Sea Jay 5.0 Topender

LIKES
- Plenty of flat deck for storing gear or fishing
- Nicely finished in the welding and paint department
- Excellent boarding ladder

In a place where the tinny reigns supreme, the levels of quality and innovation in internal design as well as hull shape knows no bounds.

The advent of the fuel-efficient four-stroke outboard motor along with recreational GPS chart plotters and to a lesser extent satellite telephones has seen the previously unfished waters of their coastline come into easy reach for small trailer boats.

Having just been on the Daly River for five weeks I can attest to the amount of ‘sleep-overs’ recreational fishers are having. Every day a constant stream of four to five metre boats passed, heading west towards the mouth and its desolate coastline with rods bristling and available space taken up with rolled up swags and ice boxes.

Sea Jay have produced a five-metre boat which slots in nicely in this scenario and that of many other locations around the country be they river, impoundment, estuary or coastline.

Uncluttered decks and practicality is the theme with this Topender and a good power-to-weight ratio with a relatively low horsepower engine will see it do the distance without consuming excessive fuel, the freight of which is something that keeps many boats back, closer to the ramp.

A large hatch in its aft end opens to reveal a spacious storage section which has its own floor to keep items out of a wet bilge. Another sheet of ply is attached to the underside of the hatch to give it rigidity to prevent it sagging under the weight of an angler standing upon it. This compartment has a snug fit hatch and not one that is guttered to drain moisture away from the inside.

A smaller hatch is situated forward of the larger and it features a battery tray up off the centreline bilge which may be used to house the power supply for an optional electric motor for which the bow mount plate comes standard in the price.

The anchor well is hatch-less and ample in volume to carry the main anchor and a smaller one if need be should you require to back anchor while camping. A typical bollard is close to the aft end of the covered in bow.

Also typical for a Territory boat is the low profile hand rails around the boat which is commonplace in that part of the world so gear may be loaded and unloaded over the bow when on the beach.

A seat post hole is manufactured into the casting deck and another in the main deck adjacent to that for the skipper. There are a total of four seating positions for the standard supply of two seats.

The internal side pockets on each side of the lower deck reaches about halfway along. On the helm side it does not go forward of the console which whether intentionally or just by coincidence, allows ice boxes and 12-volt refrigerators to be wedged in here so they do not encroach on the fishing space in the boat.

The console is fitted with a wrap around Perspex screen and prominent grab rail above it.
The flat top of the dash is not overly long fore and aft so fitting big screen gimbal mount electronics might be an issue that will have to be dealt with after purchase. Five- to seven-inch screens shouldn’t be an issue though.

There is one elevated shelf in the console and the bottom has a rear rail to prevent gear marching out when covering rough water.

A flush hatch in the aft of the main deck opens to the bilge and the pump is accessible via it.

The cranking battery sits at deck level in an open-face compartment behind the skipper. The front of this section is sheeted in with another aperture in the port side. This sheeting extends directly to the floor with no rebate for the toes or feet when standing at the transom fishing. Typically, this puts an angler off balance and makes one uncomfortable when at this end of the boat with rod in hand.

A removable bait rigging station armed with rod holders sits in the transom bulkhead and overboard there is a flat boarding platform with a very sturdy fold-down ladder on the portside. It was good to see how robust this boarding system was compared with some of the accessory bolt-on ladders often fitted to boats of this size which tend to be awkward and flimsy.

A bollard in each aft corner will be a sturdy tie down point for tying down on the trailer or for back anchoring on the beach when camping.

The bottom side has pressed strakes while the side sheets are flat and nicely finished being very smooth and free of weld ripples. The flotation is quoted as ‘basic’.

With two adults aboard an estimate was put on its WOT speed at about 65-kmh and it was no slouch when getting out of the hole and throughout the throttle range. The match of boat and motor seemed ideal and unless you were long hauling with a lot of camping gear you won’t need more horses. Bear in mind though that a higher horsepower motor won’t have to work as hard on a given task and there will likely be a fuel saving there which equates to less payload if living on board for a few days.

Manoeuvrability was excellent and with 15-kmh of wind over the forequarters there was only a slight amount of spray evident but nothing alarming.

Being a relatively smooth day on East Arm in Darwin Harbour there was no sea to test its ride comfort at speed but we churned up enough chop and bow waves ourselves to check it out. No problems there; no alarming banging to worry about as far as we could tell.

This is a base boat with ample room for plenty of additions, depending on your budget. However, you will have a good starting point to work with in the 5.0 Topender and it is well worth putting on your ‘must check it out’ list when looking for a boat in this calibre.