O'Brien 43 Sportsfisher

A good detective makes himself aware of the details - which hand the ring was on; the colour of the victim's eyes; what hour the clock stopped; how many footprints were in the garden bed... That kind of thing.

This detail was, to quote one fictional detective of note, "Elementary." The simple sign stood out as clear as day, but it revealed a much bigger story...

In this case, a broken rubberband hanging from the outrigger clip on the top of the long outrigger pole said everything.

A crucial piece of evidence, it pointed to a serious case of big gamefishing. It carried the sweat from a top-notch deckie's hands. And it had the image of a famous skipper engraved on it.

But, most importantly, that broken rubberband was hanging from a gameboat of quite some consequence...

THE WRIGHT WAY
Pakita, the latest work of Queensland boatbuilder Peter O'Brien and his team, has already seen many bands break and many marlin caught in its short but action-packed life at sea.

The 43-footer - distinguished from other O'Briens by its cool, ice-blue hull - was launched on September 3 last year in Townsville, the home port of O'Brien boats.

Less than a week after it was floated, Pakita was fishing the Sheraton Townsville tournament, then it went on to fish Innisvale GFC's comp, before moving on to the Cairns Great Barrier Reef Big Game Masters.

Then on October 18, American skipper of note, Peter B Wright, winged his way from America to claim the boat for the 1997 giant black marlin season.

Among Wright's claims to fame is Cairns' biggest marlin, a massive 1442lb black. And, of course, he caught several 1000-pounders from Pakita last season, despite it being deathly quiet for some. In fact, Wright has now leased Pakita for the next three seasons in Cairns.

In the first four months of Pakita's working life, the twin Cummins diesels clocked up 800 hours of heavy-duty, heavy-tackle, heavy-weather, big game fishing along Australia's eastern seaboard.

The boat's last day in Cairns was a charter on December 12, but as if to prove its fish-anywhere attitude, the boat was in Sydney Harbour when I stepped aboard.

TOWNSVILLE BRED
The O'Brien 43 is a model I've come to know pretty well - though maybe not as well as some.

I spent four days aboard Pakita's sister ship Reel Easy in Townsville a few years back, catching sailfish and small black marlin while living aboard with then skipper, George Williams.

The O'Brien 43 hull is especially good when the going gets rough. It has a 20° deadrise, a sharp entry and a comparatively narrow beam with big chines.

It has bulletproof construction while keeping the weight down. Pakita's hull is solid glass, with a full interior liner or second skin, but the deck is Divinycell cored and the cabin doors are made from Divinyboard.

Peter O'Brien, the man behind the marque, says: "Every boat we build is hand-built. We use vinylester resin and the latest technology in triaxial and double-bias rovings, which gives a super-light laminate with unbelievable strength. The entire boat is hand-laid, taking 7300 man hours."

O'Brien, who has over 20 years experience in boatbuilding, made his first boat in 1982. It was a 33-footer called OB1, which is now, I believe, in Batemans Bay on the NSW south coast.

Every boat O'Brien has ever built, some 26 including three patrol boats for Queensland, has been in survey - and all are still operating today.

"I place the emphasis on practicality for someone trying to conduct a business where downtime costs money," he explains. "Although Pakita is a 20kt cruiser, it is still a commercial boat.

"We use 2:1 transmissions to get as much torque or prop load as possible in big seas. This boat gives 84% efficiency and only 16% slip. The only computer input is in shafting and prop analysis.

"But I've never built two boats the same, they keep evolving," he says.

Indeed, for a 43-footer to weigh 9750kg is a credit to O'Brien the boatbuilder. Pakita, which is the fifth 43-footer (with the sixth almost finished) is 2000kg lighter than the first, Reel Easy.

These weight savings can be partly attributed to smaller engines, but there are also significant gains from the construction method O'Brien now prefers to use.

THE HIGH SEAS
I've learnt a lot from my time in O'Brien 43s, especially when I cruised south from Townsville to the billfish grounds at Cape Bowling Green.

This stretch of water is among the most dishonourable anywhere. It's shallow, the south-east winds are strong enough to blow the oysters off the rocks, and the wind is always smack-bang right in your face. A tougher environment for a gameboat - or any boat for that matter - is hard to imagine.

Pakita looks as good as the day it was launched. It's a serious charter fishing machine, but as smart looking as anything you can buy around the waterfront.

The finish of Pakita is also better than the earlier boats. I'd go so far as to say it is better than most gameboats made in Australia - not only pleasing to the eye but hard-wearing and practical.

In the boat's forepeak cabin, there are four bunks including an oversized V-berth big enough for a couple to share.

There are big storage lockers for clothes and personals, three shelves in cupboards which also have hanging space, recesses under the bunks for safety gear and separate lockers down near your feet. There is also bilge access under the floor.

The walls are finished in two-pack white paint which you can wipe clean in a jiffy. Teak trim is radiused, curved and used as edging in a clever way. The mattress covers are a heavy-duty, hard-wearing but chic navy-blue fabric and the headliner throughout is white.

To starboard, the day and guest's bathroom has good headroom so you can shower standing. There's also a toilet which you can sit on, a sink with hot and cold water, and storage space for cleaning products.

A separate locker nearby gives access to a transformer, which is used to give instant switching from 12 to 240v electrical systems.

Opposite, and amidships away from the slap of water, is a portside master cabin. It features a queen-sized bed, some dressing space, lots of storage lockers and its own ensuite (complete with another standing-height shower and suitable toilet) behind a clear perspex door.

Four steps up and you're in the galley, a U-shaped design with moulded blue bench tops and plenty of room to whip up a meal while anchored on the Reef or parked at the marina during a tournament layday.

Appliances include a two-burner electric stove, big Sharp convection microwave oven, pressure hot and cold water and separate drinking water system.

Pantry space in Pakita is big enough to carry cruising provisions from Sydney to Cairns, while the teak floor, teak trim and a teak-edged servery adds class without looking dated.

Opposite, the large area behind the blanked-out front screen - usually a void - has been used (cleverly) to harbour the stereo/TV, control panel, and the all-important Bundy rack. Did someone say Bundy?

REST AND RELAXATION
Air-conditioning keeps the saloon comfortable, while big pub-style fridges can swallow a bottle-shop worth of refreshments and still leave lots of space for chilling foodstuffs (Ed: somewhat like the author).

There is also plenty of natural ventilation in the saloon, achieved via strategically positioned hatches and sliding windows.

The engines and 6.5kVa Onan are accessed through the saloon floor, where you will find ample servicing room - if you need to service them, that is.

The saloon is best described as gregarious. There is an L-shaped lounge to port that seats at least four for dinner and which can be converted into an impromptu double berth. A straight lounge opposite is big enough to sleep on when the fishing is quiet. And all lounges are deeply cushioned with high backrests. Nice!

Pakita's saloon is a comfort zone, an air-conditioned sanctuary behind closed doors, where you can recount the day's fishing and thumb through the boat's log at night. But step through the companionway and suddenly a more serious side of this boat emerges.

GETTING BACK TO BUSINESS
Pakita is in the business of big-game fishing and the big cockpit, close enough to the water so you can dehook your own fish, bears all the evidence. There are things here you won't find in a Sydney gameboat, but which many city operators might start considering in light of the switch to baits this season.

For a start, the bait freezer to port is huge. It is, to quote skipper George Williams: "Big enough for 100 scaly mackerel, with enough room left over to store the coral trout fillets which you plan to take home."

Opposite is a huge stainless brine tank which can hold a 10kg bait near freezing point, while alongside is a separate thawing compartment for holding the bait once it's rigged.

There is a tackle locker, deep undersole oval livebait tanks and a lazarette for dive equipment and fenders.

Deck gear is heavy-duty, all through-bolted, and the marlin door can take a 1000-pounder. Shore power, gaff and tagpole storage wells are built-in, as is the heavy-duty chair, one of O'Brien's own indestructible designs.

The bridge has an overhang to help shade the saloon and also allows the skipper's seat to be located aft, virtually over the cockpit.

There's one big console with room for gauges and a cover which, in high seas, can be dropped down to protect the precious fish-finding and navigational gadgetry.

Seating for guests is on a long lounge on the starboard side - which can seat three anglers or sleep one who is bombed out - and on another lounge in front of the skipper.

A well-constructed stainless tower grants safe access to the upper station, with rungs that are wide but not twisted.

The controls are Morse electric shifts and the motors twin 450C Cummins Diamond Series, though O'Brien also fits Caterpillars or whatever you prefer.

Alongside the cockpit are four big air intakes which can be shut-off in strong cross winds, while the exhausts are 20cm diameter that travel through pong boxes and baffles to keep the noise down.

CLUED-UP
Flat chat with a clean bum, Pakita does 30kts at 2600rpm.

But, as any gameboat skipper worth his salt will tell you, cruising efficiency is more important than top-end and this 43 can truck through high and low seas at 22kts on 2000rpm and use just 80lt/hr.

Offshore, Pakita feels typically solid, but significantly drier than other 43s because it's lighter and the bow runs higher. It slots easily into the cruising groove with a go-anywhere attitude about it.

We travelled out through Sydney Heads and back in again, but with fuel tanks that hold 2000lt with 200lt in reserve, we could just as easily have kept cruising to Coffs, the Gold Coast, Hamilton and on to Cairns, caught some scalies and started fishing.

If you were chasing a fish to beat Wright's record black, Pakita is the boat built to do it.

"We're not stuffing around with guppies," replied O'Brien. "We're playing A-grade now!"

But I guess, you didn't need to be Sherlock Holmes to work that out.

 Box1: WRIGHT WRITES

For some time I had considered getting a slightly larger boat than the 40-foot custom Woodnutt Duyfken I had been running in Cairns for the past 17 years.

I was not prepared to sacrifice maneuverability and fishability but wanted a little more accommodation and the ability to do two or three-night live-aboard trips to get away from total dependency on a mothership.

A series of meetings in Townsville with Peter O'Brien convinced me that O'Brien Boat's new 43-footer would suit my purposes nicely.

We traded ideas about refrigeration systems and controls (I insisted on single lever controls but agreed to compromise on the type, since we were only going to have two helm stations). We ended up convincing each other to accept changes that were eventually better than either of us had arrived at on our own.

We're both pretty hard-headed but we had the Cairns and Townsville fleets on which to draw (and measure) and we could almost always find something in an existing boat that we both liked. Small things like rod-holder placement and outrigger angles and halyard attachment points made enormous differences in overall efficiency.

I was most concerned about the flybridge, tower, engine room and cockpit. You can put up with a variety of interior layouts but the working areas have to be right. In the end all of these were nothing short of great.

Our live wells and brine box gave us probably the best bait handling set-up in Australia and my deckhands agreed the cockpit was superb. Small custom blocks under the control heads made fighting fish for hours a breeze without straining and the tower is more easily accessed and comfortable to ride in heavy seas than any Yank tower built in the last five years.

The engine room is easy to access and easy to clean. Paper towels and Wipe-Off kept the raised sole (actually the top of a built-in water tank) clean enough to eat off.

Oil and water checks for the C series Cummins main engines were both inboard and easy to access.

Easy preventative maintenance is one reason we never missed a single day of the 1997 season.

My guests loved the stateroom with its roomy double berth - so did I when we worked from a motherboat and I got to be the honcho. All in all we had good sleeping accommodation for seven and could jam in a couple more in a pinch. And still with two heads and showers.

I preferred not to stay out more than three days, although we did make one extended trip of a full week. Having to fill fuel and water tanks and all the beer, wine, food and gear for a week took just enough off the normally quick-spinning Pakita's manueverability to irritate me. She still handled better than most, but if we had a monster on, I wanted the ultimate.

Coming out of Cooktown we could be anywhere from the bottom of Number Ten Ribbon to Escape Reef in less than two hours, even in a 20kt south-easter.

Three-day trips with a night in town getting all clean linen and laundry and running light on fuel was just the ticket. With 2:1 gears the Cummins were veritable misers.

Pakita is quite simply a great sea boat and I'd recommend anyone in the market for a serious fishing boat pick a rough day and check her out with a sea trial. Peter B Wright

Box2: CENTRALISED BARGAINING

Right up front, I have to admit bias. I love the look of big open gameboats - the style the 'septics' usually call Tournaments or, indeed, Opens.

These mid-30 to 50 foot battlewagons are big movers for brands like Luhrs, Cabo Tiara, Ocean and a host of custom builders Stateside.

While I've never had the opportunity to fish this style of vessel for any length of time, with their half towers and business-like layouts they are undoubtedly attractive in a fishy sort of way. They're also flavour of the month.

That's why we wanted to know more when Peter O'Brien mentioned that his crew had recently commissioned a centre-helm, open 33-footer for a Townsville customer.

Christened Reel Diamond, the boat Peter described sounded like my idea of Christmas on a stick - a solid, pocket billfisher with just enough creature comforts to make long days on the shelf comfortable without the ego-driven midriff bulge!

"The type of boat private buyers are after is changing," O'Brien told BlueWater. "Fishermen want a boat that they can fish seriously. But they don't necessarily need or want to pay for flash accommodation below decks.

"In most cases even the most luxurious gameboats are lived aboard only a handful of times each season. It's a lot extra to clean and maintain. Why pay for something you're not going to use?" O'Brien says.

Thus, he planned a boat that would be cheaper to build and operate than the typical 40-footer, but would still supply big boat fishing performance.

The 33 was the first hull O'Brien Boats built back in 1982. It boasts a beam of 10 feet and with a variable deadrise (20° at the transom) has a similar look to the 43. In fact, a quick glance is enough to confirm its heritage - it's undoubtedly an O'Brien.

Having established a strong reputation as a workboat hull (with a number operated by bodies like the Australian Institute of Marine Science), the 33 moulds had sat virtually idle for around six years while O'Brien Boats concentrated up the scale with its 40s, and more recently, the 43.

To arrive at the boat you see here, O'Brien commissioned a deck design that delivered an elevated centre helm, excellent cockpit space and comfortable but compact accommodation up front.

While it is a true walkaround console design, below decks Reel Diamond still has four berths, a compact galley and a head and shower. Of course, buyers can fine-tune the design by decreasing the accommodation to deliver more fishing room. They can go the other way too, sacrificing space up top to add extra room below decks - though that would seem to defeat the purpose of the design.

Adjacent to the helm there's a large freezer and tackle locker with leaning post. There's seating for three at the front of the console and huge underfloor dry storage.

The two-place bimini tower completes the general arrangements.

By employing the same new composite technologies and techniques as Pakita the end result is a light boat (6700kg) that's still strong and rugged.

According to O'Brien, for the same reasons Pakita is a much drier boat than its predecessors, so too is Reel Diamond.

"When we were in the planning stages, I made it quite clear to the owner that I'd reserve the right to fit clears to the boat after we sea-trialled it," O'Brien admits.

"But even in open form it's proved a very dry boat. You can run at 25kts into a 20kt sou-easter down to Bowling Green and stay dry. It's that good," he says.

In keeping with the lower cost, easy-access nature of the vessel, O'Brien is offering a full range of power options for the 33.

Though launched with Diamond Series 330B Cummins, Reel Diamond was initially pencilled in to be powered by big-block petrol MerCruisers MPIs.

Interestingly, O'Brien also offers the boat in sterndrive and outboard versions.

Yep, you read it right, outboard!

Mind you, from this side of the fence, the new generation of diesel sterndrives like the KAD series Volvos or soon-to-be-released 300hp 6LP Yanmar/MerCruiser combo seem to be tailor-made for this style of vessel.

As initial pre-build discussions progressed, Reel Diamond's owner decided to move to diesels.

Though he's had to pay more up front, he's reaping the rewards at the pump. O'Brien's figures show the boat running at 27kt at 2400rpm at less than 50lt/hr. Top speed is still a heady 37kts. (The numbers on the petrol-powered boat calculated out at over 45kt!)

With 800lt onboard (and 400lt of water) there's more than enough for those long fast hauls to the wide reefs, canyons and seamounts.

O'Brien is flexible about stage sales of the 33. He sees that with a sensible fitout the 33 would be an ideal entry-level charter vessel - able to fish on in heavy weather but with reduced running costs compared to bigger boats.

While surveyed boats are built totally in-house, the yard will be offering the 33 in part-completed stages for private buyers.

In the case of Reel Diamond the vessel left the yard as a turnkey proposition with the owner having O'Brien handle almost all of the fitout.

Though our final judgement on the 33 open will have to wait until we get a chance to plant our bums onboard, if the owner's reaction is anything to go by, O'Brien Boats could be on a winner. Mike Sinclair