What I've found when driving this boat as opposed to the trim-sensitive bass boats is that I rarely trim the motor high on the Cape Island. In fact, most of the time, my I-Command gauges are telling me that I'm trimmed in to around 20 per cent on broken water and out to about 30 per cent when its flat. I found the hull wanted to jump around a bit if I tried to trim the boat out of the water much further, but my ride was both smooth and dry when trimmed in this way.
I trailer the new rig on one of the latest designs from Dunbier, using their new 'Easy Glider' system. It's a tandem galvanised trailer with multirollers and a self-centering system that makes driving the boat onto the trailer a cinch. Having just towed the boat from Sydney to far north Queensland for its first outing, I can say the trailer and boat towed beautifully.
All in all, Pioneer's Cape Island is an extremely well-built boat with quality fittings and workmanship obvious throughout. My
only qualm is that the rod locker lids need a foam liner underneath to stop the rattling while at sea, and I think they could easily find space for a fourth rod each side. As a design, it's the best bay boat or hybrid sports fisher I've seen on the water, and it's probably the most versatile and comfortable inshore boat I've fished from.

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What makes this boat far more attractive again is the fact that you can have a hull landed in the country for around $25,000, which is not only comparable in price to our local aluminium range, but 10-20k below other US bay boats I've looked at. Yep, the Cape Island will certainly attract the attention of many inshore and estuary sport fishers.

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