Adventure Racing
How to make a fishing boat go 90km/h
What does it take to make a run-of-the-mill fishing boat Dinghy Derby-worthy?
1 min
Dinghy Derby: Boat Explanation
Dinghy Derby: Boat Explanation - Here's everything you need to know about how a Dinghy Derby Boat works.
From the trailer, a Dinghy Derby racer might look like any other fishing dinghy. But upon closer inspection, it’s plain to see that a Dinghy Derby machine is far from your ordinary boat.
The aluminium Stacer 319 Proline serves as the blue print chassis for Dinghy Derby entrants, coming in at around $2200. And depending on which of the six classes you’re contesting the boat can be modified in a plethora of different ways.
“Like a race car, it’s all about power to weight ratio and you want to reduce weight to get that power for take-off and mid-range,” competitor and Riverland Dinghy Club member Rhys Glazbrook says.
WTF is a Dinghy Derby anyway?
2 min
Dinghy Derby 2017 By The Numbers
This could be the wildest boat race on Earth.
“For the modified classes, we buy a perfectly good Stacer, cut all of the seats out of it, pull the bottom apart, re-shape the flooring, strengthen it and then re-weld it all back in and go from there. The lighter the better.
And that’s about another $600 to $1000 there.”
Then there are the motors, which range from the base-level 15 horsepower standard outboard to a 3000cc Daihatsu and all the way up to the fully modified 30HP sports class, which propels the dinghies upwards of 90km/h. Yep, that’s no typo. Dad’s old tinnie doesn’t stand a chance.
“The 30HP Yamaha are $4800 for a brand new engine,” Rhys continues.
“Then there is almost no limit on what blokes can spend or modify, other then they are constrained to factory parts.
“And the sports class blokes, the top class, tend to have a second motor for back-up. Some guys run different motors for short and long courses, so they have different configurations on the shelf ready to bolt on.”
So when you’re not racing them, can you fish in them?
“You’d struggle to get four blokes sitting in it for a fish,” Rhys says with a laugh.
“They’re 1.2m wide and 3.1m long. Depending on which class you’re in, you’re allowed a certain number of modifications to the boat itself. And seating certainly isn’t a priority.