G 'day everyone,

I spent a long time looking for a boat for my needs, i was after a center cab, with twins, big fuel tanks, bait station and a tower. I looked at all the top builders, both in wa and qld. I hadn't heard of moda custom boats until I saw a build thread on another site with special k - the 8m express and my interest grew.

I got in contact with shane at moda, he had a great attitide and was more then willing to have a go at what I was trying to acheive. This is my 5th boat and I wanted to build a boat that could cater for a number of applications. I mainly go marlin fishing, but also do overnighters chasing reefies and trips to the islands as well as booze cruises with family and freinds on board!

There a quite a few things I wanted, flush mounted dash, lockable cabin, common pump manifold, refigeration and freezers, tackle station, front / rear tuna tubes, flush mounted electronics, plenty of space in the center cab etc.
 
Everything with shane was so easy to discuss and as soon as I made any suggestions he came up with a plan and got it done!

The Hull is a center cab layout, big dash for flush mounting 2x 12'' screens, 400mm wide walk around, reccessed fridge and freezers under the helm seats, 2+m of deck space, plenty of bow space for casting, 30 rod holders, Taco grandslam 380 outrigger brackets, Custom outrigger layout, center mounted bait station for storage, 22 degree deadrise at transom, 2.45m beam, 600L of fuel and 100L of water and a tower on the roof with full electronics and controls. The Hull is 6mm and sides are 4mm 5083 marine ali.

I took delivery a few weeks ago and I am stoked with everything, the trailers very well built and tows so nice, the boat had come out flawless and is a real head turner!

It is 10x more stable then my last boat, a 24ft sailfish american mono, I still cannot beleive how a hull with 22 degrees of deadrise can be so stable, even with 2 up in the tower it dosen't even come close to feeling tippy.

The ride is the best I have been in for an ally boat of its size, it really blew me away. It feels so safe with a following sea with a swell rolling, it tracks straight and never ever felt like it was not in control. Side on is also awesome! Like any trailer boat a big head sea is a challenge, but it was pretty nasty coming out of the seaway in the goldy a couple of days ago and we could still acheive planning speed without too much fuss and didnt loose any teeth.

With 175 lean burn suzukis I get to 43 knots flat out spinning 6200 with half fuel and 2 pob. I would love to see how the next size up props run! Cruise speed between pretty much 20 - 30 knots is 1L per km! This suprises me so much, my last boat with a 300 yammy used about 1.5l per km! The boat will plane on one 175 and I can troll at 8 knots using about 12l on one motor or 20l combined. Im just going to troll with one, less fuel and half the hours - win win!

I would recomend shane and his boys to anyone looking at getting a top quality aluminium boat built, they are truely impressive!

The price was much less then what one in WA would have cost and no where near to the same standard of finish.

I would also like to thank garmin, there gear is incredible and i cant wait to get to use mine to its full potential! Im running 2x 7412, 2x 7407 on the tower, autopilot, gsd 26, cm599lhw 3kw tranny and a ss175h 1kw.

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