two-up, we cruised across the bay at around 36kmh (on the GPS) at 4000rpm on the tacho. Later, the boat did 33kmh with four people aboard. Top speed was around 51kmh with two and 48kmh with four. There was no additional aft seating, but the owner had found simple plastic chairs that fitted perfectly in the aft corners.

I toured the sandstone cliffs surrounding Cape Banks and the fortifications at Bare Island, trolled a Manns deep diver I found in the owner's tackle box, but plucked nothing from the washes. All I caught was the camera boat, an Excalibur 6m centre console, intent on weaving through our wake.

I also caught a glimpse of a couple of shags on a rock in Kongwong Bay. Not the feathery kind, if you get my drift, but the long-legged variety. Equipped for any scenario, the owner pulled a pair of binoculars from his dry storage tub and confirmed my long-range observation.

I came back to the boat-ramp around midday, more than happy with the ride of the Excalibur 5.4 Open Runabout. It falls short of mainstream production runabouts only in the attention to details and welds. It's a tough little boat bound to stay together over many years of fishing and cruising.

The Tohatsu also has a reputation as something of workhorse. The steering was light and the boat is very responsive, turning tightly without cavitating, and not porpoising when trimmed out. We used around 12lt of fuel over 90 minutes cruising and fishing.

To complete what was a different day on the water, the fire brigade were parked at the ramp, sucking seawater through their high-pressure pumps, blowing a giant curtain of spray right over the jetty. I didn't even need to do a swan dive to get wet.