Peter Brock 'special' sports yacht comes up for sale

The 42-foot, 1988-era Phil Curran-designed aluminium hull sports fishing boat, once called Cyclone, is listed for sale online for $42,500.

It's a cheap way to snare a small slice of Brock-related history. In contrast, boatsales' on-road equivalent, carsales, has a 1984 Holden VK Commodore SS Group 3 for sale priced from $88,500.

The Melbourne-based seller claims the boat was originally owned by Brock, and is undergoing restoration, including a “repaint and repower”. It has two staterooms, a toilet and shower, kitchen and lounge. It was built by Image Boat Builders, and is mentioned in Brock's autobiography.

Documents provided with the sale hint at Brock's ownership. Under a section titled "General Remarks", a 1995 survey of the boat reads: "Built for Peter Brock, with a focus on serious game fishing, this vessel features a vast aft deck area, a bluewater performance hull and a quality teak interior fit-out."

The ad says the boat is fitted with twin Caterpillar 3208 V8s that when new, produced 250hp. It says the engines have partially been rebuilt, including the pistons, rings and bearings, although the fuel pumps and turbochargers will need changing.

The boat comes with fully reconditioned Borg Warner 73C Velvet Drive gearboxes, and a set of Arneson ASD08 surface drives that the current owner was planning to use to replace the Mercury Bravo 3 marine drives.

According to the seller, the hull “still needs top two coats of paint”.

“Great project for someone with the time and skills to put it all together,” the seller says.

If it is Brock's boat, he had something of a chequered history with it. Three of the 42-foot, $125,000 sports cruisers were built, with Brock's Sea Sprint equipped with Italian-made water jets and a 1600-litre fuel capacity so the family could comfortably make trips out to the Great Barrier Reef's Green Island.

The jet propulsion was an abysmal failure, with the drive system cavitating badly on test.

The driveline was then changed to twin Detroit diesels, and the boat relocated from Melbourne to Sydney Harbour where it still didn't run properly due to gearbox issues.

It was then trucked up to Cairns to where the nephew of Peter Brock's wife, Bev, was living, and then moved to Port Douglas where it was worked on again, but again plagued by failing gearboxes.

After running low on replacement gearboxes, the Brock family decided to go to Port Douglas for a holiday and spend time on the boat. However, before they arrived, the boat sank at the marina after a pipe was stretched during an engine removal.

The boat was insured, so it was lifted out of the water, and rebuilt and repaired at a cost of about $40,000.

But that wasn't the end of it. As it sat at the marina, a massive storm swept through Port Douglas. A bung had been left out, Sea Sprint's hull flooded with water, and the boat sank for a second time.

Again, it was repaired under insurance. During tests, the gearboxes failed ... again.

The boat was then sold for a "terrific price" to a Port Douglas local who said he knew what the problem was with the driveline, repaired it and never had any problems.

Surprisingly, the other two boats, fitted with more traditional sterndrives, were trouble-free from the start.

Western Australia-based naval architect Phil Curran was known for his sports yacht designs, starting with the Deepwater 28 hull. One of his designs was the mid-1980s-era Never Say Never, a 122-foot Oceanfast yacht considered to be the world's first high-speed luxury motor yacht.