Part 2: Hook, Line and Sinker Pride Sea Raider project boat

All around this great girt-by-sea nation, enthusiasts are snapping up clapped-out old Haines Hunters, Bertrams and Cruise Crafts like never before. They’re then refurbished and given a new lease on life.

TV show Hook, Line and Sinker has more than a decade of skin in the boat restoration game, and the latest vessel to get the treatment is a 1980s-era Pride Sea Raider.

A badge-engineered sister ship to the more common Caribbean Reef Runner, the Sea Raider is a high-sided, 6.5-metre half cab built in the days when fibreglass was cheap.

HLS paid $13,000 for the boat. Three months and another $10K later, the team at Gippsland Composites has given the boat a new transom, an outboard pod and a new starboard floor panel.

Now it’s time for the engine.

The potential for an engine upgrade is often a reason behind taking on a project boat, maybe to get rid of that clunky old sterndrive or replace a smelly, fuel-guzzling two-stroke outboard engine.

We bought the Sea Raider with a pair of beaten-up 90hp Mercury two-strokes mounted on a transom supported with some very homemade-looking timber/Sikaflex bracing.

That now is all gone, replaced with a pod designed to carry a single 250hp Yamaha V6 outboard engine.

The engine we’re using comes with a story of its own. Its first life was on a Pennicott Wilderness Journeys tour boat, where an outboard will do anything between 3000 and 5500 hours venturing the Tasmanian and southernmost Victorian coast they are swapped out.

The tour company then sells these used engines to eager buyers for $6000 each. According to Pennicott Wilderness Journeys owner Rob Pennicott, in 10 years they’ve never had an unhappy second-hand engine customer.

The outboard engine we settled on is a 2015 model with 3500 hours on the clock.

We forked out our $6K, loaded our outboard engine on the back of a ute, and took it to our local Yamaha dealer, Lewis Marine, on the outskirts of Hobart.

We wanted the trained techs there to give it the once over and plug it into the computer to see what issues may be lurking.

It’s a tense time as the ECU spills its secrets, but the news is all good.

Over its 3500 hours of operation, the engine had only ever thrown up two minor fault codes. Both related to a shift position sensor more than 1000 hours ago.

Nothing to worry about.

For good measure, we drained the oil and changed the filters and plugs.

The gearbox and engine oil smelled a bit “used” but looked clean and free of any chunks of metal or obvious signs of water ingress. Our $6K investment was looking like a winner.

With a battery, fuel and water connected we hit the key and the big Yamaha immediately fired into life. These are the good moments in project boating.

The next day, we experienced the flip side of the coin.

Our smooth-running 3500-hour Yamaha outboard engine was fitted, and all that was left was to hook it up the Sea Raider's fuel tank.

According to the bloke who sold us the Sea Raider, it was fitted with a 200-litre stainless steel fuel tank. While there certainly was a stainless steel tank under the floor, its dimensions looked a bit shy of that.

Sure enough, when measured up the tank had a capacity of 80 litres, not nearly enough for a 250hp offshore fishing machine.

Unfortunately, no one had noticed the small tank before all the fibreglass work was done. Installing a bigger tank would mean cutting up the newly refurbished floor.

Phone calls were made, a new tank was ordered and a booking at the local fibreglass repair shop was arranged.

“Tankgate” would be a a setback, but not the end of the world – Project Sea Raider would go on.

Rob Lane’s Huntingfield, Tasmania-based RL Welding is a company building a name in marine stainless steel, and particularly pot haulers.

Anyone who’s ever pulled up a cray pot in 25 metres of water with three Port Jackson sharks in it will tell you it’s hard work.

RL Welding makes a pot hauler that is close to a work of art, not just very good at lifting heavy objects.

Keen to have this functionality aboard the Sea Raider, we commissioned Rob to fit a pot hauler, as well as stainless super structure for the boat.

The side windows on the Sea Raider’s soft top extend a long way aft and the windscreen is steeply raked, so getting a bimini/rocket launcher setup to work took some clever design and fabrication.

The result is a triumph. Hobart-based 42 South Marine took care of the covers and clears and they’ve used big-boat materials and tech to give the Sea Raider a clean, classic look.

Keep an eye out for the next instalment of Project Sea Raider where we tackle our fuel storage issues, complete the final fit-out, and splash down for launch day.

Spoiler alert: it’s not all smooth sailing.