I caught up with Peter Watson, his dad Rod, and local marine sparky Larry Barnes on a beautiful late spring day. When Mayhem, the repowered Caribbean 26 rolled down the north ramp at Ulladulla, on the NSW south coast, it could easily have been mistaken for a brand-new boat, not one that was almost 10 years old.
As we wandered around the boat on its trailer, Peter filled me in on the story.
"I spotted the boat in Trade-A-Boat in late 2003 and was pleased to find that it was garaged almost locally," said Peter.
"The Caribbean 26 filled the bill for me, being bigger than the Haines Hunter 24 I'd been using for the past two years.
"The boat had been trailed and garaged all its life, so the hull and the MerCruiser legs were as good as new.
"I had a medium-term plan to replace what I knew would be thirsty petrol engines with a pair of diesels."
Peter bought the boat and used it for a year, checking out the possible diesel options all the while. After discussing the repower with a number of marine engineers, Peter and Rod reckoned a pair of Volvo Penta D3 duo-prop diesels would do the job perfectly.
But who to entrust with the work?
Duncan Barclay of Barclay's Workshop, located in Milton, NSW, inspired Peter and Rod with the most confidence. Although this would probably be the first D3/Caribbean 26 repower done in Australia, Duncan Barclay was confident the job could be executed successfully and that the finished boat would meet Peter's need for more performance and enhanced economy. "We decided to do the job properly," said Peter. "So we organised for Larry Barnes to completely rewire the boat from stem to stern.
"Larry also fitted sealed batteries inside the boat, replaced the existing fuse panel with a circuit breaker unit, fitted matching 27-meg and VHF radios and new instruments into a custom-designed flying bridge console.
"Larry is a detail fanatic and the rewire job is much better than the factory original layout," Peter said.
Out with the old, in with the new
Peter delivered Mayhem to Barclay's Workshop and a month later picked it up for its sea trials. In the intervening period, much hard work went on in Milton.
"We knew from our assessment of the Caribbean 26 that the Volvos would fit neatly, with some changes to the engine bearers," said Duncan Barclay.
"We'd also worked out that we could retain the existing bilge sleeve.
"The problem we had to overcome was caused by the transom angle that would not accommodate the Seastar power steering ram, so we settled on a 'power bulge' in the transom."
I checked out the bulge, and found that it had been faired in well enough to look like a moulding on the original hull. "The original MerCruiser cut-outs needed only minor modifications before accepting the Volvo engines," said Duncan Barclay.
"We modified the original tank to accept a fuel return system and we fitted twin Raycor filters.
"We soundproofed the engine cover and changed the transom cover to a removable design, with the service items accessible right behind it.
"We also added a stainless drip moulding to the transom cover, so that any water that spills onto the engine cover can't run over the engines - it gets channelled into the bilge instead.
"Although there are twin bilge pumps we adopted a dry bilge system to reduce the likelihood of rust forming on the engines.
"We also customised flush-out drums that Rod Watson picked up in Sydney, cutting them so they could easily be flushed out after a day's fishing," said Duncan.
Barclay's Workshop designed a custom dashboard out of Perspex-like material to take the new instruments and the radios in the flybridge. Larry Barnes worked-in with Barclay's timing, fitting the three new batteries and circuit breaker panel. I checked out his handiwork and found the wiring as neat as anyone could want. I loved the matching curves in the wiring behind the circuit breaker fascia and the neat layout of the battery cables.
The boat for most reasons
Peter, Rod and Larry took me for a quick spin out to sea from Ulladulla, giving me the opportunity to test whether the performance of the 26ft flyer lived up to the owner's claims.
Duncan Barclay reckoned the Caribbean got up to full speed in around 10 seconds and we'd agree with that. From a dead stop Peter opened the throttles and in no time we were hammering the small chop at more than 30kt.
The power drop from the MerCruisers' twin 190hp outputs to the Volvos' twin 160hp wasn't noticeable, according to Peter, who reckons the significant increase in torque in the low and mid-range makes up for the drop in power and ensures Mayhem maintains speed without effort.
With wide-open throttles, the Volvo engines' trip computers indicate a fuel drain of 35lt/h per engine. Pegged back to a respectable 2000rpm the engines drink at half that rate. Trolling speed sees the engines idling along, sipping away at 3.5lt/h each.
The noise levels of the engines were relatively low when running at 2000rpm.
There was no evidence of prop 'walk' with the counter-rotating props and Peter Watson said that this was one of his first favourable impressions when the repowered boat hit the water.
"I've now got the best of both worlds," he said, "because I've actually increased performance while significantly reducing fuel consumption.
"That's important when we're regularly running up to 30 miles offshore."
Peter could be onto something with the diesel-powered Caribbean. This high-performance, offshore gamefishing boat is still trailerable, albeit with an over-width permit because of its three-metre beam. That means no mooring, slipping or anti-fouling costs.
It also means Peter, his dad Rod, and his brothers Mike and Brad can go fishing where and when they like, without the need to cruise for hours to get there. They simply hitch Mayhem behind the Ford F250 diesel ute and tow it to any destination they like. The big Ford makes light work of the 3.5-tonne load behind it.
The Watsons can launch, fish, retrieve the boat and trailer it home all in a weekend, doing in a two-day trip what a larger vessel would need five days or more to complete.
D3-160
Propshaft (kW/hp) 115/156
Crankshaft (kW/hp) 120/163
Rated rpm 4000
No of cyl 5
Displacement 2.4lt
Published : Thursday, 1 December 2005
Issue : December 2005