Stabi-talk
"Serious Boats For Serious Marine Activity"
Comments and stories from people who use water-craft for serious marine activity
659HT in the US
Choosing a Dive Boat - 509
Black Heart Loose Unit Sting Ray II Sea Dragon
Re-Powered Rescue US 1950HT Stabi 430 Stabi 609HT - England
"As far as I am concerned I am 200% satisfied. One cannot improve perfection, but I bet you will. The Design, workmanship and stability at speed is amazing-Finally I have found the perfect all-round boat. I have owned boats for about 50 years."
- Donald Tucker, Whangarai, Stabi-Craft 459
"Safe family boat, smooth ride, resale value-Superior Product"
- Murray Nichols, Mt Manunganui, Stabi-Craft 509 Fisher
"Stability and dry ride in adverse conditions. Comfortable ride and confidence in the safety of the hull."
- Don Brenwan, Morrinsville, Stabi-Craft 533 Fisher
"Handling in rough conditions, stability, overall performance-A great boat!"
- Paul & Josephine Uttinger, Warkworth
"Safe boat, easy to tow, light weight, easy to handle in AND out of water, safe, plenty of room inside, easy to keep clean"
- Richard Craigie, Gore, Stabi-Craft 509XR
"Excellent boat for multi-purpose use; practical, excellent handling in lumpy conditions"
- Henry Baigiet, Stabi-Craft 643HT
"So safe, so stable and it goes anywhere! These boats are the 4WD's of the marine industry"
- Matthew Reichenbach, Stabi-Craft 533
Stabi-Craft 609HT
Owner: Simon Sutch
England
Why did I decide to purchase a Kiwi boat for use over here.................................................. ?
"I went out fishing with my son on Lake Wakatipu on a Stabi a few years ago. My sister married a Kiwi down there and they live at the head of the Lake at Glenorchy. The boat's build-quality, agility and stability impressed me a lot and I always harboured a desire to have one for use in the choppy and quickly changeable North Sea. This year my dream came true and I visited the factory in Invercargill to see the Stabicraft operation and made a purchase decision, opting for the 609HT as it seemed to most fit the uses we had in mind for it. In June, the boat arrived in Felixstowe on the East Anglian coast of England having left Bluff a few weeks before and quite a few thousand miles distant.
The boat is equipped with a Yamaha 150 HPDI 2 stroke as its main power unit with a small 6HP unit "just in case". It gets to just over 50 mph pretty quickly and would give most craft on the waters around here a run for their money. It is a very stable fishing platform (cod, bass, whiting, "flatties" and other Northern Hemisphere exotica !) and of course is a very reliable platform to be on when the weather blows up. As it does up here, especially at the time of writing (December).
Aluminium boats are curently a very rare commodity in the UK with GRP and wood constructions predominating. The 609HT attracts a lot of interest in and around the Suffolk coast and invariably the comments are favourable. I suspect there will be a few more around in the years to come."
Comments by Simon Sutch
Stabi-Craft 430 (1999)
Owners - Nik and Phil Wiig
Stanmore Bay
Whangaparaoa
"You Don't Need a Big Stabi To Catch Great Fish!"
Whilst not intentional at the time, these two photos market what a stabi is as the ultimate fishing platform. I've had my boat since June 99 and have done a lot of fishing, mainly in the Hauraki Gulf but also three trips on the Kaipara Harbour NW of Auckland.
3 mins from my house. The stabi creates a lot of interest on the beach and I cannot promote it highly enough in questioning. I don't need to preach to the converted about the ride, but friends who've been out fishing with me cannot believe the ride and stability for such a little boat.Phil Wiig
US Model 1950HT (1999)
Owner - Christopher Salazar
Juneau
Alaska
"This Boat Catches Fish!"
I'm a civilian government employee, (US Coast Guard) and have been working for the USCG since 1996. Prior to that I was military member in U.S. Navy from 1988-96. One of the many jobs I did was a diver in the USN, so I saw and operated many different water craft of designs and features, but prior to that I was a commercial salmon fishermen on Kodiak Island for 11 years, and also operated many different designs of boats. So I've seen pretty much every boat out there.
I highly recommend the Stabi-Craft.
Christopher Salazar
Black Heart
Owner - Murray Conder
Power boat Services Tauranga, New Zealand
759HT
Twin Yamaha 115hp 4 strokes
Bult to survey
6mm hull
Live bait well
Capstan winch
Mudgeway trailer winch
Chemical toilet
Headlights
Cabin Lights
Stereo
3 batteries
Twin walkthrough transom
Uniden VHF radio and Depth Sounder
This highly optioned 759HT was completed for Murray and Russell Conder of Powerboat Services Tauranga in November 2002. As well as game fishing up to 50 miles off the east coast of New Zealand, the Stabi-Craft is also used for diving and exploration.
Loose Unit
It is winter in Wisconsin with temperatures of -10 degrees F. This makes for tough boating or what I call my pre boating season.Let me give you a brief summary of the fun we had on our new Stabicraft 593HT.Our Fourth of July holiday was spent on Lake Superior in the Apostle Islands, a group of 22 wilderness islands in this huge cold lake.
In mid July we traveled to Ontario to catch walleye. The stories about fish almost jumping in the boat come true in this beautiful wilderness. One member of our group caught two big Northern Pike on one hook! The first fish took the lure and the huge second pike took the first fish and paid the ultimate price. Im glad we werent fishing shark!
At the end of our Summer I talked Andrea into joining me on an adventure crossing Lake Michigan. We started our trip from Sturgeon Bay then to the Manitou Passage and then to Leland, about an 84 mile trip across big open water. No worries! The boat handled the mixed sea of 1-3 foot rollers with a 2 foot chop on top. Thank God for GPS and a compass! The real adventure started when it was time to make the return trip. Monday morning we woke to the sound of 6 foot seas beyond the Leland break wall. After a morning of hoping for a break in the weather and preparing for heavy seas we ventured out to test our Stabicraft. The boat loved the run up and down these big short frequency waves; however we were only able to make 7-9 mph. My GPS estimated a 9 hour passage and the weather forecast called for this wind to build to 40 knots through the next 12 hours with the waves building to 14 feet. With this prospect I was able to persuade Andrea that her students wouldnt miss her on the first day of school. We picked a smaller wave and turned back to Leland. I forgot to close my side window before the turn and promptly took a face full of water.
The trip back to Leland was a lark as we surfed the big waves back to our snug Leland harbor. Im sure that the boat would have survived the storm, but we wanted to make the trip back with the boat! That night we weathered the storm moored in the tight Leland marina. The storm was everything the radio advertised but we were rocked to sleep with our dogs in our secure Stabicraft. Thank you Stabicraft Crew!
Thank-you for this summers memoriesﾅI enjoy talking about Stabicraft almost as much as using one!
Tim and Andrea Pease
Sting-Ray II
Owner - Matt Watson
Stabi-Craft 580
115hp Evinrude
Purchased May 1999
Has done over 520 hours
Matt has used his 580HT Stabi-Craft off the West Coast of New Zealand for game fishing, to Great Barrier Island and Mokohinau Island for winter fishing. Now home for Sting-Ray II is Takou Bay in Northland at the northern tip of New Zealand. Matt says he has an emotional attachment to the boat and bill marks from marlin and bites from sharks are testimony to it's ability!
Sea Dragon
September 2002
Dave and Sarah at Tawaki Dive have been showing visitors the amazing underwater world of Milford Sound for five years now, using their Stabi-Craft boat to get out to the best dive sites around the fiord. Designed especially for southern waters and built in Invercargill, it therefore seemed logical that the Tawakies would return to Stabi-Craft for their next boat, a 593.
Fiordland is truly an awe-inspiring place, believe me; but to really appreciate it you have to get out there on the rainy days too, then you get to see the magnificent waterfalls and experience the freshwater layer, up to 10m deep, floating on the surface of the seawater. You need water here and get lots of it.
To handle all this wet stuff, Dave and Sarah looked no further than a Stabi-Craft. These boats, already famous for their buoyancy and stability, now offer even greater performance than the older Stabi style, due to the new generation two-pontoon design.
When I caught up with him recently, Dave told me that one of the reasons for choosing another Stabi-Craft is their flexibility; the new vessel, Sea-Dragon, has been extensively modified from the basic 593 Fishr into exactly what he needs. He finds the Stabi-Craft team friendly and helpful; theyre willing to assist with design changes, using or developing his ideas, to get the right end result; all this, and the boats built to survey for commercial use.
Ive been diving with the guys at Tawaki Dive for over 3 years, venturing out on their old Stabi many times, but I must admit that from first setting foot on Sea-Dragon it was clear that a lot of thought had gone into its design. From the bow ladder, to tank storage, theres a place for everything while allowing plenty of room for 5 divers plus crew. The gunwales are appreciably higher than the previous design giving heaps more wind protection yet still providing easy entry and exit points for diving.
Im thoroughly looking forward to many more dives in Milford Sound on board Sea-Dragon (the name, 
incidentally, comes from the spiny sea-dragons which are often spotted in Fiordland; these little orange dudes can rarely be seen elsewhere but they represent a large proportion of my underwater shots). More usually associated with the fiords are black and red corals; deep-water colonial animals living here at shallow depths and always a stunning spectacle. Less well known is the fact that sharks are also a regular sight for divers here. Spiny spotted dog-sharks and carpet sharks often come under the gaze of my lens and, if I can get down there during summer, Ive got a good chance of seeing a blue shark glide by.
Yes, Ive dived Fiordland many times and, for me, the combination of Tawaki Dives expertise and enthusiasm, with Stabicrafts design and reliability excellence, make Milford Sound one of New Zealands great dive sites you cant complain about the scenery topside either.
I certainly wish Tawaki Dive all the very best with their new baby ﾅ er ﾅ dragon.
Kevin Bone
www.tawakidive.co.nz
Re-powered Rescue Stabi's
April 2003
Pohutakawa Sea Rescue Trust (Maraetai Sea Rescue)
We have just repowered the Maraetai Rescue Boat with a Honda 225.The very first Rescue boat in NZ with one. It is performing fantasticly.The noise (what noise) is way below our expectations, as is the fuel consumption. We currently are using anywhere from 12-20Lt/hr MAX. It equates to half our fuel costs per rescue now.
It gives us all the power generation needed to run all the electronic gear with a 50 amp alternator. Our previous engine could not keep up with our current draw on a night rescue.
The boat is again transformed with extra weight, gives it a far greater trim range.Our Top speed is 39 Knots, though we try to stay at 35 Kts full power and cruise throttled back at 25 Knots.
The V-Tech gives us the get out of the hole grunt when we are towing.We had to tow a 30 ton boat out of trouble, with no problem.
Great Barrier Rescue
They have just recently repowered their boat with twin engines for safety.
These guys work in a very popular area in NZ but are the last stop if you run into trouble.They too run a Stabi-Craft, because they operate in a harsh environment and a damaged boat could jeopardise their safety. Getting it repaired is also a major problem as they have to send it back to the mainland, some 3-4 hour journey by sea ferry.
They chose this boat for its safety and low maintenance issues. This organisation use the boat in a commercial salvage situation as all their crew are qualified and are divers.
They are often involved in salvaging a lot of foreign boats who get into trouble entering NZ waters.
Great bunch of dedicated local guys....very Stabi-Crafted...at present.