Quick Surtees vs Barcrusher question

 Gday,

Long time reader first time poster.

 

I've got my eye on a 5.5m Surtees Workmate and a 560C Barcrusher which will both be interstate purchases. The build of the boats are 2013 and 2010 respectively.

 

Has anyone got experience on the size difference of these boats? I know barcrusher now brands the 560 as a 610 (now 615) however i cant find the measurement specification of the 5.5m surtees.

 

I'd like to know if Surtees measurements include the bow and marlin boards.

 

I believe both boats will serve their purpose well however there is a significant increase on price of the barcrusher.

 

Thanks in advance


NORUN NOFUN's picture

Posts: 1018

Date Joined: 15/08/11

The 550 is 5.5 from tip to

Wed, 2016-09-21 12:31

The 550 is 5.5 from tip to tip, not including motor
560 is 6.1 from tip to tip, not including motor

The 550 Surtees is a quite smaller boat from memory, may only be 600mm, but still quite alot in a boat of that size, hence the price diference also as they both hold their price quite well.

Rosie's picture

Posts: 159

Date Joined: 13/01/13

Confirmed

Wed, 2016-09-21 18:33

Popped out the back with the tape measure... As norun nofun said the Workmate is 5.5m bow to stern (no motor). Sounds like you'll be in for an awesome summer, whichever boat you choose.

____________________________________________________________________________

Seek & Deploy

Posts: 2946

Date Joined: 03/03/10

talk to

Wed, 2016-09-21 21:18

 send a message to catchalittle he has a surtees but was keen on a bar crusher , and changed his mind , also ask him about the after sales sevice he got from surtees

 

 

Posts: 32

Date Joined: 13/09/16

 Thanks for the feedback

Thu, 2016-09-22 07:04

 Thanks for the feedback guys.

I agree that both boats won't be a bad choice but just wanted some proper details in regards to size.

It's a bit of a pain buying interstate as i cant physically see both boats and get a good "feel" of deck space. After looking at a wide range of boats here in Perth I am very suprised how the number on the side of a boat is not always a true representation of deck/cuddy space.

Like all buyers i just want to make sure that i get the best value for my $$. Newer boat typically means less issues with trailer corrosion and electrics which taught me alot with my old boat, however I dont want to save about 10k and regret loosing that extra space the BC may offer.

 

Rosie,

How would you say the 5.5 WM deals with heading to the west end of rotto. That probably within range of 95% of the fishing i do.

rigpig's picture

Posts: 507

Date Joined: 21/11/12

surtees & bar crusher

Thu, 2016-09-22 09:37

in my opinion the 5.5 will be ok out at the west end of Rotto. If the swell is up and the surtees has the flap to lock the water into the ballast, make sure you do that. it just stabilizes the boat better. When I'm cruising around in my 670 I lock the water in with the "bar-flap" and the ride is heaps better.

Grey Ghost's picture

Posts: 183

Date Joined: 12/10/15

Year?

Thu, 2016-09-22 16:30

Not sure what year yours is rigpig but mine is a 2010 and paintwork is not real crash hot around bung plugs and most horizontal surfaces.
As for the Bar-Flap, mine doesn't have it, and I spoke to BarCrusher and they said "it's not worth retrofitting it - it wont make much difference".
Very happy with the boat though, especially after I installed the electric anchor winch.
Surtees vs Barcrusher - nothing in them IMHO.

____________________________________________________________________________

 "Grey Ghost",  670HT Barcrusher with 150 Yamaha, based at Cockburn PBC.

Rosie's picture

Posts: 159

Date Joined: 13/01/13

Not a problem with west end

Thu, 2016-09-22 17:19

I'm often out that way. When out wide the 115HP runs the whole time we're jigging... 7 hours on the water will cost around $70. 20 knots is the comfort zone speed wise.

____________________________________________________________________________

Seek & Deploy

Posts: 4561

Date Joined: 01/02/10

 The barcrushers are

Thu, 2016-09-22 10:44

 The barcrushers are particularly hard to call because a lot of the different sizes are the same boat. New 'model', new stickers and a price rise. 

____________________________________________________________________________

Does anyone know where the love of god goes, when the waves turn the minutes to hours?

Lastchance's picture

Posts: 1272

Date Joined: 02/02/09

At least they're the wettest

Thu, 2016-09-22 14:09

At least they're the wettest boat ever built! Haha

Posts: 6265

Date Joined: 26/04/14

 I didn't want to go back out

Thu, 2016-09-22 10:57

 I didn't want to go back out on my 5.5 ali after going out in rosies surtrees. Man that boat is sweet. 

Posts: 32

Date Joined: 13/09/16

Surtees 5.5 holds its own

Thu, 2016-09-22 14:07

 Sounds like a fair bit of praise for the smaller 5.5m surtees. 

Thanks for all the feedback, not that i have completely made my decidion yet but I'm not so worried that the 5.5 will be too small anymore.

 

If only i had the room and finances to have multiple boats at home. Seems to be the only solution.

t bone's picture

Posts: 351

Date Joined: 20/04/14

:)

Fri, 2016-09-30 06:44

I had a peak at a surtees dealer in the city and was impressed with them for sure. I personaly ended up with a bar crusher thou.. Just wish it had as many stubbie holders as the surtees does :)

Posts: 104

Date Joined: 17/08/14

 I looked at both surtees &

Tue, 2016-11-08 15:20

 I looked at both surtees & bar crusher,in 2014 in my opinion the welds looked neater on surtees, also price came with all extras, deck wash ,live bait tank etc wher as barcrusher they were extras, I bought 550 hardtop if you want to have a look boat is stored in Morley.

mrwinta's picture

Posts: 457

Date Joined: 14/01/10

Pulse welding

Thu, 2016-11-17 17:17

 Unfortunatley Barcrushers 'neat' welds are not strong welds I found out- will be the same process on the Surtees.... however 3 eventfull years on and I still love my 670C BC and the ease of loading/unloading at the ramp still brings a smile to my dial- and a lot of envy from other boat ramp users....

 

____________________________________________________________________________

 NEVER PUSH YOUR GRANNY WHEN SHE'S SHAVING

Posts: 812

Date Joined: 09/10/06

 Mrwinta l remember you had

Thu, 2016-11-17 17:31

 Mrwinta l remember you had some issues from awhile ago and you didnt go into details.  Are you in a position to elaborate more on it now. 

mrwinta's picture

Posts: 457

Date Joined: 14/01/10

 Not wantying to hijack the

Sun, 2016-11-20 10:08

 Not wantying to hijack the thread or put people off bar crushers but basically at 14 months old I discovered 600mm cracks on each side of the hull on the floor to side welds, mid ship. Fortunatley for me my profesion is none distructive testing so I x-ray and eddy current tested the hull and took the results to the agent for BC who did in the end give me a new hull... It took a long time and I didn't want to jeopardize my self by saying too much hence why I didn't elaborate at thye time... I might spend some time doing a new post with the whole story- just need to wait for some weather down time at work first.. 

____________________________________________________________________________

 NEVER PUSH YOUR GRANNY WHEN SHE'S SHAVING

t bone's picture

Posts: 351

Date Joined: 20/04/14

WOW.

Sun, 2016-11-20 16:26

That would put a bit of a dampner on your views I imagine. I might have to have a bit of a closer look at mine when get home to make sure I haven't overlooked anything.

Cheers for the insight mate.

sea-kem's picture

Posts: 14833

Date Joined: 30/11/09

Sounds like lack of fusion? I

Fri, 2016-12-02 07:49

Sounds like lack of fusion? I know some ali welders run there wire speed too high which causes this, you can see it in the lapping. 

____________________________________________________________________________

Love the West!

neville hood's picture

Posts: 51

Date Joined: 26/09/11

 I have the 2010 620 and cant

Fri, 2016-12-02 07:40

 I have the 2010 620 and cant comlain too much. I thought the set out with the bigger dash and stern set up in the barcrusher was better but all probably much of a muchness apart fron sizes. One annoying problem they had was the bait tank was a 'U' shahed addon which was sparsley stitched to the back end of the boat and sikaflexed around the edges this did not distort the flat back. Consiquently the small weld let go and water would pour out of the tank. I think barcrusher has now fixed the problem and I ended up putting coved aluminium extrusion in the bottom to seal it.

telferfish's picture

Posts: 142

Date Joined: 31/05/12

My 560XS barcrusher gets run

Thu, 2016-12-08 10:29

My 560XS barcrusher gets run hard and little TLC and have spent 2500hrs testing the welds and havent broken one yet. IMO i would recomend one and thought they were bullet proof weapons but I guess like alot of things you get some good ones and some bad ones. issues ive had come up are the same thing with the bait tank and had a bung fitting that popped out with corroded rivets. still very happy with my BC but boats are sort of like kids you think your own is just awsome.

Lastchance's picture

Posts: 1272

Date Joined: 02/02/09

Haha, 2,500 hours, that's a

Fri, 2016-12-09 09:07

Haha, 2,500 hours, that's a shitload of Export cans!

Posts: 32

Date Joined: 13/09/16

An update for anyone reading this post in the future.

Tue, 2016-12-27 19:05

So after a lot of searching I settled on a 560C Bar Crusher. As mentioned both Bar Crushers and Surtees boats are similar in many ways and I feel I wouldn’t have been happy with either purchase. Keep in mind I was in the second hand market so couldn’t specify motor or electronics package so if I Surtees wit as good options popped up for a better price I may have purchased that instead… Beggars can’t be choosers.

The reasons I chose the Bar Crusher 560C:

-Was a bigger boat (6.1m LOA pre 2010) and had also more area on the dash for GPS/Sounders to be flush mounted. In saying that I like the simplistic layout of both boats and although the cuddy cabin takes up some room (In my case I will actually use it for Rotto over-nighters) being open it’s a great place to store things keeping the main deck clear.

-140HP Suzuki on the back. Not necessarily related to the BC vs Surtees question but I’m glad I waited for something with near enough the max hp. I’ve had the boat weighted up in some decent swell already and I’m glad I didn’t settle for the 115.

-Trim Tabs and Anchor Winch. Trim Tabs are a must for these deeper V boats and the anchor winch is very handy to have.

-No Nylac coating. This was originally a selling point for me with the Surtees boats, however after seeing nylac which had fuel spiltor had been rubbed against pontoons I didn’t think it was that great anymore, it just looked horrible.

-Ballast flap: the bar crusher did not come with this for the model of my boat. I think it’s great for areas with big tides to keep the boat draft to a minimal but so far I don’t feel that having it full of water would make a massive difference to the ride. I have filled the kill tank and had the boat fully loaded in decent chop but the biggest impact to ride quality has been proper trim (use of trim tabs) and adequate speed (about 5 knots faster than what I was use to)

Overall very happy with my purchase, I’ve had this boat out in great conditions and also coming home from Rotto in a 20kn SW with decent swell and at no time was the boat unpredictable (Wouldn’t recommend this for everyone). Towing it up to Lanclin and Jurien was a pleasure and launching is easy with a properly designed and fitted trailer (who would have thought...)

Before anyone comments about fiberglass vs ally, if money was no barrier I would have multiple boats for different purposes as there is always compromise.

Tom M's picture

Posts: 662

Date Joined: 22/09/15

 Look forward to hearing

Tue, 2016-12-27 19:11

 Look forward to hearing about future rides, sounds a great set up.

____________________________________________________________________________

Tom M