Younger hey.!! Hmmm what exactly is the "nominal" age for this type of boating?. I'm 36 ... Am I too young for mine too? Lol
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Younger hey.!! Hmmm what exactly is the "nominal" age for this type of boating?. I'm 36 ... Am I too young for mine too? Lol
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Nope....I bought my first trawler at 34...
I just turned 50. You and I are just a bit smarter than most!!!!... But to give you an idea, I started this forum in October of 2007. My primary reason....there were no other forums out there....PERIOD! The internet was not new in 2007. It is just that the demographic for trawlers is significantly older. And those older folks had no one to guide them to a format like this. There are still people over on T&T that refuse to come over here because the format is unfamiliar....ie...they are ....uuuhhhhh......inflexible....stubborn....old?????.....
THAT is the demographic of trawler owners.
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Nope....I bought my first trawler at 34...
But to give you an idea, I started this forum in October of 2007. My primary reason....there were no other forums out there....PERIOD! The internet was not new in 2007. It is just that the demographic for trawlers is significantly older. And those older folks had no one to guide them to a format like this. There are still people over on T&T that refuse to come over here because the format is unfamiliar....ie...they are ....uuuhhhhh......inflexible....stubborn....old?????.....
THAT is the demographic of trawler owners.
One of the strengths of the forum is the older members. This forum has a high percentage of people who are actually boating regularly. Unfortunately, for many, that only happens with age bring them more time to do so. The result of the demographics of the forum is that you come here and talk about boating in most areas, and there are several who have done it and have knowledge to share. I'd also say another strength is that the forum really isn't about the type of boat (until some decide that's the topic of the month) but it's about the way the boat is used. It's about exploring by water. While everyone here has their preferences, the forum opens itself to a wide range of boats. Really, the forum is about cruising in a moderately sized powerboat.
We don't own a trawler but we do a lot of boating and much of it is in the same places others here go. This forum matches our interest in coastal and river cruising, with a little transatlantic tossed in but not much.
Perhaps a forum is best defined by what it isn't. It's not runabouts or high performance boating. It's not sailing. Ultimately topics discussed here are largely those that interest us. While we argue anchors here we don't argue sail vs. power, we don't get into how to cruise full time all year and live on a boat for $500 per month, and we don't argue about how to adjust the boat to get a better wake for jumping or how to adjust the quad outboards on the back of our boats to increase the speed from 65 knots to 70. It's also not the place that argues about dutch Yacht building vs. British or Italian or what megayacht to buy.
I'd say on the whole, although at times it's not that way, you might call this the laid back boater forum. It seems to me it's a group of people who love the water. Love to spend time on it, explore on it. People for whom boating is an important part of their life. Somehow, the word "trawler" invited thay demographic to join here. Every gathering of people in person or online has a certain culture and that's the culture of this forum as it developed.
They happen frequently for boats crossing oceans.
Cheeki Rafiki sank last year in the North Atlantic when the keel bolts failed, the keel fell off the boat, said boat capsized killing all four crew.
A UK sail boat, the Blue Pearl, sank in 2014 in the north Atlantic when the stern of the boat fell to pieces. Video the owner took showed the rudder structure in the boat moving back and forth in the stern. The crew of three people and one dog were lucky that a ship was nearby and pulled them off before the boat sank.
In the North Pacific in the last year or so, a trimaran hit something in the water which could have been debris or a whale. Major damage was done to one hull, rigging and the top of the deck. The crew survived.
This year the Rainmaker, a brand new Gunboat 55 was dismasted off NC and a cascade of problems led to the loss of the boat. The boat is still floating off of NC. The crew survived.
Last July, a J/111 sail boat was abandoned when its rudder failed making the boat uncontrolable and causing large cracks to form around the bottom rudder bearings. The crew survived.
Last June, in the Indian ocean, a boat was lost after suffering serious rudder damage that caused the boat to take on water. The crew was about to enter a life raft from the sinking boat when a ship arrived.
A Swedish boat was lost off the US when water leakage from the prop shaft could not be controlled. The leak was not supposed to have been from the seal. This was in March 2014. The crew survived.
Early this year, late last year, a large cruising boat was lost in the PNW, when the boat suffered flooding on one side. It was an older wood boat in pretty serious waves so did the boat sink because of rotten wood, bad structure, or just overwhelmed? The boat was pulled, submerged, to shore but I never heard if they figured out what failed. The crew survived.
Another sailboat in the Pacific had their rigging fail which appears to have been a structure problem with the chain plates followed by rudder failure which caused more damage to the hull. Both the holes on deck and the hull damage caused the boat to sink. The couple was rescued by other cruisers.
Today, there was a report of a sailor off western Australia that had to be rescued. Not quite sure what some of his Aussie English meant, but it holes were created in the deck during a storm, I am guessing a chain plate issue but even after the very experienced 75 year old captain made repairs water was overwhelming the pump(s) and he had to be rescued. The captain does not know where the other water was entering the boat.
Those are the ones I can think of real quick.
Later,
Dan
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ksanders
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Dan, that is GREAT information!!!
But... perhaps it's not so relevant to the question at hand.
Please follow the logic for a moment.
FF basically indicated that you gotta have a trawler to be tough enough survive at sea due to weather issues.
BAYVIEW responded that not many boats sink because they are not tough enough.
You came up with a GREAT list of boats that had sunk... Mostly sailboats.
So
How many regular boats, I call them Coastal Cruisers, Carvers, Sea Rays, Bayliners, Grand Banks, Tollycraft, etc have sunk because they could not handle the conditions their actual owners encountered.
Lots of boats sink.
I bet darn few sink because they were not "trawler tough" and got overwhelmed by the conditions.
MOST owners of coastal cruising boats are smart enough not to venture out when conditions are bad or are forecast to be bad. Weather forecasting is readily available today through a variety of sources--- VHF, on line with laptops or via digital data accounts to iPhones, iPads, etc. So it's very easy to get the weather information needed for a go-no go decision.
Plus coastal cruising by definition means that most of the time sheltered waters or harbors are within easy reach.
For the folks crossing oceans they're just out there and have to take whatever happens. Yes, there is forecasting but once you're out in the middle the best you can do is to perhaps steer around something if you have time.
Most of the boats people in forums like this have don't have the range to get into that kind of situation. People don't buy a Bayliner or a Marine Trader or a CHB with the notion of cruising the world. They might buy a Nordhavn with that kind of cruising in mind.
But that doesn't mean the typical coastal cruiser will never run into nasty conditions, particularly on the larger bodies of water that sometimes have to be crossed--- Strait of Georgia, Queen Charlotte Sound, Dixon Entrance to name a few in this corner of the world.
Weather does not always obey the forecasters, so it's possible to get caught out in conditions which, while not rivaling what one might encounter in the middle of the Atlantic or Pacific, can still be pretty bad. The ability to get away from these conditions before they arrive is, to me, a very desirable ability to have.
After 17 years of owning and cruising (on weekends and once-a-year vacations) the boat we have now, if we were going to buy a boat with the intention of cruising these waters on a more continuous basis-- say, after retirement-- we would never buy what we have today. We would not consider buying any boat that was not capable of running at least 15 knots or faster for the very reason Kevin has described.
Plus we both like going fast(er). Slow sucks.
Plus coastal cruising by definition means that most of the time sheltered waters or harbors are within easy reach.
For the folks crossing oceans they're just out there and have to take whatever happens. Yes, there is forecasting but once you're out in the middle the best you can do is to perhaps steer around something if you have time.
Most of the boats people in forums like this have don't have the range to get into that kind of situation. People don't buy a Bayliner or a Marine Trader or a CHB with the notion of cruising the world. They might buy a Nordhavn with that kind of cruising in mind.
But that doesn't mean the typical coastal cruiser will never run into nasty conditions, particularly on the larger bodies of water that sometimes have to be crossed--- Strait of Georgia, Queen Charlotte Sound, Dixon Entrance to name a few in this corner of the world.
Weather does not always obey the forecasters, so it's possible to get caught out in conditions which, while not rivaling what one might encounter in the middle of the Atlantic or Pacific, can still be pretty bad. The ability to get away from these conditions before they arrive is, to me, a very desirable ability to have.
After 17 years of owning and cruising (on weekends and once-a-year vacations) the boat we have now, if we were going to buy a boat with the intention of cruising these waters on a more continuous basis-- say, after retirement-- we would never buy what we have today. We would not consider buying any boat that was not capable of running at least 15 knots or faster for the very reason Kevin has described.
Plus we both like going fast(er). Slow sucks.
healhustler
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36! Matt you old fart!!!!
Olly:
One day you'll know what it's like to walk in the shoes of a mature Captain. Oh, I forgot. Nevermind.
roguewave
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with twin 250 HP Cummins 6BTA's I'm guessing I have more power than the boat can use...I'll try and wind it up next week when we are back on the boat and see what happens, 15 Knots? maybe 
kulas44
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I can think of a myriad of reasons why most boats are not open ocean capable. As a case in point, my 48 foot sportfisher. It was built just like every sportfisher of its size at the time. Heavily. But, it has big saloon windows that WILL NOT take a wave and stay intact. They are 1/4 inch laminated glass in a substantial aluminum frame and my boat was built with no front windows, still yet, I have zero confidence in the side windows. And they're better than most. Deck scuppers were an afterthought. It has 2 tiny little "deck drains" in the aft gunnell. About 3 inches tall by 6 inches wide. About average or better. However, when a big wave fills the cockpit the pucker factor is very high waiting on that water to drain. Done that. The deck hatches are just lids, big lids, and the water pours into the area underneath. It has 2 crash pumps and 2 1100 gph bilge pumps but they will not keep up. The only thing to do is go forward fast enough to not get pooped again until the water is gone. Not fun. If for some reason this boat was incapable of moving (could happen) and taking waves astern into the cockpit, which gets really low when full of water, it would sink. My Krogen trawler has 6, 12 inch by 4 inch deck scuppers. And the hatches are sealed/gasketed. And the gunnell is much higher. And the saloon windows are 1/2 inch laminated glass and smaller. And a water tight saloon entry door with a 12 inch high thresh hold. Waves filling the cockpit will not sink it. I guess it all depends on your own idea of "good enough". My sporty is good enough for most and probably stronger/more capable than most boats built, just not like a trawler.
Well, this opens a can of worms....
What is a trawler? :lol::lol::lol: Has that been asked before? Recently?
*** MY *** definition is that a trawler is a boat that is full displacement with a hull design and build, derived from trawler/trolling boats that allows one to cross/inhabit large open fetches of water exposed to high winds and large waves for weeks at a time.
Most trawlers on the market do not meet my definition and they would not likely have survived the rather minimal sea state that sunk the boats I mentioned. We will never really know WHAT caused most of the boats I listed to sink, but many seemed to have sunk due to structural problems that were likely due to age/material fatigue, possibly lack of maintenance, design issues that caught up the boats, etc. Most of the boats I listed HAD survived for years in the conditions that they eventually sank.
I don't think many of the so called trawlers in today's market could have survived the conditions that these boats routinely sailed.
But most of today's "trawlers" are NOT for use in the open ocean. They are coastal boats to be used in sheltered waters. Nothing wrong with that either. While the the marketing people over used the word "trawler" decades ago, it does not appear that many trawler owners think they can take their boats out in a full gale in the higher latitudes just like a trawler.
My point was that boats DO sink because of structural failures. However, I don't think that is true for many "trawlers" because they are not put into conditions that would cause these failures. Which is a good thing.
I don't think most "trawler" boats are really trawler tough, see my earlier definition of trawler, because they do not need to be since that is not the intended use of the boat. Furthermore, most "trawler" owners know the boats limitations and do not exceed those limits. 
So know we can repeat the discussion of the definition of "trawler" AND now a new term, what is "trawler tough!"
:lol:
Later,
Dan
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ksanders
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All true, yet myself and thousands of other boaters go out in the open ocean daily and don't sink.
Consider this...
The longest required open ocean crossing in the contential United States is Yakutat Alaska to Hinchinbrook entrance at 210 NM.
Yet the harbors of Whittier, Valdez and Seward sum total have well over a thousand non trailerable recreational boats. Over a thousand. Bayliners, Carvers, Sea Rays, Tollycraft, Uniflite, A myrad of TT's. Did I say over a thousand boats?
How did they get there??? How did they ever make it???
Well my friend they ventuured out in the open ocean, all on their own.
Heck, I myself even made the Gulf of Alaska crossing in a 34' Bayliner. Actually I have earned that merit badge TWICE in BAYLINERS
It does not require a passagemaker capable boat to work in the open ocean.
It only requires one to cross it.
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Actually though the examples you gave don't provide much support at all to your point. Most were sailboats. Problems were rudders and shafts. Very few instances of power boats sinking because of hull problems. Some Bertrams with delamination. Now clearly most people don't put their boats to a real test to see what it will survive as that wouldn't be smart to intentionally do. But the vast majority of time the boat will handle more than those operating it.
My boat - when I got her 15 or so years ago - had a large insulated fish hold and flake ice making machine. And a trolling valve. And a fishing cockpit. I repurposed the fish hold for storage and ditched the ice machine - am I still a trawler? ?
kulas44
Guru
I agree, most boats are "good enough" to float around in the ocean,,, for lots of years even. And most trawlers are not built that much better. As an example, the venerable KK42. Sure they have crossed oceans, but in stock form I,personally, would not do it. I would replace every window and exterior door with the "real stuff", sure they're good enough and proven so, just not good enough for me. I'd have to make lots of modifications/improvements befor crossing the big pond. YMMV
Back a couple years there was a fellow on this forum that spent quite some time with me calculating just how we might be able to outfit a duplicate classic boat to mine for primarily solar powered electric motor propulsion to Hawaii from SF Bay. We nationally and internationally contacted many electric engine, battery-type, solar energy receiver apparatus, diesel generator and other pertinent-item manufacturers/distributers for help in assembly of products required. I had low cost availability to the boat which would be gutted/stripped and outfitted. He and I worked on every scenario imaginable to pull off this ocean crossing in a relatively small, self-contained pleasure cruiser… i.e., a 1977 Tollycraft tri cabin.
Our “business” reasoning: If an inexpensive Classic Cruiser could affordably be outfitted for non-stop 2082 nm trip… then there was opportunity for electric pleasure boating in general to become a fad. He knew a San Diego news caster who could spotlight our journey and from phone discussions with equipment suppliers we felt there could/would be numerous marine equipment manufacturers/distributers who would place advertising banners on our boat as well as use our (when successful) journey in their ads. Heck – Upon landing in Hawaii… we might even have been asked onto GMA or even late night Lettermen for that matter!
Suffice it to say… no matter how we and several marine electric power manufacturers planned out the boat’s electric power opportunities for this landmark ocean trip… there simply was no feasible way to pull it off economically/assuredly.
SO - - > 2084 nm, at best averaging 4 knots ph, equals 521 hrs – 21.7 days! The reason I bring this all up in this thread is that a strong portion of our planning was for the classic Tollycraft to be correctly outfitted for withstanding any unexpected sea condition that may arise during this three week ocean journey . In addition to all the mechanical and power and creature comfort and nutrition/fluid source considerations it was the boat’s windows and its flying bridge fastenings I focused heavily upon. I know from ownership of a duplicate Tollycraft that the boat hull and general superstructure can take pretty much take what comes along. But, leave it to say… Decades ago along New England’s coast I’ve seen what happens to a pleasure boat’s windows and the bridge in really rough sea conditions… it simply tain’t pretty; it is life jeopardizing.
Happy Ocean-Travel Daze! - Art
My 44' 38,000# ACMY with 900 HP would cruise 20+ Kts or poke along happily sipping 2-3 NMPG with the bow down. I always had the option and truly never saw the benefit of small engines. Big engines can use less fuel too. It is not how much HP you have that determines fuel use but how much hP you use.
Nomad Willy
Guru
And even more importantly how much power your hull can gracefully use.
Five hundred hp on a Nordic Tyg 32 or even a 37. Not gracefully. Most trawlers are too heavy to benifit from increases in power approaching double or more. Many cruisers are .. largely because of less weight but mostly a straight run aft.
Five hundred hp on a Nordic Tyg 32 or even a 37. Not gracefully. Most trawlers are too heavy to benifit from increases in power approaching double or more. Many cruisers are .. largely because of less weight but mostly a straight run aft.
djones44
Senior Member
One paradigm I don't see examined here much is one I had in a custom pilothouse 32' (with a 300hp Cummins) and previously in a 34' Farrell (6V-53 DD). Like the 32 Nordic Tug, both capable of planing well on a single engine, especially the Farrell. With its autopilot I could economically run all day, singlehanding. With the advent of bow thrusters, the docking limitations of singles are banished.
So to take on twin engines, twin transmissions and running gear, maybe a generator, and have to crawl around and maintain them (as I did on my 37' Canoe Cove), with three diesels weighing down a planing boat that abhors weight - makes no sense to me - especially in the older boats that I can afford. The fuel bills are hundreds of dollars a day, every day - the flow meters run like you're flushing a toilet.
Nope - a single 220hp diesel in a 34' Farrell allowed me to slice through most anything, and survive financially until the next outing. But I may revert to a 32' Bayliner and a covered afterdeck, with grandkids coming - and go for the two small diesels, and then not need the bow thruster (as much).
Methinks the designation "trawler" is going to simply be seen for what it is better described as - "displacement" - and why you'd want that in choppy waters in the PNW escapes me. Rocking and rolling is not for me.
kulas44
Guru
44 feet and only 38000 lbs, thats kinda light for open ocean stuff. Thats why it gets the fuel milage it does. A KK42 is a lot heavier, but the biggest benifit is its weight carrying ability without sacrificing handling and safety. Different horses/courses.
psneeld
Guru
I know plenty who have seen the transom of carriers disappear over the horizon in no time despite the 25-30 knots they were doing...but 70 sounds high to me...even 50 would be almost unthinkable in terms of vessels that size and historical warfare.
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