Whittley SL22 HT with 200hp Mercury 4-stroke

We must have tested more Whittley Sea Legend combinations over the years than any other boat. We’ve used them with inboard Volvo Pentas, Yamahas and Mercurys in soft and hard top configurations. We’ve done them with owners and with Whittley staff and dealers.

And you know what? Everyone loves their Whittleys. They’re an Aussie built boat with a heritage in cruisers, but are rapidly evolving as fishing rigs as well. These Sea Legend (SL) Hard Top models will tick plenty of boxes for the anglers amongst us.

Even though it’s 25hp less than the maximum allowed, the SL22 has plenty of punch, especially in the mid-range, which is what the platform is known for.

Just the typical Sovereign Island mansion in the background and Whittley’s SL22 Hard Top in the front. It’s a nice match with the Mercury 200hp V-6 4-stroke.

Even fully fuelled and loaded, the SL22 easily falls under the 3.5t weight rating for many twin-can utes.

The lid of the anchor well lifts up and away for cleaning and maintenance.

You really do need an anchor winch on a rig like this, considering that it’s not easy to access from around the cabin or through it. Who wants to pull up and anchor anyway?

There’s dedicated room for a toilet in the cabin and access is controlled with a sliding door. Like most Whittley cabins, it’s pretty plush.

The dash will hold huge electronics flush mounted, with extra room for your motor gauges. Whittley’s switches are a nice touch.

You can stash half-a-dozen rods up and out of the way in the rocket launchers. The LED lights are a nice touch with pre-dawn starts or for night ops.

Whittley’s unique forward/rear facing seat setup is great for both fishing and social reasons. There’s a pile of room under them to store gear…

… or you can add a fridge! How neat is that?

A raw water deck wash is an option, but the Sea Legends come with 40L of freshwater capacity as well with a shower at the rear.

This is neat – a cupboard under the bait station that houses the dual battery setup and all of the isolators and breakers that you’d need to access.

All Whittleys come with ‘rubber’ decking as standard. It’s a decent sized cockpit for the hull size and gunwale height isn’t a problem.

Sometimes when we instruct the boat driver to ‘not be shy’, they really do lose lots of their inhibitions.

Whittley’s new partnership with Mercury has come at a good time for the builder. Mercury’s V6 and V8 platforms are finding plenty of advocates as more and more enter the market. They say there’s no replacement for displacement, so we were keen to see how the SL22 went with a 200hp 3.4L V6 strapped on the back.

The answer? Quite nicely, thank you!

Jumping straight into the performance specs, the rig has a top speed of 67km/h at 5,850rpm. At that point, it’s burning a litre of gas for each 900m it travels. Not the most economical craft we’ve tested. But drop it back into the 4,000rpm range as your economy nearly doubles, yielding 1.6km for every litre you burn.

Couple that with the standard 210L fuel tank and there’s around 300+km of range. Plenty for 90% of keen anglers.

Subjectively, though, it’s that cruising speed punch you get when you drop the throttle that makes the grown men giggle.

The hard top itself is connected to the hull with some huge windscreens. There’s ample visibility and side windows to let the breeze flow through in the warmer days. With an optional shade extender, you can add clears to make this a fully enclosed section if that’s what you want.

From the transom forward, there’s a full coverage of Whittley’s EVA decking, which looks great and makes for much easier maintenance than the carpet it replaces. There’s a freshwater shower concealed inside the transom and a neat battery closet under the optional bait station. This allows easy access to the isolators and breakers.

The SL series also features Whittley’s quad helm seats – with a forward (higher) and rearward (lower) for the driver and passenger. There’s a mile of storage under these. The test boat used some of the space for a slide-out fridge. Luxury!

This seating arrangement does chew up a little cabin space, but if you use your rig for more than fishing, they’re very practical.

The helm has evolved to take large MFDs flush mounted. Round of applause there. There’s plenty of room to run all of your electronics as well as the digital engine gauges.

The cabin can be shut with a sliding door to gain some security and privacy.

Overall, it’s more a ‘dad’s boat’ than a ‘mum’s boat’, although we’re sure that mum will be happy with the appointments and dad will be happy with the fishing chops of this rig.

And if you have a 3.5t towing capacity ute, you’ll have no problems towing it – even if it’s fully loaded.

For more information, visit www.whittley.com.au. The test boat was supplied by Whittley Queensland Sales and it is priced at $141,962 as tested. You can watch the video review of this boat by scanning the QR code at the start of the article.

Specifications:
Overall length 6.79m
Length on trailer 7.90m
Height on trailer 2.20m (to windscreen)
Width on trailer 2.40m
Beam 2.40m
Transom deadrise 23°
Fuel 210L
Water 40L
Standard hp 150hp
Max hp 225hp
Capacity 7 persons

Performance:

RPM km/h km/L
600 3 0.8
1000 5 0.6
2000 11 0.6
3000 22 1.0
3500 32 1.6
4000 44 1.6
4500 52 1.5
5000 60 1.3
5850 67 0.9