Late in 2011, my nieces boyfriend decided to get himself a little boat. Looking through TradeMe found what he thought to be a perfect little vessel, an old Condorcraft Skipjack. Knowing I am kinda into boats'n'stuff he asked me what I thought.. Hmmmm....

Being a mid-seventies vintage boat, my initial thought was that he was buying a right lemon, however after he shot up to Auckland to bring it down to store in my shed in Matamata, I was amazed to see the boat had been beautifully re-gel coated and painted, making it- for the princely sum of the two grand he paid for it- an awesome little deal I thought.

Mike with his great new toy... moments before I beat him up and stole it off him....

What was he going to put on the back though?

As it came, it was sans-motor, and his wish-list of capabilities for the boat included towing skiers, to go fishing, to fly to Aussie, serve drinks, get up to Warp Speed, just everything really, so.... hopefully something like a good 90hp motor he thought. On a 13'6" (4.2m) boat. 90h.p.

Oh boy. It HAD been cheap, but putting such a motor on this, getting it all sorted out to run properly and safely, well that was going to take a lot more money. Especially if looking for a new motor, as I gave him the hard word that he wasn't taking MY niece out in a boat with a shonky second-hand cheapo TradeMe motor! As I told him, ya can't walk home when ya boat breaks down!

So, a deal was done. After putting the poor lad in a headlock and slamming his head in a door a few times, he decided that he would let me buy this off him, just to make his life less complicated, and to ease his headache.

So, I was now the proud new owner of a 13'6", 35 year old boatlet. Now it was my headache.

Why did I want this headache?

Well, for the last few years I have been without a small boat, and my main boat being a big 7.2m chunk of glass is just too much of a mission to use for short jaunts up the estuary at Whitianga for an arvo, or for popping to Lake Karapiro for an afternoon. This little boat, at 4.2m, is pretty much an ideal one-man sized boat for me. Easy to tow, easy to launch.... just easy really.

As skiing, racing and interstellar flight are not on my list of priorities for a small boat like this, I immediately dialled back the required power to a more reasonable 40hp.

I had initially hoped to pop on one of those new cheap 2-stroke motors, a Parsun 40hp, which at under 5 thousand are a very good price, but the more I thought on it, the more I reminded myself of my old mantra of "Go for something you can trust!"

Finding an option I like and trust really only left me with 2 brands in my mind, Suzuki or Yamaha. In the 2-stroke range, Suzuki only had a basic little 40hp unit, as they are all about four strokes these days, and the Yamaha 2 stroke was over $7,500... eek! So much for a "cheap" motor! Outboard prices in NZ are really high, especially when we can go on-line and see just how little the yanks (for example) pay for their outboards... about half of what we do in direct NZD$ comparison!

I could feel my bank balance cringing, even more so when I then looked into some 4 stroke prices. Owwww! Over ten grand for such a small motor? Ay caramba! However, these motors are just amazing.

Just looking at the latest Suzuki 40 makes for some pretty impressive reading. Their "lean burning" system is over 30% more fuel efficient than their previous motors, which in turn are hugely more efficient than any two stroke, and tied with the motors light weight of only around 100kgs, this makes for a very good small boat motor. The starting system is...well, technical, but basically you have a key-version of suzukis push-button start they have in their 300hp motor. Also, being a double overhead cam motor it has, they say, more power and better responsiveness than other, single-cam motors. As Mark Presnall at Suzuki Marine said, it really would be the perfect motor for me. It is hard to disagree.

So, what to do, what to do?

Following the famous old Kiwi Bloke attitude of "arrr, stuff it!" I went for the four stroke. My reasoning is I think sound. It is a few thousand more than a two stroke, however the way I see it, should I decide in the future to sell the motor or unit, the resale will be higher by at least a similar margin over the two stroke motors. So (as I frantically tell myself) I will get it back, honest I will!

Dealing locally is pretty important to me, so I made a quick visit to Ken Watkinson at Matamata Marine, and in a short but rather financially traumatic few minutes, had a brand new 40hp four stroke en route for my new little boat.

Forty horses of fourstrokeness me and my new chunk of metal ....

The main reason I went with the motor I chose was that Ken is the local dealer, he has always given great service to the Matamata region, and I totally trust his experience after more years than he cares to admit in the outboard motors trade. If someone is going to fit out a boat for me, I want it to be Ken. That is probably the main reason for dropping the Parsun two-stroke option and going for a motor twice the price instead... it is pretty much worth the doubled price to have Ken standing behind the product (and doing the fit-out).

So then, the biggest factor in the package was decided on, as was the new name for the little waka....from this point on she has been known as "Sidekick".

Why Sidekick?

Well, my big boat is called Superhero, so the little boat is the Superhero's side-kick, obvious really.

Then I began looking around for the other bits and bobs to put into and onto the boat. The idea is always to keep it simple, hell it is only a small, glorified dinghy after all. Yeah, right. This is me I am talking about here, someone afflicted with all the restraint of a magpie when it comes to collecting shiny toys to line a nest (well..., boat) with.
The basic stuff was easiest, a bilge pump, cleats, handrails and nav lights are a must. Ken had all that stuff in stock anyhow, so that was a dead easy set of choices.

Being a fishing boat, the next item is probably the most indispensable... a sounder. This is a "must have", and to my mind it had to be a colour one at that, as these have way better screens and vision in daylight than the black and white models. I am never going out wide in this little jalopy, so all it needs is a basic little unit to find drop-offs and channels, and after a call to Advance Trident, I soon had a little Eagle 350C Fish Easy for the dashboard. Not the cheapest, not the dearest, just a good, mid-range little colour sounder.

A few days later, on my next trip to the big smoke, I stopped in to visit the guys at Thompson Walker to raid their sample range, and while there the guys showed me some very nice new little submersible LED lights, Aqua-brite LEDs from Jarvis Marine. So blingy... I had to have them, honestly, really I did, so five of these 6-LED units fell into my truck, along with a few of the new Platinum 30 LED banks as well, which are 400mm long strips of lights for cockpit illumination.

The long ones are to go as deck illumination under the coamings either side of the boat, and one up under the bow to light up the storage space up there... I hate having to fumble blindly in the dark for stuff like anchor ropes and tackle boxes, so the 30LED panels should light everything up VERY nicely.

The smaller clusters are to be used...well, all over the place really. I have 2 mounted under the waterline at the stern to use as bait lights, with a third (a blue one actually so I know immediately which light it is) facing for'ard on the cockpit well wall, on the same circuit so that when I have the underwater lights on, I have a cockpit light on too... this is so I do not inadvertently leave these lights on for long, battery draining, lengths of time, the for'ard facing light should be sufficient tell-tale even for a blind old coot like me.

Two others I have decided to mount forward, indeed, as far forward as I can get, right under the "chin" of the bow beside the fairlead. Why? Well, I have always been slacked off coming into shallow water or the ramp in the dark, and not being able to see exactly what is directly under the bow in front of me.

The “chin lights” are awesome... every boat should have them. It makes launching/recovering yourboat in the dark SO easy!
Using a torch gives you an inky dark , bow-shaped shadow when easing up to a boat ramp, almost always followed by a crunch as you hit something hiding in this shadow. Chin lights should, I thought, rectify this little problem. They will also be great lighting for winching in and securing the boat to the trailer when launching or recovering the boat in the dark. Fishing for trout, you do a lot of this! Waterproof chin lights, a great idea I reckon.

Next big decision was, VHF and GPS. Hmmmm. OK, where am I going to be using Sidekick mostly? On Lake Karapiro, or up the estuary at Whitianga. Frankly, neither place really requires either item. Cell phone should do for the comms, but I do have an old handheld VHF for emergencies. As for a GPS? No need at all really, however, I also have a handheld Garmin that will do just fine should I so desire, or indeed my car GPS had full Marine Charts loaded on it, and that can stick onto the inside of the boat windscreen just as easily as into my car surely?

Now all these electric gizmoes need power, which means a battery, which means a battery box, and I had seen a real doozie of one of these at the FCO store in Manukau. Quite a nifty thing it is, with a battery tester in the top cover, along with a cig plug power plug on the side, and two external anodes connected to the battery to which I can clip a solar panel charger.

While I was wandering around the shop, I saw some reasonably priced pedestal seats. Hmmmm... I had been thinking of keeping the seating very basic, just planning on using an Ice Kube ice-box from Gourocks as my seat.... with a squab on top for a little extra cushioning perhaps. However, I know me, and sooner or later I would be wanting to have something a little more comfy to give some back-support (sometimes it can take a looong time for a trout to wander past a lure), and these seats did look very comfy..... so whatthehell, I tossed that into the truck as well.

However, I am very leery of pedestal seats. Being a person of substantial girth, I have had these damn things fall over on me before (rather more to the point, had them fall over with me in them) so I made a little trip out to Allenco marine here in Matamata, a local aluminium boat builder, who in no time at all sorted me out a nice 800x400 sheet of 6mm allie, onto which we bolted the seat base.

The base for my pedestal seat, made by Allenco in Matamata

The idea was that this in turn will be stuck down to the deck of the boat to really spread the load across as much of the floor as possible, however, now I have had a chance to run the boat around on the water a little, I have decided NOT to stick the seat permanently to the floor. With me on it, that sucker don't move a millimetre, and if I do want to shift it, to allow for easier fishing or whatever, then having the ability to slide it around will be great.... and it is! I am sure will be as safe as houses. Bloody better be.

Room on the dash is pretty much non-existent, so the only place I could really see for the electric switches was on the port side of the boat . Because I have so many lights and other gizmos going into the boat, I have had two multi-switch panels installed here, one of which incorporates a cigarette power plug. This is so I can plug in all sorts of useful items, spotlights, cell phones, iPods or a car GPS (see, I had that in mind when I mentioned the GPS earlier)

I will still have the Ice Kube chilly-bin in the boat as a spare seat or footrest, having opted for their new 40l version, it makes an ideal spare seat the perfect size for the back of this little boat and, of course, where all de fish go!

Switches on the port sides are easily accessable from my seat, and the 40l Ice-cube spare seat.....

In use...

Weight and the distribution thereof is a big concern for me in this project, 4.2m is only a small boat for a guy my size, and I want to keep as much weight centred and forward as I can in the little tub. To this end, I have opted not for a single 25l fuel tank, but rather for two smaller 12.5 litre tanks. Twelve litres of fuel should be plenty to run this fuel-efficient motor around for a few hours, especially given that the bulk of the engine time will be running at dead slow idle while trolling for trout, with only short bursts of faster running.

This means that only a small tank needs to be at the back of the boat, the other tank shall be kept for'ard under the foredeck as an insurance policy. The small tank actually fits completely under the aft coaming, whereas a 25l tank protrudes some 150mm into the cockpit. The smaller tank just looks so much neater and tidier.

Now one of the important issues I could see with this little boat was that as there is no access to the foredeck, anchoring off the bow was likely to be an issue. This I resolved by deciding early on in the process to deploy and recover the anchor over the side of the boat.

To avoid having the anchor pulling directly on the side of the boat, never a safe idea, what I will do is have a bow-line running from the bow to a large carabiner or similar clip. This I will attach to a loop in the anchor rope, and then feed this further over the side, slackening the anchor line and letting the bow rope take up the strain of the anchor.

This way I can also dickey with the angle of the boat, so in a light current, should I so wish, I can have the boat hang quarter-on into the current, instead of directly nose on all the time as you do from a bow-mounted anchor.

Should the anchor be difficult to recover, rather than heaving on a heavy weight over the side of such a small and tip-able boat, I will simply use the tow-float method of lifting the anchor, attaching a large float (I have a 20l drum for'ard to do this) to the anchor rope, and then driving the boat up-current away from the anchor. This drives the float under the water, applies enormous lifting pressure to the anchor which will pop free of the bottom and rise to the surface with the float.

If you have never seen this process before, well, check it out, it is a great way to lift an anchor, it is literally no sweat! ( This is especially good if anchoring in very deep waters.)

However, this necessitates putting half-hitch loops in your anchor rope, and if there is much pressure on the anchor at any time, these half-hitches get bloody hard to undo. So, I came up with a nice little "buckle" affair that easily pops a simple loop in the anchor rope that I can safely clip onto, that still comes apart as easy as pie. Amazingly, for one of my ideas, it actually works really well!

My idea for a “Loop buckle” for putting loops into the anchor rope without knots.

One thing that was a bit of a bugger with the boat was that, as she is a 35yr old girl, her perspex windscreen really was kinda opaque, not exactly a useful, see-through item any more. Frankly, it looks like heck. What to do, what to do? Then a brainwave came to me, a brilliant idea! Why not have a full-width decal across the whole windscreen to make it look better? I mean, when I am in the boat, my head clears the screen by a good foot or so anyhow, so it is not exactly serving any use as a transparent item.

I distinctly remember having this brilliant idea, although Ken would disagree on the technicality that he actually said it first. But it was still MY idea, I just had it in his brain first so as to not overtax my brain too much. Us superheroes can do that you know. Honest.

We had to get decals on the boat to conform with the local by-laws requiring names on both sides of the boat anyhow, so maybe the same guys could do something similar for the whole windscreen?

So we had Craig from Visual Effects here in Matamata pop in to see what he could suggest. Turned out this would be no problem at all, and a few days later, Sidekick was re-named and graced with a beautiful new windscreen decal to boot! Compared to the cost of replacing the perspex, the $180 odd for the decals was well worth it, and makes the boat look just awesome!

That is one hell of a decal, replacing the not-very-clear perspex windscreen with something FAR more eye-catching!

Next came a canopy. The old canopy for the boat was....well, hopelessly inadequate. Made out of ultra-lightweight aluminium tubing, I could see me in my ham-fistedness turning the whole thing into a jumble of scrap metal and ripped 35-year old vinyl, so talking with Roger Boyles from Dr Trim ( a local Matamata guy who has his shop in Morrinsville), we soon came up with a good canopy that would use 25mm aluminium pipe with thick 3mm walls... this will make it an uber-strong little canopy, which should cope with having a gorilla like me inadvertently swing on it some time!

Well, that was all sorted out, and damn but she looked good. Next and last mission was to take her out to Lake Karapiro to give her a fang on the lake, run the motor a bit and check everything out.

Wow. What an awesome little boat she is! The choice of the four stroke motor is without doubt the best possible one. The motor is just so smooth, so quiet, it really is fantastic.

At "cruising" revs of around 4300rpm, the boat skips along at 35kph, quite fast enough in such a small boat, at 5500 rpm she does 45kph, and at full WOT of around 6000rpm, she clicks over to 50kph.... which in a small boat like Sidekick feels like darn near hyper-space speed! If you are EVER faced with the choice between a two stroke motor and one of the new four strokes, really, it is a no-brainer, ignore the extra ouches, and get the four stroke. You will never regret it.

The next revelation were the lights. We deliberately stayed out after dark so we could test the lights in the darkness, and boy, what a difference they make! The underwater LEDs at the stern light the water up like an aquarium, I am just itching to see how the jack mackerel react to these when I take her out at the beach, but the very best result is the idea of having the little "chin" lights.

Just the two small LED packs at the bow made a huge difference to the end of the trip in the dark. As we came in to the little jetty at the Horahora ski club, I flicked the lights on, and Hey Presto! everything was clear as day. No glare in the eyes but the whole jetty area was suddenly well lit.

The “chin” lights are just awesome! That is "visible light, no flash used on the camera!

Even better, when it came time to re-load the boat on the trailer, the lights made guiding the boat onto the rollers, clipping on the rope and winching her up massively easy. And once the bow nosed into the saddle at the winch, the same lights lit up the entire back of the truck, winch and trailer area. If you do not pop these little lights on any new boat you get guys, you are making an awful mistake. Having lights here is just bloody brilliant.

Oh, one other little improvement we made was to remove that stupid "Lights board" that you see mounted across the top of trailer boats so often. The idea of having to strip off this lights board every time you have to launch the boat, then bung it in the back of the Patrol (by the way, rendering the trailer un-warranted and liable to a fine if some officious type in a uniform so decides), eventually sure as eggs resulting in ripped leather upholstery too, just seems stupid to me, so I grabbed one of the clusters of waterproof LED trailer lights off Ken and had those fixed to the trailer. Way, WAY better!

On the water and doing it.... Fishfinder is easy to use and see, and the seat is on it’s plate, but not screwed down to the floor, so I can move it about the boat to suit easily. Very handy!

Cruising along on the lake... love that four stroke motor!

...and as a fishing boat.....

...she works! Note the tiny 12.5l tank, the out-of-the-way battery box, and the little warning light on the transom to let me know if the underwater lights on the stern are on.

So, there she is... Sidekick! An old girl with a face-lift she may be, but she is still a real little honey! However, with all the toys on her now, she ain't no cheap date any more...

Retail Prices:

Hull and Trailer, ex TradeMe $ 2,000
40hp 4 str Motor/Gauges/Remotes as fitted $11,500
Aqua-brite 6LED units x 5 $ 50 ea
Platinum 30 LED lights x 3 $ 80 ea
Jarvis Marine 800gph bilge pump $ 65
Stainless cleats x 3 $ 20 ea
Stainless handrails x 2 $ 30 ea
Stainless long bow handrails x 2 $ 45 ea
Pedestal seat and mount $ 210
Battery $ 175
FCO Battery Box $ 55
Battery kill switch $ 40
Colour fish finder $ 400
40l Ice Kube Ice chest $ 230
Trailer LED lights.... $ 250
Switch panels $ 120
Water separator $ 100
Decals, Visual Effects Matamata $ 230
Canopy, Dr Trim, Morrinsville $ 850
Fit-out labour and sundry parts $ 1,500

An original article written for The Fishing Website - Fishing.net.nz Ltd By Capt Asparagus 2012 Re-publishing elsewhere is prohibited Copyright Fishing.net.nz Ltd. All rights reserved.