INVESTIGATOR 563

We all have our favourite Investigator photographs. These photos will either show off our boat to its best advantage or will trigger a memory of a happy or exciting time. I would like to invite members to share these photographs on this thread and, optionally, explain the circumstances of the photo and why it is special to you. This will also be a chance to showcase your boat to the others in the forum. You can post more than once as the occasion arises. Our forum administer has kindly lifted the file size of photographs from 75k to 2mb and image size to 1000 x 1000 pixels. Click on the thumbnail in the post to view the photo.

Great idea Ray , I’ll kick it off in the absence of any other takers.


This is our Investigator 563, Spritzig II, on our mooring in Lake Macquarie. This is a section of an oil painting by a talented local artist my wife had secretly commissioned for me as a 40th Anniversary gift last year.

Although a trailer boat, we had had a previous vessel on this mooring site since the 90s and when we switched to sail we wanted to continue to enjoy the sunsets and the quiet evenings like this or sunny Saturday afternoons, just with a coffee or nice drop of Shiraz and a few seagulls. After quietly and silently cruising along in a light nor’easter down the lake this is our second favourite thing to do with the boat.

Although it was a necessity to moor as I have physical issues that make regular trailering difficult, evenings like this offset the extra maintenance that mooring requires. Being able to stay out later and then relax or fish through a sunset followed by an unhurried row back to shore in the tender or the occasional overnight is the other part of our Investigator we enjoy.

After 15 years the boat has proved to be enduring as a moored vessel.

The best and only photos of Tikirri I have taken

Here is picture of my Investigator taken about 20 years ago. I was taking my father in law out for a day's fishing and crabbing.

In 2018,my wife and I towed our investigator, Bella Rose, 4000 Kilometers from Grafton in northern NSW to Wyndham in the north of W.A. We lived aboard for 5 weeks with all our gear and supplies, food and water, which says a lot for the volume and capacity of this great little boat. A very capable boat, she took it all in her stride and performed admirably. We did 2 wheel bearings on the trailer but only because the bearing buddies fell off on the rough roads, allowing all the dust and dirt to get in and totally destroy the bearings. So I don't recommend bearing buddies for such a treck. We are not great photographers and took few photos and many of those I took were lost forever when my phone took a unscheduled swim, the first photo here is at the jetty at Wyndham, and the other just a lunch stop off somewhere in the magnificent Kimberley. Apart from this memorable journey, we often spend 2 or 3 days or more just cruising around the Clarence river, and for me, this is what an investigator 563 is all about

Hi Eximea,

You know to invoke envy. That is a big trip for a floating caravan.

The Clarence is a magnificent waterway. (I lived at Coffs for a long time. Pre-COVID, went through Grafton a couple of times a year to visit my mother who still lives in CH).

Eximea wrote: ↑Tue Apr 28, 2020 5:16 pm In 2018,my wife and I towed our investigator, Bella Rose, 4000 Kilometers from Grafton in northern NSW to Wyndham in the north of W.A. We lived aboard for 5 weeks with all our gear and supplies, food and water, which says a lot for the volume and capacity of this great little boat. A very capable boat, she took it all in her stride and performed admirably. We did 2 wheel bearings on the trailer but only because the bearing buddies fell off on the rough roads, allowing all the dust and dirt to get in and totally destroy the bearings. So I don't recommend bearing buddies for such a tre

IMG_20200428_160610_4.jpg

ck. We are not great photographers and took few photos and many of those I took were lost forever when my phone took a unscheduled swim, the first photo here is at the jetty at Wyndham, and the other just a lunch stop off somewhere in the magnificent Kimberley. Apart from this memorable journey, we often spend 2 or 3 days or more just cruising around the Clarence river, and for me, this is what an investigator 563 is all about

IMG_20200428_160645_1~2.jpg

Wow love the photos, very inspiring!
I’ve just added the Clarence river to my “want to go” list thank you!

Great trip Eximea, love the Kimberleys and WA. We were there in 94 but went to Broome again by cruise ship two years back and are now excited by the prospect of going back, probably next year. Would love to take the Investigator but it will be our 10 ft dingy behind our little motorhome. Thanks for pics and story.

Thanks Eximea. Your boat certainly has more miles under the keel than most.
Of interest, Eximea's Investigator was the one featured in the 1985 sailboat test.

Some photos snapped from the drone this weekend on Lake Illawarra!