The latest Stabicraft 2750 Centre Cab aluminium pontoon boat was built for TV fishing personality Ma

Stabicraft 2750 Centre Cab

It must feel pretty special to dream up your ultimate aluminium fishing boat and then have someone create it, but that’s just what The Fishing Show’s Matt Watson has done.

The Kiwi TV star’s new custom Stabicraft 2750 Centre Cab caused a stir this month, after he thought up a design and had the Invercargill boat builders turn it into a floating reality.

The 2750 Centre Cab is a truly unique pontoon boat vessel to New Zealand waters, born of the walkaround gamefishing boats Matt had fished from in Mexico.

He presented the idea to the Stabicraft aluminium pontoon boat wizards, along with the question of whether such a concept could successfully be incorporated into their trademark chambered hull designs. Answer? Yes!

The result – many months later – is the Stabicraft 2750 Centre Cab, a new hull design from the keel up, with a 2050-sized Supercab dropped on top, allowing full walkaround deck access.

It’s both enormous and stunning in blue and black paint, especially with a colour-coded 300hp Evinrude E-TEC outboard motor on the stern.

There are also some unique features not seen on other Stabicraft boats: a sliding tackle drawer in the transom box, three welded tuna tubes in the port transom, multiple 12V/USB sockets and bow seating – all standard on this new model.

MarineDeck synthetic teak also looks great underfoot and at the helm, Matt’s gone for Furuno marine electronics, including a radar on the hardtop which sits alongside a fold-down bracing frame to make life easier for his TV camera crew.

The Stabicraft team were eager to test the results of their latest project in the waters of Hell’s Gate, the notorious entrance to Foveaux Strait, and the designers came back smiling.

Stabicraft’s new product development and marketing manager Daniel Upperton said: “Coming down off those 3m greenies was so much fun. We just kept powering through them.”

The new-look hull features twin strakes at the forward section to create more lift and this directs much of the high impact water down and away from the forward chambers.

Matt Watson’s new vessel includes a highly specc’d custom fitout, but Stabicraft is currently crunching the numbers on standard hull package pricing for this new model that will surely find fans in local waters.

 

Stabicraft 2750 Centre Cab specs

MATERIAL Aluminium

TYPE Centre cab pontoon boat

LENGTH 8.4m (27.5ft)

BEAM 2.49m

DRAFT 0.6m

DEADRISE 21.5°

WEIGHT 3500kg tow weight (fully loaded)

FUEL 500lt

REC. MAX HP 350