Touring northern Australia with a tinny.

I have a mate who has spent 15 years on the road. He upgraded his Toyotas every so often and now has an 80 series. He carries the 12ft tinnie on the roof, tows a van and has the outboard fitted on to the drawbar. The only chnage he had to make when buying the Tojo was to fit heavy duty rear springs.

I would take a normal 6x4 off road trailer, fit your extra gear in it and put the boat on top of the trailer. You will suck a lot more juice with the boat on the roof due to the wind resistance.

Have a good trip.

Cheers,Willem

Always going somewhere

Yea I agree with William about extra fuel usage. With a roof rack (i didnt keep the figures) I had to Top up 2 times in 700kms. But towing my camper I got 12 lt/100km or 1000km with 25 lts left in the tank 80 series std DieselIv'e got my NEW Camper :-)))))

Hi Demzo,…unfortunately everything is a compromise. We spent 10 months on the road with a 5.5m Top Ender, on a heavy duty off road boat trailer and had a ball!!…But on our next trip we won’t tow anything, but we will put a tinny on top.

Naturally this will increase the fuel..... but look at it in the big picture …10,000ks - extra 2 to 4 lts/100 @$1/lt = $200 - $400 (bit early to be doing math) even if it’s double that, over six months its not that big a deal for the freedom of not towing.

You should be able to comfortably pack your vehicle - as long as you take the “right stuff” –we started off like the “Beverley Hill Billy’s” LOL. But after a few months on the road we got it down pretty right.

Towing the boat did prohibit us from going into a few places. But the bigger boat was excellent for the bigger waters and the offshore stuff.

If you live in Melb your welcome to catch up and go over a few maps and photos.
Email me on alex@resultsnow.com.au

Cheers
alex

We would probably leave the boat behind and hire boats or go on charters where we want to fish. Always a problem of what to do and we love fishing.

A mate of mine with a Troopy has a rusted out roof becuase he put the boat on the roof with salt water still in it when doing his trip around OZ - make sure the boat is dry as before putting it on the roof - or sell the vehicle when you get home.

Towing is a pain, especally when offroad. We towed out 12' tinnie off road once. what a pain but a beefed up trailer with proper suspension would help.

I too rid myself of my parachute Roof Rack.. They kill your econony. Sort of like George Bush in Iraq, kill anything that moves.

2 people in an 80 series? You should bleep it in, in our club people regularly travel 2A adn 2kids in a car(GQ/GU/80/100 series), no trailer on treks, but most have roofracks. Theres an old couple did 6 mths in a pathfinder...

With the boat, how often would you use it while away?? Your talking ocean and stuff, why not hire boats instead of towing one? Wouldnt cost that much to hire them when you roll into a town now and then?

Dont take 10 of everything clothes wise.. and just think about things.. If you dont take this will I miss it? How often would I have use it?

bleep like that.

Albeit out trips have only only been 4 weeks each, we went up to Cape York in 1997 with a 3.65m cartopper tinnie (pintail) and 15hp on the roof, this year we took a 3.85m explorer with a 25hp on an off road box trailer thinking we could now go wherever we wanted and again I will take a bigger boat next time as the weather really dictated when and where we could go out. I found that having the trailer did not greatly restrict where I could go on this trip and provided it is a well built one that wont break it is no hassle and provides you with lots of extra space for boating gear, fuel, water etc if you plan to camp out for a while. It all depends upon how keen fisherpeople you are, personally I hate the feeling of wishing I had my boat with me and therefore wouldn't want to leave it at home. Yes you can hire boats and for quite reasonable prices in towns such as Seisia and Weipa but personally I like to have the boat in more out of the way places.

Mate if you can't fit everything into an 80 with the middle & rear seats removed you're taking way too much gear. You should have heaps of room.
Re roof rack vs trailer it's a bit of a "six of one, half a dozen of the other" situation. Both have good and bad points. I guess there is no perfect solution.
The idea of hiring a boat will not work unless you want to restrict yourself to fishing near towns.
A good suspension system would cope with the boat up top. Vehicle will be more unstable but shouldn't be dangerous - heaps of people travel with boats up top. Will obviously depend on the terrain you tackle too. Severe side slopes could become very exciting!
Fuel consumption??? Boat up top would certainly chew a bit more but so will the trailer. Also consider that towing means more weight (the weight of the empty trailer) so fuel consumption has to increase. May not be much between the two - especially if you are light on the right foot.
Don't worry about the crocs - the chances of getting attacked are remote. More chance of getting wiped out on the road than being taken by a croc.
Good luck and safe travels.

http://www.porta-bote.com/index.html

Dezmo,

I guess that there are many others out there with more experience than mine, but I remember my own trepidation before taking that first trip and will try to help.

I have used car toppers on a Maverick (Patrol) and a diesel Hilux, a 3.7m tinny on a 6x4 behind a pajero, and two different trailered tinnies (3.9 + 4.55) behind a GU 2.8. With these rigs I have taken trips up to 2 months across the Top end - towing up from Alice and then Adelaide for the past 10 years. Assuming that fishing is a high priority on your trip - as it always has been on mine - these have been my experiences.

Dis/Advantages:

Car topper.
- Can travel almost anywhere - watch out for that tree.
- Much reduced fuel economy - especially with the petrol Maverick.
- Have to store all the boat gear in the car somewhere - including outboard, fuel safety gear etc. (unless you have sealed compartments built into the boat that can stand being inverted - which adds to the roof weight). Never really felt safe with the boat fuel tanks riding inside the car and won't put them on the roof rack.
- A real pain in the butt to put the boat into the water and pack it all away again at the end of the day (coming on dusk and mozzies eating your ankles). Count on an hour each time.
- Necessarily smaller boat which will limit use in estuaries/inshore.
- Painful to put the boat back up there when you're sunburnt and tired.
- A boat canopy is very useful on the water in the Top End. I have never seen a car topper with one fitted.
- Once saw a fairly large tinny passing through Alice on top of a Patrol (from memory), and it was travelling the right way up. Don't ask me how they got it up and down. Or why you would do it...

Box Trailer
- Can use a larger boat.
- Can store all kinds of stuff in the trailer. Be careful about sealing the trailer contents - dust is a real problem. Be aware that trailer suspension is much rougher than car. I once started out with two slabs of beer in there, and arrived with none. The cans chaffed against each other and washed the trailer contents. If you happen to be travelling the dirt track south from Glendambo and find a yellow paddle - it's mine!
- Same launch / retrieval hassles as the car topper only not so high up.
- I think that fuel economy was better with trailer than with the car topper.

Trailer boat
- Can limit access. I have towed mine over heaps of dirt roads, but I wouldn't try taking it to the Cape for example. I did drag it up to Cobourg/Gurig last year. These days, roads to most recognised fishing places in the NT are bitumen, and the dirt ones are no problem though I balked at towing from Roper Bar to Borroloola last year. Went around the highway instead.
- Can store light bulky items in the boat (tent for example).
- Carry boat fuel in the boat, not the car. Ditto for safety gear etc.
- Need to use a bracket from the outboard leg to the trailer frame to reduce stress on the boat transom. These are very common (almost universal) in the NT.
- Need to protect the trailer wiring from stone damage. I sheathed mine in garden hose.
- Need a cover for the boat to keep the dust out.
- Should use Light truck tyres on the trailer.
- You might want to provide protection from stones for the boat.
- I found that Teflon skids on the trailer become impregnated with small stones and dust and morph into very effective scrapers. I only use rollers these days.
- Pain in the butt if you need to visit a supermarket car park.
- I have only towed the trailer boats behind a Pajero and Patrol. Fuel economy was down about 25% on the 3L petrol Pajero, and almost unchanged with the 2.8L diesel Patrol - provided I stay around 110. With these boats, towing speed and wind direction has always had the biggest impact on economy.

Hiring a boat
- Typically small boats (3.7 - 4m)
- You don't know how reliable it will be.
- Typically no spares or tools in the boat.
- You will be most likely limited to certain areas by the hiring agreement.
- It usually takes several days to even start to get an idea where the fish are hiding which could get expensive.

In summary, I have never needed to travel to really remote places to get to the fish in the Top End and these days I wouldn't use anything but the trailer boat option. If you want to do mountain goat day trips just leave the boat back at camp.

Happy travels and tight lines.

Hi dezmo
i have had several trips to cape york fishing places include aracoon , princess
charlot bay, weipa, pennyfarthing, false perra head, bathurst bay, punsan bay
on most of these tyips i had friends with 4x4 wagons, boat on roof ,,the only
extra on their vehicles were polyair springs & slide out draws
I myself have a extra cab ute,& only manage to carry about 4 extra jerry
more than they can carry,We are all independant of each other,meaning
we have fridges, generators,tents,showers,our boats are from 3.4 to 3.7
tinnies all have 15hp motors,hope this can be of some asistance
Friar

Thanks for all your replies, especially those of you who took the time to provide such long responses. It helps to hear all of your experiences.

It really is a compromise. I have a 10ft tinny at home at the moment and i load up the car and give it a try for fuel economy and stability. I didnt think having the tinny on the roof would make that big a difference to the stability though.

The rust on the roof issue concerns me.

Alex B

Thanks for the offer. I am afraid i am in sydney.

Anybody else have any experiences ?

have you considered a collapsible(sp?) boat trailer?

i think i saw them at the last boat show... they go up to about 12-14 foot.
tow the thing on the trailer on the smooth stuff (where you'lll notice the extra 2l/100km, etc)... then pack up the trailer and chuck the boat on the roof when you get to the good stuff. best of both worlds...

of course you do then have the problem of where to put the folded up trailer - i think i might have seen a towbar attachment to mount them on when not in use.

anyways... it's another option.

cheers,

Kent

Cocka

Thanks for the offer. I am about 1/2 an hour from the northern beaches but am out there regularly.

I am keen to get all the advice i can. What sort of rig do you have ?