Stessl 580 Seahawk with Yamaha F130hp

by Steve Morgan •

Stessl boats has moved back home. With Scott James (from Horizon Boats) the new owner, Stessl is once more owned and built in South East Queensland. With decades of history for the brand in the books, it’s not surprising that Scott’s dad, the legendary Bob James, was once the foreman at the factory in one of its Queensland iterations.

And Scott is excited about the acquisition.

One of the first things I asked him, though, was about what ‘Platerix’ was.

“Platerix describes the way that we build our plate boats, which is different from other plate boats on the market,” Scott explained, “We run a 100x10mm keel down the centre, which is fundamentally the backbone of the boat. Followed by that we have 6mm stringers and then full height, transverse bulkhead frames.”

In summary, it means that they are over-engineered and designed not to break. Ever.

The boat we tested on the Tweed River and bar was a customer’s boat that has been fitted out as a serious offshore fishing boat. Although this craft boasts 1.8m bunks in the cabin and a bait station that converts to a ski pole in a matter of seconds, it’s unashamedly a ‘dad’s’ fishing boat.

With 200L of fuel under the floor, the Seahawk has a serious range – over 400km!

The 2.5m of beam make this a very stable boat.

Excess fishing rods can be stored in the rocket launchers, which are incorporated into the canopy.

Relaxn helm seats are lifted with a large storage box. The helm is comfortable on the test boat.

e had plenty of fun testing the Stessl Seahawk in the Tweed River and bar!

True to its bulletproof heritage, the cabin isn’t the most luxurious we’ve ever seen, but it does the job of keeping significant others out of the sun and weather. It’s 1.8m long, which will allow most adults to stretch out and get some sleep.

The optional bait board fits five rods, two cans and a block of IQF pills. What more could an owner want? The board also detaches and leaves a ski pole for the family days.

A port side live bait tank is plumbed to keep your livies in top condition before you send them to their doom.

There’s a deck wash to keep everything civil in the cockpit.

The footrest lets you lock yourself in when things get a little rough.

Side pockets are standard in a boat of this configuration. The Seahawk’s gunwales are high enough to be comfortable fishing offshore.

We love flush-mounted electronics at Fishing Monthly. It means that the design is modern enough to incorporate the common units used for fit-up at the time.

Yamaha’s F130 is destined to become a classic. Delivering quiet, economy and reliability, it pushed the test boat to just under 60km/h at 6000rpm. The best economy was at 4250rpm, where fuel use for distance was nearly halved.

Now that’s a lot of cockpit space – the test boat has custom synthetic floors fitted to keep it softer and quieter underfoot as well as easy to clean up.

With an impressive 2.5m beam, there’s a huge cockpit to comfortably fish three or four anglers at a time. Coupled with the factory installed vinyl flooring and deck wash, the clean-up options are easy.

The overhead rocket launchers fitted into the canopy swallow up any rods not immediately in use and the port side live well keeps your live baits in A1 condition. There’s also an underfloor kill box under the cockpit floor.

The transom design is neat, with access to the bilge and batteries through a pair of watertight hatches. Without a transom door, boarding happens up the ladder and over the transom via the duckboard.

On the water, the hull runs quietly. Sometimes this isn’t the case with plate boats, but the amount of aluminium in the Platerix hull, combined with the foam filling makes this a quiet ride.

Yamaha’s superlative F130 isn’t the maximum horsepower allowed on the hull, but it lifts the hull onto the plane with ease and at 4250rpm delivers 2.2km/L of unleaded burned. At 6000rpm the package scoots along at 59km/h, but burns fuel much less economically.

It’s the same for most outboard powered boats – ease up on the throttle and your day on the water gets much cheaper.

The real talking point for the Seahawk, though, is the price. Eyebrows were raised when the package on a twin axle trailer landed at under $60,000 – well under $60K at $56,990.

If you want more information, watch the test video on the FishingMonthly YouTube channel (by scanning the QR code hereby on your smartphone), or go to www.stessl.com.au and you can also like Stessl Boats on Facebook.

Specifications
Length: 5.8m
Beam: 2.5m
Depth: 1.45m
Hull weight: 840kg
Bottom: 4mm
Sides: 4mm
Capacity: six persons
Max:hp 150
Shaft: 25”

Performance
RPM km/h km/L
Idle 4 5
1000 8 4
2000 13 2.5
3000 23 1.9
4000 37 1.9
5000 48 1.4
6000 59 1.2