Quintrex Trident a big success

There’s no doubt that trailerable hard-tops are leading the charge in the sales race for fishing boats at the moment. That's not surprising given their attributes.

Big boats with grunty outboards that can take some rough weather and the odd foray out into the deep blue water are exremely popular all around the country, confirmed Quintrex’s Damien Duncan at a media conference on the Gold Coast yesterday.

Mr Duncan said that the Quintrex Trident hard-top range had exceeded the company’s expectations and demand was outstripping supply.

"Our order book is out to February of next year," Mr Duncan told boatsales.com.au.

"The release of the 610 in March this year was very successful," he added.

We will add that Trident 610 HT from about mid-$70K rates in our books as one of Quintrex's best offshore-fishing boats we've driven in the past decade.

"The Hard Top sales are up there with the Soft Top sales," Mr Duncan said, adding that Trident sales overall were up significantly for Quintrex.

"We’ve seen an overall increase in Trident sales of nearly 60 per cent," he said.

"Hard Top sales dominate in the south – New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia — while the Soft Tops are more popular in the north."

Mr Duncan said that the Tridents are proving so popular that many dealerships are stocking multiple boats.

"Some dealerships like JV Marine (650 pictured from its stock boats) in Victoria, and Brisbane Yamaha and Caloundra in Queensland are holding the whole range in stock and sometimes multiple versions of the one model in different configurations," he said.

"At the recent sale at JV Marine, the dealership had such confidence in the Trident that they stocked nine boats — six Hard Tops and three Soft Tops."

But it’s not just about boat sales. The Trident success story is also translating into jobs at the Queensland manufacturing facility.

"As we’ve seen sales increase, we’ve had to put more specialised workers into the plate-boat manufacturing section," he said.

"Our labour force there has approximately doubled, and we’ve had to do that to keep the lead times down for the orders."

The success of the boat is due to its tough construction and ready-to-fish features.

Quintrex National Account Manager Cameron Wood said the Trident HT had been very carefully designed and extensively tested to ensure the best overall product for the offshore fisherman.

"The Trident Hard Top really is one tough plate boat, each one is built by our expert plate boat team and involves over 60 hours of welding, to give you an idea of how much detail goes into these boats," he said.