Recreational Trawler

Five guys rode jet skies from Seattle to Sitka. Does that make them trawlers? Another rowed a boat from Sitka to Seattle, is that a trawler?

WesK said:

Why would a boat owner who doesn't think of his/her boat as a "trawler" join and participate in the "Trawler Forum"? Makes no sense to me.

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Just because the recreational boating industry succumbed to marketing hype several decades ago and adopted a ridiculous term for a toy boat in an attempt to fool the more gullible buyers of these boats into thinking they were getting something they weren't, this does not invalidate the product--- the concept of a recreational cruising boat--- itself.

In 2007 John Baker and Doug Cole hoped to attract recreational cruising boat owners to their new forum, which at the time offered a vastly improved communications format than the existing popular medium for this type of boats which was the Trawlers and Trawlering (T&T) mailing list. So it would have been self-defeating to NOT use the popular term--- however inaccurate and ignorant it happens to be--- in the name of their forum.

Participating in this forum does not automatically mean that a participant buys into the bogus marketing silliness of calling cabin cruisers "trawlers." This is evidenced by the fact that some of the forum's more knowledgeable participants--- Sunchaser, Eric Henning, etc.--- have not been fooled by the marketing hype and actually know the difference between a trawler and a pleasure boat. Cabin cruiser, heavy cruiser, recreational cruiser, passagemaker, power cruiser, diesel cruiser, motor yacht.... there are a lot of names that accurately and intelligently describe what these boats are and are used for.

If a person has been sucked in by the hype and insists on calling their recreational boat a "trawler," that's fine. An individual can call his or her boat whatever they want. He or she can call it frigate or a schooner or a patrol torpedo boat or a landing craft or a purse seiner if they want to, since to them the actual meaning of a term is obviously irrelevant to whatever "thing" they want to apply it to.

Those of us who prefer to use a language accurately know better. This does not mean we don't believe a language should or does evolve. Of course it does. But this evolution is based on what makes sense. When a name has a very specific meaning and is applied to a very specific thing---- dog, cat, apple, bottle, trawler, ship---- this name does not change over time.

For example, why not call the little toy boats most of us have "ships?" It's a much grander and more noble name that "cabin cruiser," or "recreational boat" or even "trawler." If the objective is to assign the attributes of seaworthiness, strength, and reliability to our little boats then why not use a term that really conveys those attributes and call our Bayliners and Tollycraftsa and Carvers and Grand Banks "ships?" At least this term is more general, as opposed to the extremely specific term "trawler" which defines a very specific type of fishing with a vessel that uses a very specific type of fishing gear.

Nobody who knows anything about fishing would call a purse seiner or a troller or a gillnetter a "trawler," so why call a recreational pleasure boat used for cruising--- a waterborne RV if you will and about as far from serious fishing as it's possible to get--- a trawler?

It's stupid. Except, of course, to the marketing crowd who early on realized that while you can't fool all the people all of the time, you sure can fool some of the people all of the time.

Wikipedia does not define a language. In fact, it does the opposite and is the repository for all sorts of inaccuracies. It simply reflects common beliefs and usage even if these are totally inaccurate. Wikipedia is written by the very people who promote and sometimes even create this ignorance and inaccuracy, so to to use it as a definitive source is ignorance itself.

Don't get me wrong--- it's a great resource as there is a lot of useful and accurate information on it. As a professional writer and author, much of it in a field in which accuracy of language is critical, I use it---- and the internet as a whole--- a lot. But you have to have sufficient knowledge, education, and experience to know when resources like Wikipedia are suspect or wrong. Because more often most people might think, they are.

What's in a name? Cabin cruiser, heavy cruiser, recreational cruiser, passagemaker, power cruiser, diesel cruiser, motor yacht .....

I am thinking about hanging nets on our boat just so when we pass Marin up in the San Juans he will say "There goes a trawler."

THD said:

I am thinking about hanging nets on our boat just so when we pass Marin up in the San Juans he will say "There goes a trawler."

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Join the club. Some of us purists already rigged trawl nets on the rail just in case we were heckled by other trawler wannabees. Any moment, we could dispatch our nets, trawl, maybe even catch fish!

THD said:

I am thinking about hanging nets on our boat just so when we pass Marin up in the San Juans he will say "There goes a trawler."

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THD and Healhustler---- Takes a lot more than just nets to qualify as a trawler. Gillnetters and purse seiners have nets, too. I know what trawl gear looks like and how it works, so if you're going to try to fool me into thinking your cabin cruisers are trawlers you're going to have to do a lot more than just hang a net on your boat. I've attached a couple of illustrations to help you out.

Marin when people give something a name by calling it that for several decades the meaning has been established. Your argument won't float.

You can even get real estate that way by using another persons property for years. You can legally obtain property that way.

Why do you call your vehicle a car? Because the've been calling them cars forever right?

And you knew what boating forum to join right? Of course ... Trawler Forum!

Maybe the site should keep the trawler in the name but for the sake of accuracy and reality change to "recreational cruising boats and trawler Forum".

eyschulman said:

Maybe the site should keep the trawler in the name but for the sake of accuracy and reality change to "recreational cruising boats and trawler Forum".

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Nah.....

We're all fine. some are a bit sensitive to the term..

I have no problem with the forum name. Those that wish to be stiff necked about our boats not being trawlers are positing themselves directly at the collision of perception vs reality and at this point the perception of our boats being trawlers is quickly becoming reality.

Around here it usually goes like this.

"What kinda boat ya got?"
answer "a trawler"
" How's the shrimp been running?"

manyboats said:

Marin when people give something a name by calling it that for several decades the meaning has been established. Your argument won't float.

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Wrong. All it means is that a small group of people have been being ignorant for several decades. If you decide to call a cat a dog for twenty years is that going to make cats dogs from then on in the eyes of the world? Of course not. It's a stupid, simplistic position to take, sorry.

If the entire globe decided in every language to change the definition of a recreational cruising boat to the same term meaning a (usually) commercial fishing boat that uses a very specific arrangement of nets and other on-board hardware, then your statement would ring true.

But the number of people on the planet who use the English word "trawler" to describe their little toy pleasure boats is ridiculously tiny. So tiny that all it is is a collection of English-speaking boat owners who've been suckered in by a few very clever marketing types back in the later 1970s.

It's simply ignorance, or when confronted with their ignorance, stubbornness. That doesn't make it correct.

Why do you call your vehicle a car? Because the've been calling them cars forever right?

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Absolutely correct. But....... the origin of the word car as we use it today is, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, from the Anglo-French carre akin to the Old Irish and Middle Welsh carr, meaning "vehicle," which is akin to the Latin currere meaning "to run." First use of car in English was the 14th century and it has been broadly used in the English language all over the planet to describe wheeled vehicles of various types since then.

THAT is "forever." "Forever" is not the use of a name hyped up by a couple of marketing types in the 1970s trying to fool some toy boat buyers that what they were buying had the attributes of fishing boats that were about as unlike their new toy boats as a Formula 1 car is to the Radio Flyer wagon I had as a kid.

Actually a more apropos analogy would be a Kenworth 10-wheel tractor pulling a 50' frozen-fish semi-trailer compared to my Radio Flyer wagon.

Saloon...

Old deckhand said:

I have no problem with the forum name. Those that wish to be stiff necked about our boats not being trawlers are positing themselves directly at the collision of perception vs reality and at this point the perception of our boats being trawlers is quickly becoming reality.

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I actually agree with this. It's the perception among a very small number of people that their boats are something that they aren't. This very few number of people are wrong and forever will be unless the world's languages decide otherwise.

However, within that very few number of people their disillusionment, while very real to them, is not doing anyone any harm. So what if a bunch of toy boat owners call their boats "trawlers," the rest of the world knows they aren't and, perhaps even more relevant, doesn't give a hoot in hell about the toy boat owners anyway, right?

So I would never suggest changing the name of the forum. Some of the toy boat owners, like me, who know what this type of boat actually is and isn't, will continue to ignore the incorrect label and call the boats what they really are.

But I don't think any of them, including me, have any delusions of changing the minds of the people who fervently believe their boats are fishing boats. Apparently there are still folks who fervently believe the world is flat right? That, Eric, actually HAS been going on forever although for some reason the vast majority of the world's population hasn't accepted it yet. Maybe we all will, someday, if the few number of people who totally believe it continue to do so long enough.

The "trawler" thing seems like the same deal to me.

So by all means carry on calling your floating RVs fishing boats and enjoy using them which should be far more important than what they're called. After all, the world has been putting up with Americans calling their national sport "football" even though the rest of the world knows it isn't.

Well you sure told me Marin.
At least your post was longer.
But it takes very few words when you're right.

I think you're totally wrong about the number of rec trawlers. I think it's huge compared to fishing trawlers. Got my eyebrows burned saying the number of boaters w all chain was a minority. I was very wrong there and again think I'm right but ???

We're Trawler Trash and we're proud of it! It's that simple.

"Trawler" is a state-of-mind. There is no need to change this forum's title.

FlyWright said:

We're Trawler Trash and we're proud of it! It's that simple.

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:lol:

From the PO history info . I think ours is a SMALL converted long liner . I know it had a big reel from structure left below the the deck and the hole repair in deck . Before we replaced the cap rail it was obvious that a lot of bait was cut along the rail . I don't know what that makes it now . Trawler Trash might work .

FlyWright said:

We're Trawler Trash and we're proud of it! It's that simple.

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So we'd have Trawler Trash driv'in Tiwan Tubs.

TT's

Not to be mistaken for boobies


Picture withheld

Marin: Don't let the fact that I have super deluxe mattresses, numerous unnecessary comfort feature, dual A/C, lazyboy chairs, various TV's with Sat dish, Auto Pilot with remote, central vacuum, reclining helm chair, X-Men sliding board and swing set make you think that my boat isn't a serious vessel.

Marin said:

I actually agree with this. It's the perception among a very small number of people that their boats are something that they aren't. This very few number of people are wrong and forever will be unless the world's languages decide otherwise.

However, within that very few number of people their disillusionment, while very real to them, is not doing anyone any harm. So what if a bunch of toy boat owners call their boats "trawlers," the rest of the world knows they aren't and, perhaps even more relevant, doesn't give a hoot in hell about the toy boat owners anyway, right?

So I would never suggest changing the name of the forum. Some of the toy boat owners, like me, who know what this type of boat actually is and isn't, will continue to ignore the incorrect label and call the boats what they really are.

But I don't think any of them, including me, have any delusions of changing the minds of the people who fervently believe their boats are fishing boats. Apparently there are still folks who fervently believe the world is flat right? That, Eric, actually HAS been going on forever although for some reason the vast majority of the world's population hasn't accepted it yet. Maybe we all will, someday, if the few number of people who totally believe it continue to do so long enough.

The "trawler" thing seems like the same deal to me.

So by all means carry on calling your floating RVs fishing boats and enjoy using them which should be far more important than what they're called. After all, the world has been putting up with Americans calling their national sport "football" even though the rest of the world knows it isn't.

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Unconvincing

manyboats said:

I think you're totally wrong about the number of rec trawlers. I think it's huge compared to fishing trawlers.?

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Eric--- I wasn't comparing the number of fishing trawlers to the number of cabin cruisers. I was comparing the tiny number of people who incorrectly use the English term "trawler" to mean a recreational boat to the number of people on the planet who know better (which is probably 99.99999 percent of them if you include the ones who don't care about boats at all).

As to the number of trawlers compared to the number of cabin cruisers I don't have a clue. If one is inclined to believe Wikipedia, which I tend to be very skeptical of, in 2004 there were 4 million commercial fishing vessels on the planet. This number includes all the different types of commercial fishing vessels, not just trawlers. And how that number has changed since 2004 I have no clue, either. My guess would be that it's been going down.

I have no idea how many recreational cruising boats were on the planet in 2004 of the type erroneously called "trawlers" by the marketing weenies. A lot. But 4 million? I don't know. However, since the manufacturers are still cranking them out, whatever that 2004 number might have been it's probably a pretty safe bet that it's been going up since then.

Of course there are way more than 4 million recreational boats of all kinds on the planet, no question there.

Many of the alleged 4 million commercial fishing boats are trawlers, as there are several fishing methods included under the category of trawling. They all involve towed nets, but the rigs and vessel configurations used to deploy, tow, spread, and retrieve them can vary greatly. These include outrigger, beam, otter, pair, side, and stern trawlers.

In some parts of the world, or in some fisheries, trawlers are also called draggers. For example, the boats that fish for langoustines out of Scotland are called trawlers but the boats that fish for scallops in the English Channel are called draggers. In both cases, they use towed trawl nets; the ends are held apart with a deep belly between them to hold the catch as it's "scooped" in by the spread-apart net.

Trawlers range from the massive factory ships we all love to hate because of the detrimental effect their huge catches have on fish populations to the small, individually or family owned otter trawlers that fish for shrimp off our eastern and Gulf coasts.

Old deckhand said:

Unconvincing

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Oh, look, there goes the point.

Marin,,, your post are so long I just skip them. I do understand because sometimes my wife talks just to hear her head rattle.

When people ask me what kind of boat I have I tell them it's kinda like a small fishing boat without any fishing gear. And much of the time they say "oh .. You mean a trawler?". Many are calling them trawlers that don't even have a boat. The general public knows what a trawler is. Why don't you Marin?


I know kulas44 and I know many skip my long posts too. I try to make sure I've got something to say but then I fail many as I try to talk to the forum as though I was talking to someone that just started in boats. If you've ever felt that I'm talking down to you that's the reason. Many here try mostly to show how smart they are or how well connected they are by using obscure acronyms. It's more important that the newbies understand that the old salts.

Re Marin's posts I almost always skim each paragraph to see what I might miss. The most profound posts on this forum are probably made by Marin and usually not talking about boats .. but the world out there. He is an excellent observer.

kulas44 said:

Marin,,, your post are so long I just skip them. I do understand because sometimes my wife talks just to hear her head rattle.

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Kulas--- I'm curious as to why you think I have the slightest interest in whether you read my stuff or not.

I've "known" Eric since he started participating in this forum many years ago. We do not always agree on things, be it anchors or how much engine power to put in a boat. But based on what he has written over the years and the photos he has posted it is obvious to me that has more boat and boating experience, knowledge and savvy than most of the posters on this forum put together, including me.

So when he writes something, regardless of long or short it might be, I learned a long time ago that first, it is well worth reading, and second, if I wish to address what he's written, he deserves as clear and meaningful a response as I can give him.

If it's too long for the ADHD folks on this forum or is simply beyond their comprehension, that is of no concern to me. If I think a poster can only grasp a single sentence response with the complexity of See Spot Run, that's what I'll write. If I think who I am responding is deserving of something better, that's what I'll try to provide. Eric is in the latter group. You, obviously, are not.

manyboats said:

The general public knows what a trawler is. Why don't you Marin?

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My experience, not just here in the PNW (and at work) but in Europe and the UK, has been exactly the opposite. Say "trawler" and they invariably think fishing if they don't simply ask "What's that?"

Say cruising boat, or cabin cruiser or some other similar "civilian" name and they at least know what type of boat I'm talking about. Most of the time that answer satisfies them unless they actually want to know the make of the boat or see a photo.

And what are you doing, defending the bogus name "trawler?" Here I thought you were one of the smart ones who preferred the term "heavy cruiser" to the name cooked up by the marketing weenies.

Yep,,, head rattle.