what to look for in a trawler?

Fuel is readily available from here on up through SE Alaska so range is not really a consideration for us. We rarely have more than half our tankage full at any given time as it is. So speed is a lot more important to us than range. Unfortunately our current boat is set up the other way round.

Insequent said:

The Eastbay's have their place, and look fine. With 2 x 380 HP (or optional 2 x 500 HP) and just 352 gal fuel they wont go very far at their +20kn cruise speed.

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Brian, how about the Alaska range sold up your way?
Similar concept,better accommodation, nice build quality. The new 46 would do it for me. So would a used 45.

Bruce
There was a time, back when I was working full time, when one of those Alaska's would have been shortlisted for sure. But these days I have no need to rush anywhere, and at present am quite content with my OA 50 Mk 1. I'm hoping to average 50% of my time on board. Its kinda like a mobile beach cottage and a great retirement home, all comforts available.

Yes, Bruce, The Alaska 46 sedan would be my dream boat for sure.

Brian and Peter,Though Alaskas have much more power than our "trawlers", reviews say they operate well at both displacement and high speed. My reservation is the underloading of the engines at low speed, but I doubt it will be a problem for me,despite the 45ft boat with around 600 hours up, for sale in Tasmania,offered at an already reduced $359K, or offer.Must be good buying around 300K+ broker`s cut. My current spend on decks, and new covers, pretty much locks me into enjoying the improvements. I like to dream but really don`t need a bigger boat for 2 people.

I don't think that under-loading engines is anywhere near the problem, particularly for newer engines, that the popular myth would imply.

And for those with twins, if you were intend to spend a lot of time at such low rpm and load that you had difficulty in reaching a reasonable operating temperature, then the answer is to be able to run on one engine. For this you need a folding/feathering prop or a gearbox that is happy to freewheel.

Like you I am locked in, and I'm ok with that. I dream as well, but typically its '5 ft itis' and for something of much more recent build rather than much faster but shorter.

I have a Schooner 44 in Brazil that we just use the engine, but I bought last April a Saundeck Cruizer 55 to make an upgrade. I need to cruise to Brazil, 2 engines to be safe. We also need more space because soon we'll have grandsons and the family will grow up. Once we are in Brazil, I don't need 2 engines but I couldn't throw away the second one. I would like a trawler with a sail hull but it's more expencive.
We bought a Hi Star 55 and we're remaking a lot of things and installing new eletronics to be ready to our cruise.

Hull design

manyboats said:

Everyone is different but to me the hull design is the most important thing. Lots of other things enter into it but the hull is the main feature but only if you appreciate what a hull can do for you. All this talk about galley up or down, aft cockpit or no, twin or single ect ect amuses me. Give me a great hull whose lines are sweet music and I'll take whatever else comes with it ... more or less.

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Please tell me more about what hull do what. Some like fantail trawlers may react differently in sea conditions. We are looking at a fantail trawler and would like to know more about its handling characters in different sea condition .

Show us some pics and you'll surely get some opinions .. mine included. However generally speaking;

1. The boat is probably quite old as fantail sterns fell out of favor in about 1935.
2. Since she's an old boat w a FT stern she'll no doubt be narrow and probably have a rounded bottom so she'll roll a good deal.
3. She'll be very efficient up to about 15% below her hull speed.
4. She'll handle quartering seas better than most anything else.

But she could be a late model FG boat whereas the stern is a fantail mostly for style and basic cuteness so for further comments pics are basically necessary.

Two full displacement hulls, same LOA, beam, draft and displacement. One with a fantail and the other with a transom.

The fantail will be shorter on the waterline. Resistance will be lower at very low speeds (no wavemaking) but much higher at high speed (once wavemaking begins). The fantail will have less stability (less waterplane area) and probably be more "pitchy" bucking or running in a sea. If the rudder and keel are of adequate area the fantail may be more directionally stable. The transom may be pushed around by following seas, a larger rudder and deeper keel alleviate most of this. The fantail will trim by the stern more as speed increases, the transom will run flatter and have a higher speed capability. The fantail won't bang as much when backing into a wave.

A fantail is an excellent place to share wine and cigars and watch the sun go down.

Don't forget to ask the age old question," I wonder what the poor people are doing about now?".

Preparing to catch fish.

manyboats said:

Preparing to catch fish.

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I'd call that a horseshoe stern, myself.

A round stern , if it has a commercial grade rub rail , is a blessing as it can be used to turn the vessel against a piling or a sea wall.

Manyboats, Tad Roberts, Thanks for the responce. Sorry I was so vague. The FANTAIL is on yachtworld, its listed as "Trans World 50" or "Hyatt 50", beautifull boat. Any info on handling, ride, pluses an minuses. We are very attrected to the look. It does have rounded bottom like a shoal draft sailboat. I do value the opion of more experenced yachtsman, any help will be welcome. Ride characteriscts are important. But as we have not been on the water with this we can only quess as to the ride.

Rockyaj1 said:

Manyboats, Tad Roberts, Thanks for the responce. Sorry I was so vague. The FANTAIL is on yachtworld, its listed as "Trans World 50" or "Hyatt 50", beautifull boat. Any info on handling, ride, pluses an minuses. We are very attrected to the look. It does have rounded bottom like a shoal draft sailboat. I do value the opion of more experenced yachtsman, any help will be welcome. Ride characteriscts are important. But as we have not been on the water with this we can only quess as to the ride.

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Is this the boat?

1999 Hyatt Voyager 50 Trawler Power Boat For Sale - www.yachtworld.com

If so, very nice looking boat!

Now I even like that better than the Nordhavn 46. What a beautiful boat. WONDERFUL wheelhouse and view over the bow. And the styling of the wheelhouse from the outside is wonderful too. Perfect power excellent speed. And it's BEAUTIFUL. It even has the crane and dinghy where I want it .. how I want it. But for me it's 15' too big.
Some guys REALLY know how to look at boats.
And thanks for bring'in this beauty to the fore ksanders.

Yes it is and what a beauty. We have concerns as to the ride guality. It looks loke it will pitch and roll quite a bit. Cant seem to find much info about these boats. Seems to be very few around.

Rockyaj1 said:

Yes it is and what a beauty. We have concerns as to the ride guality. It looks loke it will pitch and roll quite a bit. Cant seem to find much info about these boats. Seems to be very few around.

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My concern would be ride as well. But the engine room seems to have quite a bit of space so why not add stabilizers. $40-50k but if the boat can be bought right and is as good looking in person as it is in the pictures I'd consider it.

In fact I just mentioned it to my wife. Sell the house and move aboard.

Yes it WILL roll. My Willy rolls a lot to quite a bit but I don't mind it 90% of the time and look what I get for put'in up w the roll 10% of the time. Actually I think it's less but in your shoes what if the roll it too much for you you'd be miserable aboard and in that case you'd definitely be better off w a more typical Trawler Box. With beam lacking amidships and beam almost nonexistent aft she's gonna roll.

I didn't mention it before because
A. I was so overwhelmed w the boats perfection and beauty.
B. My boat rolls. It's a part of her and most all the time I just don't notice it.

Active stabilizers are very expensive and Paravanes are kind-of a PITA. And the poles and other rigging for Paravanes would/may take a big chunk of the beauty of this boat w them.

I see she's got a 15' beam and she looks wide in photo #46. Her chines will tell a lot about this issue but I don't see good pics of her bottom. Some "rounded bottom" boats are actually fairly flat on the bottom like a ship and some are just plain round.

Here's three examples of "round" bottoms.

Pic#1 Here is my Willard and you can see that there is a small part of the bottom that is almost flat. This (I believe) gives her considerable stiffness compared to really round boats.
Pic# 2 Here is a really round bottom but it could be even rounder. Willy will "snap back" compared to this heavy rounded fish boat. By the way Spy this is the same boat that I presented and called a fantail stern earlier. Dixie ll.
Pic #3 This is a British Fisher Motorsailer. You can see she's much rounder than Willy. More like the fishboat.
A canoe is often called a round bottom boat but actually it's a flat bottom w rounded (soft) chines.
So what kind of "round" bottom has a profound effect on the nature of a boat's rolling action.

Perhaps this boat in Yacht World should be compared to a 42 Krogen.

I've lusted after these beauties for some time. But, yeah, it would be a "sell the house" type of move. I'm not there yet, just not ready to give up the land base.

WOW - I could almost live in that engine room.
She's pure class.

Eric-- I'm surprised you like it since it's got that distracting and obstructing bow rail thingy.

Actually, I'm not all that impressed with it. I feel the topsides are out of proportion to the hull (topsides too tall, hull too squat) and those oversize pilothouse windows gave the boat a Walt Disney cartoon look. The bow is too raked for the style of the boat.

Of course being a single engine boat it would never make our short list no matter what it looked like.

Just goes to show you how subjective design is, right?

Manyboats. It dose have a bottom like the pic you sent. you can see her bottom on YW, TRANS WORLD 50 shows a sistership with line drawings and on the hard.

Rockyaj1 said:

Manyboats. It dose have a bottom like the pic you sent. you can see her bottom on YW, TRANS WORLD 50 shows a sistership with line drawings and on the hard.

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I did a search on YW and can't find but on Trans World and it is a 47.

The link please.

JD said:

I did a search on YW and can't find but on Trans World and it is a 47.

The link please.

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Do a general Google search on Transworld or Transpacific Fantail 50. You'll find stuff. Such pretty boats!

http://tinyurl.com/bu5w858

ck YW trans world fantail 50

I thought it might be the Transworld Fantail you were asking about.

Marin is right, to my eye a horrible boat. It's very interesting that most find her attractive........

I think I've mentioned before that the proportions are key. The house on this boat completely overpowers the hull. She appears top heavy, a very graceful hull married to a typical huge deckhouse....wrong. Stability will be questionable at best. Every one of these I've seen appears down by the stern, they would look better if the trim was right. I'll guess the ballast is too far aft.

The stuff I've seen does not credit any designer (a bad sign) but I believe the marine Illustrator Steve Davis had something to do with this boat......His one and only design (?)

Personally I think its a great looking boat.

The pilothouse is aft far enough for some comfort, yet far enough forward to make for a decent sized salon/galley area.

She represents a classic "type B" vessel as described in Voyaging Under Power, Type B designs have the pilothouse and the one of the staterooms double stacked, the salon/galley aft, and cabins forward.

The only thing I'm not overly fond of, is a trait shared by many boats of this design in that the access to the cabins is from the pilothouse taking away from helm area space and making for a steep set of stairs down to the cabins.

This stair arrangment is unfortunately required if you are to have a full width owners cabin underneath the pilothouse. This is again, a pretty standard design.

Another way to make the design work out is to either have a companionway from the salon to the cabins along one side and a narrower master stateroom, as is popular in the Navigator yachts, or to have a center companionway with a forward master, as is popular with many of the pilothouse models including mine.

Another challenge in this type of design is engine room height, and almost all 50' pilothouse boats suffer from it. The engine room is basically beneath the salon area. You can make for a taller engine room by moving the salon deck, and the rest of the boat upwards, or you can make for a deeper hull, but there is only so much downward movement you can get. Boats that have a taller engine room are easy to spot when placed side by side with other boats in the same size, they are taller, either the whole boat, or the height difference between the salon and the pilothouse becomes very small, almost taking away the raised pilothouse aspect. Its hard to tell just how tall the engine room is in this boat because there are no visual references, but its something to consider.

In short, this is a beautiful boat, but there's only so many ways you can design the interior spaces in a 50' vessel.

Yes ksanders and they go into that quite a bit in Voyaging Under Power.

But as I've said before the hull is the boat. But then when I get a boat then I start complaining about how it's laid out. Hmmm.

I was wrong about the speed of this fantail. Her WL is too short for max speed form the overall hull length. Same fault is in my Willard and the Nordhavn 46. All would benifit from a much steeper stem. But as it is it's going to be very efficient.