Trailcraft 6400 Trailblazer

Buying a boat is a bit like buying a house. You must consider everything from the ground up. But above all else the foundations are what matters most. They are the platform upon which you can build. Good foundations lay the path for a good house. And so it is with boats.

To my mind the best thing about a big plate-aluminium boat is its foundations. Trailcraft's 6400 Trailblazer is nothing if not well-footed. As I saw it, the boat gives the impression of being basic but strong. It is a substructure upon which offshore anglers, divers and trailblazers might create an even better boat.

Short on frills but big on bedrock, the Trailcraft boats hold a lot of promise and the fact they are made in Western Australia is comforting in itself. The wind in the west often blows the best and the tumultuous Indian Ocean is no place for flimsy, farcical, and poorly founded boats.

Trailcrafts are also interesting for other reasons. The company claims to be the first in Australia to make pressed plate-aluminium boats. The sides of the hulls are embossed with a clinker effect, and the bottom has three modest strakes aside. The alloy sheet used on the 6400 Trailblazer is 4mm - at least one-millimetre thicker than the average mainstream tinnie.

The boats' lines are computer generated, which leads to styling enhancements such as a raised sheerline, integrated transom and nice proportions which you won't find on some built-by-eye alloy boats.

Unbeknown to many people, Trailcraft has been building boats this way since 1983. Its runabout, cuddy cabin, centre cabin and centre console models extend from 5-6.75m in length. Thus it fills a void left by the fabricated tinnie makers.

Where the mainstream marques end, Trailcraft begins. Its boats have a sense of purpose, a feeling of longevity, and they look good. All of which might explain why they have been selling well in Sydney and other capital cities.

ON THE TRAILER
The dry weight of the 6400 Trailblazer is 788kg. Visibly, it has a hunk of a hull. Its profile displays a particularly deep forefoot which leads to excellent freeboard, a dry ride, and a roomy cuddy-cabin. Dubbed a runabout, the boat is more like a cuddy-cabin.

Further, the beam is a massive 2.58m, and the cockpit is vast. Up to four anglers could fish the boat just fine. For all this, however, windage isn't an issue when towing or manoeuvring. I easily hitched it up and hauled the Trailblazer down to Botany Bay on my lonesome.

Thanks in part to the flowing hull lines, the big cuddy-cab rode well on a dual-axle Brooker trailer with manual override brakes. While it was almost imperceptible behind the LandCruiser in a lightly laden state, the boat would bung on some kilos when fuelled-up and tricked-up.

PURE AND SIMPLE
As offered here, the 6400 Trailblazer is a no-frills package with only the basic necessities to go boating. In this guise, the boat offers great opportunities for customising. Everything from a bimini top to rodholders, electronics, fish storage and livebait tanks might be considered. A handyman could go to town with an aluminium welder or some treated marine ply.

The basic elements of the boat which are deserving of praise include wide coamings for rodholder placement, a safe cockpit coaming height for security at sea, a transom with door and boarding platform (it proved functional for boarding), and heavy-duty deck hardware. All the hardware was extruded aluminium and of a thicker gauge than many run-of-the-mill tinnies.

The split bowrail, which aids access forward, the anchoring bollard, side rails and aft cleats looked robust. The hull itself is backed by a five-year warranty, and the finish deserves commendation. The presumably two-pack paint is nice and glossy with no overruns.

Sensibly, the undersides of the hull aren't painted. Wherever you look, the welds are clean and ground near-flush to protect occupants from scrapes and to provide a clean running surface and prevent cavitation when underway.

ROOM TO BURN
The quintessential layout is headed by a bow covered in non-skid. Access to the anchoring gear is around the side-decks. There is provision for an optional opening hatch, but it is not a standard item. In my opinion, the boat needs a forward hatch. Despite its stability and the fact that you could rig-up a side-anchoring system, the sloping decks aren't the place to pull the pick in a heavy sea. The anchor well is sufficiently deep to store a good measure of chain and rode. However, I'd like to see a tube on the bowrail for holding a reef pick.

To gain access to the cuddy-cabin requires a slight stoop and a shuffle. You also need to step over a grill which effectively stops stored gear from flying back into the cockpit. Once inside, the cuddy is surprisingly roomy.

There are no storage shelves, but there is space to sit out of the weather. You could add a big foam mattress and do a 'cabin boy' if you felt the eyelids getting heavy. Access is direct the dash wiring, so you will need to keep this area well coated with an anticorrosive spray.

The sides of the cockpit are flanked by sidepockets long enough to hold paddles, gaffs and hardware. There is a deck filler and a big single breather, which should let you pile the petrol into the underfloor 150lt tank. Two points need to be made about the fuel arrangement.

First, 150lt is barely enough for a big day of trolling. Second, the tank sits under a fully-sealed aluminium flat floor. While the upside is that the floor creates a second skin and traps air for buoyancy - foam flotation is also added to the boat - I don't like the idea of not being able to access your fueltank.

While a fuel filter is mounted in the engine well, there are occasions in a boat's life where a bad batch of fuel necessitates removing the tank and giving it a clean. Also, fuel gauges have a habit of getting out of kilter and can also require removal.

I'd like to see access to the fueltank and, while it might cost a bit extra, I'd go for the optional underfloor kill tank. Considering the depth and volume of the hull, there is plenty of scope to make better use of the underfloor area.

Having said that, the 6400 Trailblazer had one of the best self-draining systems I've come across. This wasn't because of the sealed floor, which was carpeted, but the scupper design. The scuppers could be snapped back into a locked position where, no matter how hard you reversed, they wouldn't leak a drop. Should you put water aboard - or foresee you might such as when crossing a bar or leaving the boat on a mooring - then the scuppers can be left open.

Other features include a small storage tray in the aft starboard corner and a central storage box that doubles as a calm-water seat. I like the fact this box was on the centreline - when you put batteries or an oil bottle inside, the weight will be evenly distributed. The boat also came with a superb overhead rocket launcher off which you can mount some canvas, outriggers and aerials.

Other options worth considering include a transom cutting board, cockpit side seats and swivel seats. Set-up as it was the two bucket seats, which were on storage boxes, tilted forward so you could access the holds. I'd mount a flush-mount tackle tray in each of these boxes to make better use of the space.

The integrated transom hasn't, as you might suppose, a pod. The motor sits flush on the back of the hull and is flanked by two squares of checker-plate flooring. It is also backed by a deep well.

You will be hard pressed to put water in the boat, even when reversing in a choppy sea. The transom is very buoyant, and during testing the motor cavitated while reversing. It was a particularly choppy sea at the time.

HELM POSITION
The boat has a full-width dash upon which you have lots of room to flush or bracket-mount electronics. The throttle box falls conveniently to hand, though the wheel could be mounted a tad higher. In front of the passenger is a grabrail and plastic glove box. There is no grabrail around the windscreen, however.

The four-piece, lightly-tinted screen offered protection from the wind when seated and a good view ahead. When standing, the leading edge of the raked screen felt a tad close to my forehead. It is a good idea to maintain a firm brace when heading seawards and, to this end, the boat did offer plenty of elbow room and foot space behind the screen.

In keeping with the quintessential nature of the rig, the Sydney dealer had fitted some basic Mercury gauges. They included speedo, rpm, trim, fuel and hour meter. Missing was the all-important temperature and oil-pressure gauges which can alert you to impending problems with your motor's cooling system.

OUT TO SEA
It was cold, grey and damp for the test drive on Botany Bay and beyond. But I found the boat easy enough to drive with cable steering. It could be made even more comfortable by fitting storm covers with clears. In fact, the potential of the boat is limited only by your budget, handiwork and imagination.

We had a run-out tide against a black nor'easter... conditions rivalled those prescribed by the Fremantle doctor in Perth. It wasn't a good day to be on the water regardless of the reason. Nonetheless, I sallied forth into the fray in the name of work.

The plate hull is definitely drier, smoother and more robust than a fabricated tinnie and some plate-aluminium boats I have driven. Into the tightly packed chop, you could feel the bow sluicing the swells. For the most part we remained pleasantly dry and only the occasional lashing of spray got past the raked windscreen.

Fact is you can't expect miracles from any boat in such conditions. There were occasions where we came down with the intonation of aluminium hitting water. But what I particularly liked about the boat at sea was the tremendous amount of freeboard up front.

The hull doesn't pigroot or drive from the bow, it cuts through a headsea, and at rest it seems averse to shipping water. Considering there were just two, no gear and bugger-all fuel, the boat went well. It's the kind of rig which you need to load-up with goodies and drive at mid-20kt so the big forefoot can work its way through rather than over the waves.

I can't imagine the boat needing the maximum recommended 225hp. With the 115hp Bluewater Series Mercury outboard in extralong shaft, we touched 64kmh (40mph on the speedo) at 5400rpm. As the outboard was mounted a notch too deep on the transom, optimum top-end speed wasn't obtained.

The prop was a 16-inch stainless steel three-bladed Vengeance and it held on very well. Happy cruising came in at 4200rpm and 42kmh, while the boat planed down to 24kmh and 2800rpm. I sensed a flat spot at high revs - it could have been anything from water in the carbie to filings, or a fuel pick-up problem in the underfloor tank.

But for the fact you can't access the fueltank, I really liked this boat. I have no problem with its performance, finish and fitout. Without all the frills but a solid foundation, the big boat is good buying at $38,000 with outboard and trailer, safety gear and regos.

Given some time and an accumulation of funds, one could evolve this boat into a tricky trailerable sportsfisher or a dive rig that could double for family duties. The way I see it, this beats paying a motza for a mudguard. That is, a boat which is shiny on top and, er, crappy underneath.