Single vs Twin: It's Baaaaack!

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Down our way, unless you boat on Sydney Harbour or some super populated place there is no such thing as Sea Tow.
One has to be self dependant.
That means being reasonably handy around the engine room and carrying required spares.
A good Para Anchor is another asset if the water is to deep to anchor in.
Cheers
Benn
 
According to this article Single Or Twin Engines- Which Is Best? almost all commercial fishing trawlers are single engines. Why would that be if they are so deficient? Single screw craft have the prop in the center in line with the keel which protects them while all the twins i have seen kinda have the props hanging off to the side away from the protection of the keel so are obviously more vulnerabile to debris etc. And like someone said here the engine almost never is the problem its supporting systems like raw water cooling etc.

the commercial trawlers depend upon there vessels to put beans on the table and it appears they most often go with singles why? ......hummm...from what you guys have posted i could list many things like fuel economy, lower maintenence costs, prop better protected, less weight so a larger payload can be carried......must be more......less engine noise, more room in the engine room.

lets see, what are the pluses for twins? with luck if one breaks down the other will get you home????? any others???...oh yes, the broken down engine can be used for parts for the one running. That is assuming since it is the same age that the same part dosent crap out on it as well.
 
Tidahapah said:
Down our way, unless you boat on Sydney Harbour or some super populated place there is no such thing as Sea Tow.
One has to be self dependant.
That means being reasonably handy around the engine room and carrying required spares.

Cheers
Benn
Click to expand...
SeaTow is in Broken Bay, and maybe other places too. But we also have Marine Rescue (formerly Coastguard), which is/was a purely volunteer organization. Now Roads & Maritime have got their claws into it we pay a levy to support MR with every fee we pay R & M, like license fees, and R & M levies individual local MRs to make them fundraise. As we now pay for it I`d feel free to use MR if I had to, other than just to log on and off during offshore transits as we already do.I`m happy supporting MR, just wish R & M had kept their tentacles off it.
 
Bruce,
You are right. In Qld we have Marine Rescue and Volunteer Coast Guard, seperate organisations operating in different ports and both voulnteer.
Locals join the one in their home port but each is a seperate organisation.
If one is a cruiser then there is not a lot of point in joining.
They do rescues for a donation and from heresay some peoople are very stingy.
Pretty hard to get them to tow a 30 tonne boat that is a hundred or 2 miles of the coast
I do use them when coasting with the Boss.
Otherwise I keep home or a relo informed by sat phone.
HF radio is not to dependable these days but terrific for weather reports and updates
Cheers
Benn
 
bfloyd4445 said:
lets see, what are the pluses for twins? with luck if one breaks down the other will get you home
Click to expand...

That's one, no luck needed, and depending on where you are at the time that reason can trump every good reason on the planet to have a single.

But the main reason as far as I'm concerned is that multiple engines are simply a hell of a lot more fun to play with than just one.

For me that's the primary reason why I now have no interest in ever owning or operating a single engine boat. There used to be several single engine boat makes and models I would have loved to have. But now having owned a twin engine boat for 14 years there is no way I could go back to a single. It would for me just be too boring. :)
 
Larry M said:
Since we have only one engine, no get home engine, no Sea Tow to call and no redundancy, Lena and I have decided to sell Hobo. We've seen the light. NOT! But we do have 4 anchors though. :rofl:
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Larry
I couldn't help but think of you when this thread got going. Without a doubt you are at the top of TF "can do it 24/7" pyramid. Now, get back to redoing your paravanes ---------- and leave the rest of us to muddle along.
 
Floyd,
I actually know the reason fishermen go forth in single screw boats ... they don't go alone. They go usually in groups of anywhere between 2 and 5 or 6 boats. And then they have as many engines as there are boats.
The camaraderie among the fishermen is amazing. In Thorne Bay where I lived for the last 6 years every spring of course all the fishermen (about 6 on the TB floats) would attack their boats getting them fit out for the season. And w all this pressing work to do on their own boat they may spend 4 or 5 days working on another man's boat instead. I often wondered if the working hours averaged out or if the fisherman w the neediest boat got the most effort. I don't think anybody really paid any attention. They just did what needed to be done and all the boats needed a lot of work. And fishermen tend to work on fishing gear first and engines, anchor winches, stoves and other non-fishing gear came 2nd, 3rd ect ect down the line.

It's not unusual for them to leave about 4 boats strong and return w 2 or 3 boats one towing another. At times this would happen several times before they were gone from the town floats and on their favorite fishing grounds. There are Gill netters, Trollers and combination boats but they seem to seldom change from one to another.

Anyway they fish in good fishing areas and move w the fish so not very many fishermen are out far removed from the rest of the fleet totally on their own. They may fish on the west side of Noyes Island off the outer coast of Prince of Wales Island one bunch near shore and another 20 miles out. But most will be in groups about 30 min running time apart so they have a built in "tow assist". Single engine? ...... not much of a problem.

Another thing that is WAY different w the fishermen is that they are much more intimate w their boats systems that even a gearhead trawlerman. When an engine behaves in a certain way they instantly think of what came to pass 5 or 6 other times when the engine did the same thing. They have lots of history to draw on when the mechanical gets unusual.

So the fisherman travels in groups and is very intimate w his boat. They are also creatures of the traditional and the tried and proven. Nix on Rocna's. They want a Forfjord anchor like the older very experienced fishermen have. And as a result fishing boats of modern times resemble closely the fish boats of the 50s and earlier.

Armchair theories and new things don't hold much water w fishermen. They respect their elders and other successful fishermen. The methods and equipment they used are basically unquestionable.
 
manyboats said:
Floyd,
I actually know the reason fishermen go forth in single screw boats ... they don't go alone. They go usually in groups of anywhere between 2 and 5 or 6 boats. And then they have as many engines as there are boats.
The camaraderie among the fishermen is amazing.
Click to expand...

Very, very good point Eric and one that is never brought up in the "commercial guys don't use twins" argument for the superiority of singles. I would never have thought of it had you not written your post even though I've observed (and we've filmed in Charleston) the camaraderie you speak of, from here to South Carolina to Prince Edward Island to Scotland.

I'm sitting on our boat now as I write this. We're in our slip in Bellingham and it's blowing and raining, the boat's rocking and moving and the waves are bashing against the breakwater 300 feet behind us. I wouldn't want to be out there no matter how many engines we had.

We like to go to Moclips on Washington's Pacific coast during the winter. The weather is crap, the winds are strong and the waves on the beach in front of the funky motel we stay in are big. And offshore the crabbers run back and forth all day and all night pulling and resetting their pots as their hulls appear and disappear in the swells. At night their swaying floodlights are all we see a mile or more off the beach. And there is NEVER just one boat out there. At any one time there are at least two and more often it is three or four that we can see in the stretch of ocean visible from Moclips.

So I think you're right on the money with this. Unlike Joe Cruiser who takes his Nordic Tug up the Inside Passage on his own, or you in Willy coming down the Passage on your own, the commercial fishermen are out their in groups. Six boats, six engines.

Good observation and point.
 
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So, commercial fishermen aren't territorial or don't mind sharing their "hot spots"? I've been watching too much "reality" TV.
 
depends on the fishing fleet...some boats like longliners venture far and are often alone for many hundreds of miles unless the fishing is particularly hot n just one area (not too common anymore).
While some local fleets in Jersey like scallopers are usually in tighter groups...many of the fishing boats may be in the general area (somewhere off the Jersey coast, but they neither run together or at the same time.

So in some areas the fishing together might be a comfort...in many it's a very long wait till another commercial fisherman shows up to tow much of the time.
 
manyboats said:
Another thing that is WAY different w the fishermen is that they are much more intimate w their boats systems that even a gearhead trawlerman.
Click to expand...

Gasp, splutter ... be careful how you use that term. A trawlerman is a particular breed of seafarer and using that term to describe a recreational toy boat driver is an insult to generations of real seamen.

Look up the Royal Naval Patrol Service or "Harry Tate's Navy."
 
So I get this email from my son this morning...

"A bowl of Blue Bunny ice cream and the world wide web at my fingertips in the middle of the Bering Sea."

The boat is a 141 foot longliner powered by a single 3512 Cat engine putting out 1200 hp +/-. Vessel is 479 gross tons.

I'm not sure if his buddies are following along waiting to rescue him but...

How big do you think the hawser would have to be to safety tow this boat to port?

How close would two vessels have to get to safety pass this hawser in heavy seas?


:facepalm::facepalm::facepalm:
 
If you want a displacement hull go with a well built single engine and fully protected rudder and prop. The boat for twins is the cat hull with fully protected rudder and props. I have had to feel my way around to many shallow harbors and marina to like exposed props and rudders. I like twins but most are just to exposed to cruise new waters. If you pick up a line or hit bottom you are very luck not to take our both props. Twins are fun and I like to run them but don't like to pay for them. Most fisherman are cheap they don't want to spend anything more then needed to get the job done!!!
 
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Yes.

You'll see trollers that appear to be out by themselves but they mostly have friends close by.

But Crabbers in SE and northern Alaska most often are out by themselves. Longliners also I'm quite sure.

So I was telling what there was to tell to make my point on the previous post as I saw it but if there are just as many fishermen out there on their own my point is (PI) pointless. I've seen a lot of fishermen in Alaska but I've mostly been interested in their boats and not so much how they fish plus the fact that they don't fish anywhere near the docks where I see them close up. I don't know hard facts here but I'm guessing they fish somewhat close together about 75% of the fleet but that is just a guess and it only includes Alaska and British Columbia Canada. I do think it's connected to the single engine issue but perhaps mechanical intimacy is more of an element here.

Another important fact to mix in to this single engine question is that the trollers and gillnetters are very low buck operations. Most seasons they can just barely scrape together enough money to get their boats running and other fisheries are flooded w the most expensive gear money can buy like the crab fishery in western Alaska.
 
Marin said:
Very, very good point Eric and one that is never brought up in the "commercial guys don't use twins" argument for the superiority of singles. I would never have thought of it had you not written your post even though I've observed (and we've filmed in Charleston) the camaraderie you speak of, from here to South Carolina to Prince Edward Island to Scotland.

I'm sitting on our boat now as I write this. We're in our slip in Bellingham and it's blowing and raining, the boat's rocking and moving and the waves are bashing against the breakwater 300 feet behind us. I wouldn't want to be out there no matter how many engines we had.

We like to go to Moclips on Washington's Pacific coast during the winter. The weather is crap, the winds are strong and the waves on the beach in front of the funky motel we stay in are big. And offshore the crabbers run back and forth all day and all night pulling and resetting their pots as their hulls appear and disappear in the swells. At night their swaying floodlights are all we see a mile or more off the beach. And there is NEVER just one boat out there. At any one time there are at least two and more often it is three or four that we can see in the stretch of ocean visible from Moclips.

So I think you're right on the money with this. Unlike Joe Cruiser who takes his Nordic Tug up the Inside Passage on his own, or you in Willy coming down the Passage on your own, the commercial fishermen are out their in groups. Six boats, six engines.

Good observation and point.
Click to expand...

Thank you very much Marin. That makes me feel extremely good .... perhaps too good. It isn't often that we praise each other like this. Unfortunately we spend MUCH more time putting each other down and trying to make ourselves look more knowledgable or experienced. Perhaps that's why we have so many lurkers and people that usually don't post. Anyway your post is much better than mine that's already got some holes in it and I'm going to try and follow your lead Marin and invite all else to do the same. Sometimes the tomatoes are fly'in so hot and heavy it's hard to see who's getting clobbered. And why should anyone want to clobber anyone else? What's more important here correctness or how we feel about our time and effort spent here. So far it looks like correctness has been the Holly Grail.

Recently Mark, a very nice fellow said that the structure extending from the keel to the bottom of the rudder is a skeg. I promptly told him it's not and said what I thought I knew about skegs and then announced that his skeg was to be called a shoe. Just the facts mammm. It was a put down ... but not intended as such at all. But how could I have told Mark he was wrong and at the same time make him feel .. well .. not bad. First off by not actually saying he was wrong which is pure criticism and perhaps by presenting my "opinion" as a possibility and not a proclamation of fact.

So Marin your post has far more reaching possibilities and probable positive impact than my post. Thanks again.
 
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markpierce said:
So, commercial fishermen aren't territorial or don't mind sharing their "hot spots"? I've been watching too much "reality" TV.
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Fishermen pretty much have to go where the fish are. In coastal waters that confines them to fairly small areas in many cases. On PEI the lobstermen are assigned an area and they can fish only in that area. And each lobsterman or family has "their" spots within that area. But the boats are pretty close together.

Even the open water lobstermen are within "radio distance" of each other.

My friend in Hawaii who owns the longline tuna fleet, all single engine boats, sends the boats out for a month at a time and they range out many hundreds of miles from the islands. He always sends them out in pairs so they can assist each other if necessary.
 
manyboats said:
Unfortunately we spend MUCH more time putting each other down and trying to make ourselves look more knowledgable or experienced. Perhaps that's why we have so many lurkers and people that usually don't post. .
Click to expand...

Here's one ex lurker that can confirm the above. :iagree:
 
Here is a photo of my radar showing the troll fishermen near Naha Bay in SE AK. They are fishing in very close proximity, but it is because the 'opening' is in a limited area and there are a lot of trollers who fish that opening. The boats are moving in various directions at 2-3 knots. They have outrigger poles out making each boat 40 to 50 ft wide with four lines in the water to a depth of 20 fathoms. The lines are stainless steel with a 20 to 30 lb weight at the bottom and a lure every fathom. All of these boats are single engine. They are not grouped together to assist one another, but because that is where the fish are. They are competitors and filling the hold with salmon is the only goal.
 

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manyboats said:
Recently Mark, a very nice fellow said that the structure extending from the keel to the bottom of the rudder is a skeg. I promptly told him it's not and said what I thought I knew about skegs and then announced that his skeg was to be called a shoe. Just the facts mammm. It was a put down ... but not intended as such at all. But how could I have told Mark he was wrong and at the same time make him feel .. well .. not bad. First off by not actually saying he was wrong which is pure criticism and perhaps by presenting my "opinion" as a possibility and not a proclamation of fact.
Click to expand...

I had consulted with a dictionary before making that post.

Per Webster's Dictionary (page 815 of the 1970 Seventh New Collegiate version): skeg -- the stern of the keel of a ship near the sternpost; especially that part connecting the keel with the bottom of the rudderpost in a single-screw ship.

Didn't bother responding earlier, but since you brought up the issue again ...

:flowers:
 
I know I'm not going to change anyone's mind but there is only one reason commercial fishermen have one engine....economics....Same reason container ships and tankers have only one engine. It's enough to get the job done.
 
Tad Roberts said:
I know I'm not going to change anyone's mind but there is only one reason commercial fishermen have one engine....economics....Same reason container ships and tankers have only one engine. It's enough to get the job done.
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Very true. But the fact most fishing boats work within radio sight of other fishing boats if not physical sight means they more often than not have help fairly close should they need it.
 
Marin said:
My friend in Hawaii who owns the longline tuna fleet, all single engine boats, sends the boats out for a month at a time and they range out many hundreds of miles from the islands. He always sends them out in pairs so they can assist each other if necessary.
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More recreational boaters should consider having a "buddy-boat" to accompany them, particularly in dangerous or isolated waters. There will be two, three, or four engines available.
 
You're right, those commercial anglers are not alone.

When I worked as an air traffic controller in San Diego in the mid-1980's, the commercial tuna fleets would launch small general aviation single-engine (gasp!) aircraft with extended range fuel tanks. These airplanes would fly up to 8 hours over the water on a tuna spotting mission, coordinating fish location with the fleet they worked for. They would employ tactics to deceive the competing fleet airplane and boats.

At Christmas, a huge tub of tuna on ice would appear at the base of the control tower as a thanks for the help throughout the year.
 
When in no mans land I usually don't worry about the engines to much. I worry about accidents and other failures more so. Having an extra boat around is priceless.
 
Mark I looked it up and you're absolutely correct. It's amazing. I thought I knew without any doubt what a skeg was and all I knew was what I've heard others calling it. I was actually corrected by others a long time ago and assumed they knew what they were talking about as most others were calling the skeg a shoe.

I'm truly sorry and will commence calling what I thought was a shoe a skeg. If you had PMed my about it I would have posted an apology to be sure as it to some degree reflected on your status here and I clearly didn't know what I was talking about. Perhaps I got "shoe" from the fishermen??
 
funangler said:
If you want a displacement hull go with a well built single engine and fully protected rudder and prop. The boat for twins is the cat hull with fully protected rudder and props. I have had to feel my way around to many shallow harbors and marina to like exposed props and rudders. I like twins but most are just to exposed to cruise new waters. If you pick up a line or hit bottom you are very luck not to take our both props. Twins are fun and I like to run them but don't like to pay for them. Most fisherman are cheap they don't want to spend anything more then needed to get the job done!!!
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This is a trawler forum therefore most members here have trawler type boats with full keels regardless of the number of engines. My keel hangs a few inches below my props so touching bottom with my twins is not much different as with your single. I think your fear of taking out both props is not a valid argument here. Now if this were a planing boat forum, you might have something.
 
Marin said:
That's one, no luck needed, and depending on where you are at the time that reason can trump every good reason on the planet to have a single.

But the main reason as far as I'm concerned is that multiple engines are simply a hell of a lot more fun to play with than just one.

For me that's the primary reason why I now have no interest in ever owning or operating a single engine boat. There used to be several single engine boat makes and models I would have loved to have. But now having owned a twin engine boat for 14 years there is no way I could go back to a single. It would for me just be too boring. :)
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chuckle....makes sense to me Marin. I love the concept of the efficiency of the single but i do like the idea of having twins to maneuver in port. Away from the dock the quiet quiet simplicity of a single...not to mention fuel and maintenance efficiency, are awfully enticing. what bothers me is the fact that commercial fishermen prefer singles, so, they are out there every day not like us so they should know what's best. Right?
 
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manyboats said:
I was actually corrected by others a long time ago and assumed they knew what they were talking about as most others were calling the skeg a shoe.
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Not withstanding what the dictionary's definition of a skeg is, I have heard & read countless numbers of people (including boat manufacturers) that refer to the "skeg" as a sand shoe. I believe the use of "sand shoe" more aptly defines what that component's real purpose is.

(Another helpful hint from Jim Venture. :socool:
 
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