Little help with Cruise Craft Reef finder 533

[Brejen]

Gidday all;
My uncle who lives up at Mudjimba on the Sunny Coast has just sold his his boat and wants to go little bigger and has been thinking bout one the Cruise craft reef finder 533

He asked if me i knew anything bout them and as i dont i thought i asked on here to see if anyone one here has had any experience with them.

So if anyone could him out with some info; all the goods and bads we'd appreciate it....

Thanks
Brett

[BM]

A very good boat. Good pedigree and well built, heavy hull.

Only drawback (if you'd call it that) is they like a bit of power behind them.

Cheers

[phewy]

Hey Brett. Had one for many years. Used it mainly for snapper fishing on PPB down here in Melbourne. After buying holiday house in east gippsland and changing fishing habits, it became too big for estuary and river use chasing bream in which we do more often than offshore, so we sold it to buy a more manageable and economical poly. It was truly a magnificent boat and served us well. It handled the rough stuff with ease and was well stable at rest. When we moved up to East Gippsland, we used it many times offshore out from Cape Conran, which can get quite wild and woolly at times. At no stage did we feel unsafe in the 533.
At one stage, at a service, the mech said the transom was getting a bit soft, due mainly to the fact the previous owner properly didn't seal the resulting holes left over after changing motors. It had plenty of fishing room and the cabin was plenty big enough for a quip nap. As Nick has pointed out, they are extremely well built, so therefore reasonably heavy. Ours had a 115hp Merc behind it which pushed it along perfectly. We never at any stage felt we needed more power. We used it quite often for skiing and tubing.
Great boat.

[Pual44]

Hi ya Brett,
I currently own one and have 4 years experience fishing off it. I fish exclusively offshore mainly at the Barwon Banks and Deep Tempest. I'll go along with what Phewy has said above, they are solid, sure footed, and do not do things unexpectedly. I love the big deck, high windscreen, and big storage pockets. I really have no complaints and can and do go just about everywhere the bigger boats go. Admittedly sometimes I would rather be in a deeper V'ed boat in the slop but realise that I am happy with the V when we fish in that same slop. Probably only disappointment is that they did not put in a decent sized live bait tank.
As far as power goes, it came with a Johnson 120 (smokey petrol guzzler) which got it going nicely, but the wife could not handle the stink so I repowered it with a Johnson 115 4 stroke which given the extra weight of about 20-30kgs I thought I had better get the xtra long leg and put a jacking plate on the transom to lift the power head a little further out of the water. I am glad I did as the xtra weight has made it a little tail heavy whilst fishing, fine while travelling. Nothing against the motor but if I knew this was going to happen I would have went for something lighter.
There have been a couple advertised lately and they look to be in pretty good nick.
I hope my feedback helps with your decisions.
Happy boating
Cheers.

[maztez]

Brett I had a look at one down here at Labrador in a dealers yard .Looked excellent ,good wide beam plenty storage as well as plenty fishing space .A test run wouldnt go amiss tho .
cheers