Taiwan Trawlers ------some HISTORY
Here is a compilation of information on Taiwan Trawlers that I compiled a number of years ago. A bit long but good info.
Hays, and all Chubbies,
You want info abt. CHB?
I have taken the liberty of putting together a few postings from the CHB List relative to the history of CHB.
This is kinda long.
Enjoy.
By the way I got my boat in Nov. of 1985 in Clearwater,Fla. We know each other well-----in the biblical sense!!!!
CCC
M/V CC RIDER
1981 CHB 45 P/H
CHARLES and PAT CULOTTA
Patterson, La.
----- Original Message -----
Subject: Re: C&L trawler
>
> > I recently purchased a 1977 37' foot C&L trawler and in the survey
> > it
said
> it
> > was built in Taiwan, unfortunately I cannot find much info on this
boat...
> > I was told C&L was the Importer not the builder and now C&L is out
> > of business.
>
> Lorrie,
> Here is a run down on who built what!!
> Well, what us CHB owners ," Chubbies" have come up with over the years.
> This is not necessarily an exhaustive list.
> We have a CHB 45 P/H 1981 .
>
> Chung Hwa Boat Co. Also Chein Hwa Boat Co a " relative"
>
> We have a CHB owners group
chb@yahoogroups.com For more discussion on
> the pedigree ck. the CHB archives under "
> History".
> A year or so ago I found a web site for CHB and as far as I know they
> are still in business but don't sell boats under their name. They
> build for others.
> According to the literature and sales brochures that came with my
> boat their add was:
> 10 Hang Chou S. Road , Sec.1
> Taipei, Taiwan
> Phone 886 2 321 3337
> I also have two key chains with that info on them. Did have a
> couple
more
> but gave them to other Chubbies.
>
>
> CHB (obvious)
> > Northsea (Curlie-Qs at the front of the hand rails, no?) PT (yep,
> > S/Ns start "CHB". Know of one 38ft in Everett) Puget Trawler
> > Southern Cross (Australia?) La Paz (you So. Cal types may know/see
> > these) Marine Trader Hampton (Fu Hwa) Present Ponderosa Senator
> > Heritage (Chien Hwa) Escort C&L
> 1) 34' CHB, an aft cabin , circa 1985
> 2) 36' Performance/Chung Hwa PT-36, a sportsfisherman , Norek design,
> circa 1989
> 3) 38' CHB-38, a double cabin & sedan , circa 1985
> 4) 38' Performance/ Chung Hwa, an aft cabin & sedan, circa 1980
> 5) 38' Performance/ Chung Hwa, a sundeck, Norek design, circa 1989
> 6) 41' CHB-41, an aft cabin, circa 1985
> 7) 41' CHB-41, a sedan, circa 1980
> 8) 41' Performance/ Chung Hwa 41, an aft cabin & sedan, circa 1980
> 9) 42' Performance/ Chung Hwa PT-42, a sundeck with cockpit, Norek
design,
> circa 1989
> 10) 45' CHB-45 , a pilothouse, Monk design, circa 1980
> 11) 45' CHB-45 , two different sedans, circa 1985
>
>> The Eurobanker is very close to a Marine Trader,
> Chien HWA, or other Chinese trawlers of this class and price range.
>
> On close inspection, they are the same family of boat.
>
> I do not know who imported these boats to Europe, but for all
> practical purposes think of them as Marine Traders with a different
> name for the European market.
>
> My friend in Belgium has one (36') and it only took a few minutes
> inspection to figure out that she was built by the same Chinese folks
> who build MT, CHB, Albin, etc.
>
My wife and I have just purchased a very nice 1979/80 28' Polarus CHB
> Trawler.
> This model is extremly rare.....so I am told. The is only one other
> one on the Canadian West Coast. I would like learn more about this
> model and would love to chat with any group member who can share info
> on this model.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Brooke in Victoria B.C. Canada
Additional note:
Manufacture code "WCR" was assigned by the USCG to "Yacht Building Company of Chung, Taipei, Taiwan" from 1976 until 1992. This sounds suspiciously like one of the Chung Hwa cousins and might fit your "xxR" code, but that's just a guess.
Keith
A hull id number that begins with CBK35 would indicate a 35 foot model made by Chien Hwa Boat. That was the CHB yard in Taipei on the north end of Taiwan, but I'm told it's now gone. A hull id that begins with "CHB"
indicates Chung Hwa Boat, on the south end of Taiwan, where a wide variety
of boats are still made Those are not the only two codes used with the
various Taiwan CHB cousins, though. The US Coast Guard database of manufacturer codes is pretty weak about this Taiwan stuff and shows the CBK address as that of the last known US importer rather than any relevant Taiwan info.
Keith Johnson,
You boat is a 35 foot CHIEN HWA built by Chein Hwa Boat Mfg Co.,Taipei, Taiwan and finished August, 1983 hull #108
The CHB (Chung Hwa Boat) and the CBK (Chein Hwa Boat) are very close cousins even though the CHB yards were in Kiaoshung at the southern end of Taiwan and the Chein Hwa yard is in northern Taiwan. BTW CBK is the builder of Kady Krogen yachts!
Any of our CHB historians/pedigree experts care to jump in here on this one?
Ron & Marilyn Sallee
snip......................Does anyone know the history of the "Present"
brand trawlers. I know they
> were built in Asia but that is about all I know. There is no
> information available on the net. Any insight into their history and
> any known design issues would be greatly appreciated.
> -----------------
>
> Hi, Phil. The Present trawlers were made by the Chung Hwa or Chien Hwa
yards in Taiwan and were therefore CHBs under a different name. In the 70's the manufacturer allowed each importer to call their boats whatever "brand"
name suited their fancy. Hence you will find CHBs called North Sea, La Paz, Southern Cross, PT, and Present, to name just the ones that come to mind at the "present" <G> time.
> We have a BB and also a website dedicated to CHBs and their kissin'
cousins. There are at least 3 Present 42s (2 42s located in Texas and a 46 in Florida) in the group.
You can find us at:
>
> Website:
>
http://communities.msn.com/CHBOwners
>
Welcome aboard, David.
Rick Megenity already directed you to the CHB website for some of the historical info you asked about, so I won't plow that furrow again.
Yes, Chien Hwa and Chung Hwa are the 2 yards that built CHBs back in the 70s and 80s. The yards were owned by the same person. Each boat is different in some significant and insignificant ways from its sisterships, even the ones built the same year. There are three 1978 34 Chung Hwa tri-cabs like ours in the Pacific NW that I have personal knowledge of that are so different that one would think they were built in different yards and or years. I like to joke that the way the boat came out depended on which Chinese family moved aboard to finish the boat once the running gear was installed, but this may be truer than not.
You will also discover that CHBs are known by many names: Southern Cross, La Paz, PT, North Sea, just to name a few. Early in the production run the yards allowed each major importer to brand the boat with whatever name they wished. I think it was in the late 70's that all became just simply "CHB".
I look forward to talking with you on this BB.
Andy Clark
I have seen many advertisments for a "Roughwater" but didn't realize they also where built by CHB. They seem to be very popular on the West Coast.
What type of rebuild are you doing? Where are you planning to take your boat in the future?
Tom Mahowald
On our Heritage 45 (CHB hull) the number is plainly shown on upper starboard transome.
Ted and JoAnne Lyman of Happy Clown
More about dark CHB teak:
Before buying my aft-cabin CHB 45 I looked at a CHB 42 sedan. I was impressed by the very rich and dark teak used for the doors and other interior furniture. I have seen the same colored tight-grained teak in some of the older Hatteras yachts --(read high-end models).
The wood almost has the look and feel of rosewood. True - the wood is dark, but on the other hand is very elegant and rich.
The door to my aft-head is also made of this very dark and hard teak, the rest of the boat is typical "Taiwan teak color"
and texture.
CHB excels in thoughtfully designed interiors with the best
space utilization and charm for money spent. Most of the
blue-blood passagemakers are not the equal of CHB when it comes to the fine details of our cabin layouts. We have more usable space than designs of greater beam and length - now if we could only get a handle on deck spurts!
> I noticed in Poulsbo in September that my interior teak is a tad
> darker
than
> the other CHB's. Maybe it's just dirt and grease, but I wonder if
> Chien
Hwa
> got lumber from a different species of tree in those days. Or maybe
> it
was
> the varnish they used. I wish I could lighten it up a bit.
>
Brian Hall
CHB 45 "Any Sea"
Baltimore
From: "Clark, Andrew R" <
Andrew.Clark2@PSS.Boeing.com>
Thanks, George. The partial list of "CHBs" makes interesting reading. I don't think I've seen one such as this before. Interestingly, it does not identify any Chien or Fu Hwa-built vessels.
That brings me to another thing I should share. I stopped trying to compile a list of Chien/Chung/Fu Hwa boats because the pedigree and heritage of these boats gets very murky, given the crossbreeding endemic in the Taiwanese boat-building industry then (and now?). I had several off-list e-mail exchanges on this subject with Ron Sallee and Tom Mahowald, and the consensus was that trying to compile such a list ran the risk of missing a member of the heritage family, and thereby making some owners feel not wanted because their particular boat mfg/type was not listed. We wanted to encourage camaraderie and exchange of "Taiwanese trawler stuff", not inhibit it, or alienate the terrific people who are part of, and those who want to be part of, this marvelous forum. For example, the C&Ls, while not precisely CHBs, do have many (most) of the problems and characteristics of the CHB genre, and as such, their owners are and always have been welcome in the group. There's also some measu!
re of connection between the C&L and Chien/Chung/Fu Hwa yards, the nature of which is still not precisely clear to me. For example Rick Megenity has been an active member almost from the git-go, and his C&L 44 bears a striking resemblance to the Marine Trader 44, which, I believe has a strong link to C/C/F. So who's to say it is or isn't a CHB. To my mind, it doesn't matter.
It looks like one to me.
Bottom line is that my list might have conveyed too much exclusivity, and while we are a "CHB Group", the composition of such a group is difficult, if not impossible to define, given the somewhat mongrel heritage of our boats.
Tom suggested a more meaningful list might be one reflecting "Inexpensive Taiwanese Trawlers". These would share many, if not most of the characteristics of the types we own. The idea being that love of this kind of boat, its problems and lessons learned is what this forum is all about.
Andy Clark
Andy,
I pulled out my copy of Boatwatch (second edition, 1990) by Max Wade Averitt. This book list boats by size and shows a small silhouette line drawing of each model as well as a very brief description. The book is by no means complete but does have some of the CHB's listed. (I wish I had his later book , Boatwatch: Master Guide to Powerboats (1996) but Amazon's $78 price tag puts me off.) These books are not related to the Powerboat Guides by McKnew & Parker.
Averitt's older book has the following boats listed which include CHB or Chung Hwa in the description:
1) 34' CHB, an aft cabin , circa 1985
2) 36' Performance/Chung Hwa PT-36, a sportsfisherman , Norek design,
circa 1989
3) 38' CHB-38, a double cabin & sedan , circa 1985
4) 38' Performance/ Chung Hwa, an aft cabin & sedan, circa 1980
5) 38' Performance/ Chung Hwa, a sundeck, Norek design, circa 1989
6) 41' CHB-41, an aft cabin, circa 1985
7) 41' CHB-41, a sedan, circa 1980
8) 41' Performance/ Chung Hwa 41, an aft cabin & sedan, circa 1980
9) 42' Performance/ Chung Hwa PT-42, a sundeck with cockpit, Norek design,
circa 1989
10) 45' CHB-45 , a pilohouse, Monk design, circa 1980
11) 45' CHB-45 , two different sedans, circa 1985
Regards,
OK. I added Royal Star to the list. Could the 42 be the same boat as the 42 Present? There are 2 of those based in the Houston area, the owners of which may be lurking here. Tom? Ann?
I'm beginning to wonder if the shorter list might be those trawlers NOT built by Chien/Chung/Fu Hwa <G>
Andy Clark
I suggest you add to the list the Royal Star line. I know I've seen ads for different versions of them, and ours is the 42. It was brought into the country by a dealer at Shelter Island in San Diego. The owner's manual - really a three ring binder with blueprints of the vessel and print materials from vendors that was apparently put together by the dealer - has a Dymo Tape label on it that says it's #142.
Larry Telford
Yes..Ponderosa's are CHB's. I still have the blue prints from when mine was built. Seems to have been built in one of the yards we're talking about.
toni froehling
"Koinonia"
1984 Ponderosa
There have been a few inquires about the CHB yard and some of their boats on TWL lately. I'd like to share my knowledge on the subject. I'm recalling this from memory but I think the following is basically correct.
Chung Hwa Boat, CHB, was part of a three yard group owned by Y.F.Lee in Taiwan. Chung Hwa is located in Kaohsiung, south Taiwan. They built, among other models, the CHB 34 aft cabin, 45 Sedan, 46 aft cabin, called a sundeck when the aft cabin has no walk around, the 48, the Vantare (sp.?) line of wide body yachts, the LeFiette (sp.?) sailboat, the Krogen 54 as well as military, fishing and small boats for the Japanese market.
The 34 aft cabin has the largest building run in Taiwan of over 1000 boats.
It is still made by Chung Hwa in China, see below. It was sold under various names by many importers with, I'm sure, Marine Trader bringing in the most numbers.
The
original design was supposed to be from a U.S. military person stationed in Taiwan who wanted a boat for himself. Chung Hwa entered the U.S. market in the early 70's with the 34 badged as "ABC Yacht". It was so bad they are still embarrassed when these boats are mentioned.
In answer to Mr. Hall the yard claims the 45 hull was designed by Ed Monk.
This could very well be. It is clearly the best hull design they made.
The other two yards were Fu Hwa and Chien Hwa located near Taipei. Fu Hwa built the 34 sedan model, the Krogen 38 sailboat (suprisingly fast) and the Krogen Manatee among other models. Chien Hwa built the Krogen 42, the Silhouette and other models. Both of these yards no longer make boats.
I spent some time in Taiwan in the early 80's and I stayed in a hotel, of questionable repute, near CHB's Taiwan office - often with the Krogen "boys"
who were
doing QC work for Jim. Later Jim moved his molds to other Taiwan yards in order to get the quality he wanted. I remember him saying "no more Hwa yards for me".
After
viewing one of his 42's I mentioned to him, at one of the great Chinese banquets the yard put on, that the 42 saloon was to narrow and he should drop the side deck on the port side. Jim scoffed at this idea saying it would make the boat asymmetrical. I said that didn't matter as you could only see one side of a boat at a time.
I
swear I
saw a light bulb blink over his head and, sure enough, shortly after the 54 design came out with a single side deck.
Another banquet story. Occasionally, when the spirits were flowing well, Y.F. would tell the story of the 45 sedan he sold to an englishman in Hong Kong. The buyer held a commissioning party aboard and about 20 people were standing on the top deck. The buyer raised his drink to toast his new boat when the deck broke dumping everybody in the saloon. The Chinese at the table would laugh so hard at this story they were literally crying while the brokers and dealers would give each other rather concerned looks.
Y.F. Lee died about a year ago and his son, Earnest, is in charge now.
CHB has opened a yard in China up near Shanghai where they also are doing some real estate business. It is called "Fu Hai" and still builds the much upgraded
34 for Don Miller at Marine Trader. I don't know what else they are making there.
The CHB yard in Kaohsiung is mainly making smaller boats for the Japanese market. However they still make a 38 sedan (137K plus engines) and the 46 sundeck (155K plus engines). The 46 is the 45 hull made one foot longer. These boats are not built exclusively for a dealer but can be purchased by anybody. (Frank Su, Tel#
886-2-821 8133, Fax# 886-2-821 0590).
Bill Kimley
Gee, maybe we should break into two camps: one with CHB burgees and one with CBK burgees. Or would that be CHB-South and CHB-North in Taiwan terms?
I don't care where they're all from, I'm just glad I found all you folks 'cause the Bayliner crowd just looks at me funny when I talk about leaky decks and Lehman engines. You can see it in their eyes... they're thinking "only an idiot would buy a boat with rotten decks and rusty steel tanks and more exposed teak than you can cover with a barrel of Cetol."
I think it's funny that the original CHB yard in Taiwan was started by an American (Bill Hardin), then the both the Chung Hwa and Chien Hwa yards were taken over by a Chinese guy (Sinclair Wen) who lives in the US. Yeah, and a few years ago Lee Iacocca convinced me to buy a US made car and when I got it home I discovered it was made in Canada. The world is smaller than it used to be.
I noticed in Poulsbo in September that my interior teak is a tad darker than the other CHB's. Maybe it's just dirt and grease, but I wonder if Chien Hwa got lumber from a different species of tree in those days. Or maybe it was the varnish they used. I wish I could lighten it up a bit.
BTW... wouldn't Courtship's HIN indicate it's a 33, not a 34? Maybe they swell up a foot longer when they are brought into rainy areas like Puget
Sound. I wish mine would shrink a foot so I could save money on moorage
fees.
Keith Johnson,
I miss posted yesterday...CBK not chk..is Chien Hwa....
The yards CBK & CHB were in T'aipei and Kaohsiung respectively about 180 miles apart. T'aipei being on the north end of Taiwan (East China Sea) and Kaohsiung at the south end of the island (South China Sea.) For this reason I doubt that the actual molds were shared, however the common pedigree is obvious in many boats. It is possible that hulls built in Kaohsiung were hauled north for finishing or vise versa. It is also possible that duplicate molds were built and then used in both yards.
Anyone have definitive information on the symbiosis between CBK & CHB?
BTW whatever your Identification number starts with..if you consider it to be a CHB then so do we...with the possible exception of USP !
Ron & Marilyn Sallee
Hi Scott. There's more of us CHBers around than you might think.
Charles forwarded your e-mail to me. We have a nascent group of owners, nationwide, who share the same interests in CHBs. Most of our comunications are via e-mail. Few post to BBs.
I too have had the deck off my '78 34ft. It would be interesting to compare notes.
Following is an excerpt from a previous e-mail responding to "what's a CHB?". FYI.
"As far as your question regarding "what's a CHB?", that's a good question.
I do know that CHBs were sold under many names assigned by whoever imported them. For example, my recollection is that some Australian boats were called Southern Cross and also Clipper, some So.
Cal. boats were La Paz, and some of the Northwest area boats were North Sea and Puget Trawler. Golden Coasts, Marine Traders and Tradewinds boats were also "CHBs", but I don't recall the geographic areas in which they were sold as such.
Somewhere around 1975 the marketing approach changed, and all imported boats were called CHBs. This doesn't end the confusion, however, since there were 2 yards that built them; Chung Hwa (formerly Far East) and Chien Hwa, and boats built in the same year and month in each of the yards (as well as in the same yard!) were different in many system details and decor areas. Approximately 1600 "CHBs" were built in total. There were (and probably still are) so many interrelationships and so much inbreeding amongst the Taiwan yards that it's difficult to tell who did what, with which and to whom!
To further add to the confusion, I have some friends with a PT38 (does that stand for Puget Trawler or Performance Trawler?- no one seems to know). It's hull id. number starts with "CHB". So it was built in one of the 2 CHB yards, but is it a CHB? Since Sinclair Wen who is President of Taiwanese Overseas International, which builds PTs, was the former president of Chung Hwa, and is still a director and shareholder as well as a shareholder in Chien Hwa, the family tree is even more convoluted.
Sea Magazine had an interesting short history of the CHBs in their June 1988 issue. That's where I got some of my info. You can probably get a copy from the magazine directly, if you are interested in reading it.'
Hope this helps. Let me know if you're interested in being part of the group. No dues, no commitments (except to participate however you wish).
Regards
Andy Clark
tooirish5 wrote:
>
> I discovered on page 6 that Friday Harbor Yacht Sales lists a new
> 2002 34' CHB for sale. Cruise ready for $ 195,000.
> That should send our used boat prices up. My question is, why don't we
>
> have the phone number of this factory ? Maybe they have the answers to
>
> some of those questions we ask each other about our boats. Upgrades,
> spare parts or equipment.
> Jerry,
My man, the builder of the "CHB" is NINBO FU-HAI FRP BOAT BUILDING CO
It is located in Ningbo COMMUNIST CHINA . You know the same country
that forced our reconnaissance plane dwn and then would not allow us to fly it out, oh , I digress.!!!!!
They have just entered an agreement with Newfoundland to market yachts in Canada.
Unfortunately I dont think they can or would help us at all. Of course that is my opinion , it would be nice if I am wrong. They probably just acq the mold for that hull.
I did a quick Google search for the co name.
CCC
