Snapdragon's Fantasy Trawler Manifesto

[Snapdragon III]

I have been strangely obsessed with boats since I was a kid, (I’m in my mid forties now) and spend an embarrassing amount of time thinking about them, working on them, and occasionally actually using them. I am not sure how it came up, but recently I managed to corner my teenage daughter and make her look at my album of saved cool boat idea pictures that I had been organizing. She was a good sport as I dived off into various tangents to lay the ground work for describing my current custom dream boat. She made the comment, “You have really though this through! You should write a book about boats.” I am too lazy to write a book, and I doubt there are many people that that would be interested anyway, but I though it was a sweet comment, and thinking about it did give me an idea. “I should start a thread on Trawler forum where I can just go crazy with the lessons I have learned form the past and present boats I have owned, and my fantasy’s about what might make the “Perfect” boat for me. My plan is to just go crazy, and lay out as much of my experience and thinking on boat designs, equipment, rigging, dingy, etc that I have the energy for. Since it is a forum format I am sure that I won’t think of everything I want to say on the first pass so I am just going add things when I think of them, and not worry about creating a master work of great writing. I hope someone enjoys my manifesto, they may not be good ideas or theories, but I assure you I have lots of them. I am also not trying to imply that my theories and ideas are the “best.” I am just trying to think of what would be the “Best” for me. This is a moving target even for myself as my dreams, experience, family size, budget, amount of free time, etc, have changed over the decades.

 

[twistedtree]

Excellent. Go for it.

 

[Snapdragon III]

Since this is a manifesto I am going to start at the beginning. My Grandparents had a beach cabin on Puget Sound in Washington state when I was growing up, and since I can remember my cousin and I who were the same age spent a lot of time out there in the rowboat and canoe messing around and fishing for “Salmon”. All we ever caught were bullheads, but we had fun. The boating bug really bit me though in 5th grade. I went to this crazy alternative elementary school that did a lot of amazing field trips, and it fifth grade they took the fifth and sixth graders on a 5 day sailboat trip in the San Juan Islands. It was a crazy old wooden gaff rigged schooner that looked like pirate ship. It had a huge bowsprit with a rope net under it that they let us climb out in while the boat was underway and hang out (different times! We were 11 years old!). They had a naturalist onboard that taught us about marine biology in the area, and we camped at a few state parks in the islands. I was absolutely smitten! After that I wanted to sail, and was interested in all things boats.

 

[Comodave]

I completely understand your obsession.

 

[Snapdragon III]

Soon after that, I convinced my grandma to sign my cousin and I up for Red Cross sailing classes at a local lake, and Power Squadron boating safety classes. A few years later I got real into wind surfing, and my best friends dad bought a 16’ Hobbie cat that we did a lot of sailing on. One night after school on a Friday night when we were 16 and had just got our drivers licenses, and could launch the Hobbie off the trailer on the beach down the hill from my buddies house ourselves, we decided it would be a great idea to sail it to Whidbey Island. It is only about 6 miles away from where we launched, but as we got close the wind completely died and we were stuck. We didn’t even have a paddle, and the current was running hard up Admiralty inlet at over a kn in the wrong direction. We ended up laying on the hulls and paddling with our arms surfer style. We were completely exhaustedly the time we made it to the beach, and noticed that the sun was getting pretty low. Of coarse this was back in the day pre cell phone, and my friends dad was out looking for us on on beach where we launched with binoculars freaking out. We Had Seen a boat ramp about half a mile down the beach and decided to walk the boat that way in the shallows. He had wetsuits on, and nothing but underwear underneath. No wallets, or anything. As we were walking down the beach we met a couple with a little kid who were out for a sunset beach walk. We explained our predicament, and asked them if we could use their phone? They said sure and had us follow them back to their car. It was a late model 5 series BMW that was the fanciest car either of us had ever been in. We were hesitant to sit on the leather seats with our sandy, salty wet suits, but they were unbothered and told us to jump in. They took us up the hill to their “Cabin” that was just a block up the steep hill above the beach. It was a fancy house. It turned out they were both doctors and this was their weekend place, that they had just arrived at this weekend. After calling my buddy’s dad, (Who was pissed!) They gave us these crazy Japanese bathrobes to change into so we could get out of our wetsuits. It was heavy Friday night traffic so it would end up taking my friends parents over 3 hours to get the ferry, and get to us to bring us home. After changing into our bathrobes, this amazing family proceeded to cook us a delicious dinner that included salmon Filets, and I don’t remember what else, but it was good. At the end of dinner the wife apologized because she didn’t have any home made desert for us, and we were going to have to settle for store bought desert. If you are beginning to sense a theme here it is that we did something incredibly stupid, and didn’t not learn our lesson at all! After the store bought desert, they insisted that we try out the hot tub out on the deck. “It’s so beautiful out there at night.” So that was a long lead up to the punchline of a key boating moment in my life. As we were soaking in their hot tub enjoying the view of the lights across the Sound, my buddy and I was taking about our misadventure, and had the first instance I can remember of dreaming about the perfect boat. In this case, we were dreaming about a sailboat that had a motor of some kind, so we wouldn’t get becalmed and stuck on an island.

 

[Snapdragon III]

I think it was less than a year after the Hobbie cat incident that my buddy, his twin brother that was not there for the hobbie incident, and I found a 23' Aquarious sailboat on a trailer that we went together and each put in $600 that we had saved from summer jobs, and bought it for $1800. We did a lot of work cleaning it up, painted the trailer, washed the green sails with Clorox bleach, etc. We got an old Evenrude outboard from the sixties, and a fiberglass dingy we towed behind from my friends grandpa that we put on it. We took a couple of week long trips in that boat that were a steep leaning curve, but a big adventure, and nobody died.
The most memorable story I remember on that boat was a crazy night off Whidbey Island. Not knowing an better, we got becalmed on the northwestern corner of Whidbey island out in front of the naval air base. It was flat calm so we went in close to shore and dropped the anchor for the night. This area is right at the end of the straits of Juan de Fuca which is notoriously rough, and we had no protection from wind or waves where we were. Around midnight the wind and waves came up and the boat started going crazy rocking side to side. It had a chemical RV toilet we had been using. Unbeknownst to us, the seal between the top and bottom half of this toilet was no good, but we hadn't discovered it yet as the weather had been pretty calm. With all the rocking the toilet leaked all over the 70's shag carpet that was glued down under it in the "Head." It was likely not the first time poo water had spilled there and the smell was activated by the fresh moisture and was very strong. With the horrible smell, and the crazy waves we all got super sick immediately. We ended up getting out on deck, weighing anchor, and sailing out of there in the middle of the night. Pretty crazy when I think back on it now, as we had no GPS, only a chart atlas, and few navigation skills. In the morning we tore all the shag carpet out of the head, and it rode in the dingy behind us for the rest of the trip.

We sold this boat around a year later, and once again failed to learn an important boating lesson when we actually made money on it. I think we bought it for $1800, and sold it for $2,500.

 

[Snapdragon III]

We then bought a 25’ trailerable sail boat that was a similar mess of a project. We got it fixed up enough to use. The coolest thing we did on that boat was took a month long trip up to Desolation Sound right after we graduated high school. We had a great adventure, but it was so different from the type of Cruising I do now. It took us an entire month to get up to Desolation and back, (I now usually do it in 2-5 days each way. We didn’t really have any money but my friends mom took us to the grocery store before we left and bought us all the food for the trip. About 30 days with three teenagers and we didn’t shop once for groceries or have any refrigeration. I remember making a lot of pancakes, and looking forward to eating a canned ham that turned out disappointing. We stopped on a beach the second day out and shaved each others heads, as we had no shower and just jerry jugs of fresh water. I think we burned under 5 gallons on gas on the whole month long trip.

We went off to College, and the boat sat at home neglected, but at the beginning of sophomore year, I convinced my parents that they could save money paying for a marina slip for me to live aboard instead of the dorm. They went for it and I was a live aboard. I went to school in Olympia Washington, and once I was on the boat, quickly got very involved in the local sailboat racing scene down there. We ended selling the boat the next Summer, and I bought s wreck of a 32’ sail boat on my own that I rebuilt.

I did some huge projects on this boat and leaned a ton. I bought it for $2000. It was floating, but had a seized engine, and many other issues. To get it to Olympia I found a used outboard bracket that I bolted to the stern, then used the same old sixties Evenrude from my buddy grandpa that we had held onto, and motored the boat 60 miles south to Olympia where I moved aboard.

Some of the projects I did was removed the atomic 4 gas engine, and rebuilt it on my dads front porch over winter break. One of the proudest moments of my life when I got it back in the boat and it started up. Sewed new upholstery with a little help from my grandma. Replaced rotten bulkheads and compression post (The boat had been left for a long time with about 4” of water above its shallow bilge. Removed the teak toe rail, beveled the hull and deck then fiberglassed and faired them together to fix a failing hull deck joint, then reinstalled the teak toe rail. Painted the hull, sewed a new dodger, new sail covers.

I lived on this boat until I graduated. Had a lot of good times on it, courted my future wife on it. I Also did a ton of racing on other peoples boats during this time. The coolest part of that was three Swiftshore’s, and the 1998 Vic-Maui (A race from Victoria BC, across the Pacific to Maui,), and the return delivery of the boat back home.

These were pre internet years, but during this time I checked out every book I could find in the Olympia, and Seattle libraries that was even tangentially sailing related and devoured them all. After Graduating I moved up to Seattle with my college sweetheart, (Now my wife of 22 years) and the moorage was too expensive up here for us, so I sold the boat for around $10,000 and spent a good decade being financially responsible, and not owning any boats.

Ok finally done with the ancient history. Next up, Modern history when I started buying power boats.

 

[Snapdragon III]

We had 10 or 12 boat free years. My wife was not that crazy about it like I was, and we were really heads down grinding with careers, graduate school for my wife, paying off college debt, buying a house etc. It all changed right after my daughter was born. We went out to the family summer cabin and met the same cousin I grew up fishing bullheads with, and his new fancy, aluma-jet fishing boat. He took us out and we were hooked. We bought ourselves a 22’ aluminum fishing boat very soon after. We got super into salmon fishing, crabbing, pawning, etc, and soon wanted to try camping on the boat, which we did a few times, but it was very tight with the three of us. My cousin and his family wanted to camp too, so they sold their boat and bought a bigger 24’ boat so we could go together, and it started a bit of a boat buying arms race. These were also the start of the iPhone years, so I actually have some pictures of these events.

 

[Snapdragon III]

My cousins 24’ King Kisher was so cool for camping, we started looking around and finally decided to have a 25’ Aluminum Chambered boats, custom built for us. It was custom built, but the changes they would allow you to make were very limited. They were trying to standardize the model and build a bunch of them. This was such a cool boat, I regret selling it. We did tons of fishing and camping on it. We got real into fishing out of Westport in the ocean, and took a couple big trips up into British Columbia. I think the most we ever spent on the boat was 10 days. It was comfortable with good heat and space, but was camping. The head was a bucket out back, we cooked on a camp stove out back and had water in Jerry jugs.

Soon after we got the ACB my cousin got jealous of how cool it was for camping and sold his Kingfisher, and bought a really cool used 28’ Seawolf. This was an amazing boat except for the Volvo engine and mostly duo prop outdrive, that was a total nightmare. It ate 3 $18,000 outdrives in 2 1/2 years, then started having engine problems. The final engine problems were too much for him financially and emotionally and it ended up sitting in his yard broke down for many years until he finally sold it to a guy who did a huge refit on it and make it into a super sweet boat. He took out the Volvo engine, added and offshore bracket, and twin 300hp gas outboards.

 

[Snapdragon III]

More pictures of the ACB, my cousin's Sea Wolf, and fishing.

 

[Snapdragon III]

Finally getting to the part where I can start droning on about the boats!

Things that were great about the ACB

-It was so fast. You could just go where you wanted to and it never took long, and you never had to think about the tide and current, which is very strong around our home waters. It was so much easier for fishing as you could get to the fishing spot super fast. Often times the place we want to fish is 10-15 miles from where we are spending the night. It was 20-30 minutes in this boat, but may be 2-3 hours in our trawlers.

- Because it was so fast, you had way more time to hang out at the destination, more time to fish, etc. You didn’t spend half the day just getting there. The downside was that the boat was way less comfortable for hanging out on. The seating was good for this type of boat, but not that comfortable for lounging around reading a book for hours on end.

- I feel in love with unpainted aluminum with this boat. It was so sweet. It always looked dirty, which meant it never looked dirty. It was so easy to care for, and I think it looks completely bad ass. Since owning this boat, unpainted Aluminum would be by far my first choice for dream boat construction.

- This thing was incredibly sea worthy. We took it out in some intense weather/bar crossings out of West Port in the Pacific. It would knock you around pretty good jumping off waves, but it would get you home.

- Well made Aluminum boats do not leak. We put this boat through extreme stress, and it never leaked a drop. There were almost no penetrations in it. Almost everything was welded on. The cleats, the handrails etc. It was so dry, and so low flex. Also, if something did leak, which never happened on this boat, but did on my next aluminum boat, there is no deck cores to get soggy and rot.

- Having it on a trailer was amazing in many ways. It allowed us to fish in the ocean, many weekends, which would be a multiday trip each way in our current boat. It was great to have the boat at home in the driveway to work on it and do maintenance. I keep my current boat 70 miles from my house up in Anacortes. I drive up there all the time to work on it. It kind of sucks, but it is super nice having the boat right up in the San Juan’s to use it. The drive is better now that I bought a sweet electric car. It was also nice loading and unloading all your stuff for a trip up right in your driveway, instead of transferring everything at the marina. It was especially nice where you are dragging a bunch of fish home.

- The boat was so small and nimble it made it fun and easy to go into unknown marina’s or sketchy small back coves and check them out. I was never afraid of running aground, or getting in big trouble getting in and out of a marina.

- It was so small it was easy to find space on docks at local state marine parks. It was often a fun social scene meeting other boaters on the dock. This was harder with our next 40’ boat, and almost impossible with our current 56’ boat. Small boat, fishing focused people seem way easier to make friends with on the dock too. They are never sitting inside watching satellite tv with the curtains drawn, they are out on the dock mingling.

- It was so good for fishing. Great visibility of your poles while trolling from the helm, something that has been a struggle on our trawlers. Great for back trolling, into the wind to keep you from drifting too fast while bottom fishing, something that doesn’t work at all in the trawlers. Easier to deal with other boats in crowded spots. In our trawlers we end up fishing way less often, and mostly in the ocean were there is way more room.

-It was easy to anchor in marginal spots. Small boat, super low draft, you could tilt up the outboard if you were worried about kissing the ground at low tide. It was always easy to find a spot to anchor in crowded harbors.

-It had a Webasto forced air Heater that was a great piece of kit, especially for a small boat like this. I will likely have more to say on boat heating systems in a future post here. I have experience with all the major types.

-Fishing was a good excuse to get out and use the boat a lot. There was always some opener, or season coming up that you wanted to get out and take part in. It got us out using the boat many dozens of times in winter, and other horrible weather when we probably would have just stayed home otherwise. It got the the point that at one time I had to declare that it was a new family rule that we do not launch the boat if it is currently a gale warning. We did not make this rule after the first or second time we did this.

Things that were not so great about the ACB

-It really was camping aboard. We used it a lot, all year round, and there were many times when we were out in the dark, in 40 degree rain, cooking dinner on the camp stove, or washing dishes in a freezing bucket of salt water. Pooping and peeing in a bucket on the back deck was ok when our daughter was in diapers, or 4 years old, but she would not be down with it now that she is 14.

-Trailering was amazing in some ways, but sucked in others.
-It was a big boat and was super stressful to drive.
-The launch ramps were often a zoo.
-Fisheries enforcement would often put you through a shakedown at the boat ramp.
-I had a ton of problems with the brand new, name brand trailer.
- They included flat tires on 3 different occasions.
-I had a brake stick, heat up, melt the liquid oil seal dumping the oil on the hot brake and burst into flames driving down the freeway. That was when I discovered that the boat and trailer were too tall to put on a flatbed tow truck as they would hit the overpasses.
-After one of the flat tires I failed to torque the lug nuts when I set the trailer down after changing it, and the wheel flew off going down the freeway.
-A lady pulled in behind me while I was trying to back up, and I couldn’t see her. The guy I had asked to help me back up was standing there watching and didn’t say or do anything as I slowly backed the end of my outboard through her back window.
-The surge brake mechanism failed after about 3 years
-I finally ended up replacing the entire brake system, disks, calipers, lines, and changed from serge brakes to electric over hydraulic. I had less problems after that, and it felt way safer to drive as the electric over hydraulic brakes worked better.
-A guy hit me in a boat ramp parking lot with his trailer, and destroyed my trolling motor. It was an insurance/installation nightmare.
-I hated the Chevy Durimax truck I had to keep to tow the boat. For such an expensive truck it was such a piece of ****. The only good thing was the engine/transmision drive train. Everything else was a disaster. The paint started peeling off it less than 5 years old. It had a ton of electrical problems, plastic trim pieces kept falling off. One time the tail light just fell out while I was going down the road and was hanging by the wires when I got home. Selling that truck was the best part of selling the ACB

-On longer trips not having refrigeration or freezers was a constant struggle, especially with the amount of fishing we were doing. I ended up getting a commercial ice machine, and an embarrassing collection of very expensive coolers.

-The boat was not super comfortable for just hanging out in one spot. We would never want to just drop anchor and hang out for a couple days in one spot. The trawlers are much better for this.

-Due to the camping nature, my wife could not do the serious cooking that she really enjoys. She is as insane with cooking as I am with boats. The trawlers are much better for this, and the whole family enjoys the eating.

 

[Snapdragon III]

Enough for tonight. Next up will be some actual Trawler talk. A little teaser of the next boat.

 

[Blissboat]

Cool stories, and familiar boating "growth curve." About trailer boating, been there. Never again.

 

[Pete Meisinger]

Beware of "run on" sentences and "run on" paragraphs.

pete

 

[Snapdragon III]

Beware of "run on" sentences and "run on" paragraphs.

pete

I will try and do better. I definitely struggle with those issues.

 

[Snapdragon III]

I thought I was done with the Aluminum Chambered Boats subject but I thought of a bunch more things that I will add before moving on.

When I had this boat built I thought “this is going to be so sweet having a brand new super top quality custom boat built. It will never break down, and I won’t be working on it all the time.” The reality was totally different. The build quality was amazing, but I had lots of various issues with the boat, and a ton with the trailer. Many of the issues were made harder by the fact that ACB went bankrupt a couple months after delivering the boat, and had bought all the gear at special discount dealer prices, that did not include a consumer warranty. The warranty was supposed to be covered by the builder, but. They were either gone, or even before that, they had not paid their bills to suppliers, so they didn’t want to help with warranty issues. It is probably not that interesting to go into all the issues/upgrades here, but it was a lot. None of it was due to poor workmanship or bad construction of the builder, it was more stuff like defective Diamond sea glaze windows, delivered with wrong prop for engine and took a few tries to get it right, new Garmin radar had manufacturing defect and broke after a couple months, etc, etc. After a few years things got squared away and I had almost no problems except for the trailer.

I was surprised how hard this boat was to sell. Tons of people were interested, and loved the boat, but when push came to shove, I don’t think they could afford it. I finally ended up selling it to an organization that ran floating fish hatcheries in SE Alaska. A few years after I sold it prices on this type of boat went completely crazy. If I had it now, I could probably sell it for double what I ended jump getting for it, and way more than I paid for it new. Good thing I don’t buy boats for the investment. Amazingly I actually made money on the Diesel truck I hated. I had bought it right after the housing crash when prices were depressed, and I was able to sell it by owner, for more than I had bought it for used at a dealership.

I had always dreamed of having a custom boat built exactly the way I wanted it. That was not the reality of the process. None of the builders I considered in the area were really true custom builders. They were all various degrees of semi custom. As you got into the ones that were willing to do more customization, the prices went way up. After going through the process I understand this way better, and it makes sense, as it is a huge amount of work for them to start changing things. It was very frustrating at the time, Some of the things I got them to change for me were adding a bigger access panel for the area under the floor, adding mounting and wiring for my pot puller, simpler single color upholstery with no white, and leaving the boat unpainted.

The fight over having the boat unpainted was a big surprise to me. It was actually a pretty big battle to get them to do it. I figured it would save them a ton of labor hours/money and they would be happy to do it. They were doing beautiful yacht quality paint jobs that they must have been able to crank out really fast. They were very worried that they were not set up with their suppliers, or in house, to handle the aluminum carefully enough to not have it end up with ugly scratches all over it. There as actually a small delay at one point where they used some of the parts for my boat for another boat, due to scratches, and ordered new ones for my boat. I will likely have more to say on this in subject in the future, but if I were to get another custom aluminum boat built I would spec it to have all the plates quickly sanded with 120 grit on a random orbit sander before welding them together. Then the builder could easily sand off and hide scratches from assembly, and I could do it for years to come, and I would have a finish that was plenty good, and easy to match/repair.

The biggest thing that I wanted that they were not willing to do for me was to make the overhang behind the cabin longer to give more shelter in the rain, and more room on the roof for dingy storage. And have them build me a dingy hoist to lift the dingy onto the roof. They were not willing to do either of these things no mater the price. It was frustrating. I ended up taking the boat to another company and having it modified with these changes, but the quality of their work was not as good as the original manufacturer.

 

[Snapdragon III]

Some pictures of the ACB after the roof extension, and dingy lift were added.

 

[Snapdragon III]

Another thing that was very eye opening having the ACB built was going through the whole process of shopping manufactures, getting bids, signing a contract, managing the build, dealing with changes, picking electronics, and punch list after delivery. The whole process was way more complicated than I ever imagined it would be, and way more financially risky. In the Grand scheme of custom built boats, mine was fairly simple, but it was still a huge time and energy suck getting through it all. There was also more financial risk in the process than I had appreciated going in. This was brought home especially hard for me as the builder went bankrupt very soon after my boat was delivered.


I enjoyed most of the process of managing the build even though it took a ton of time and energy. It was super exciting spending so much time thinking about my new dream boat. The parts that were not so fun was trying to get them to make custom changes that I wanted, and the were not willing to do. And dealing with some punch list/warranty issues at the end when the company was sliding into bankruptcy. The best example of this was the new Garmin radar broke a month or two after delivery. It was a slam dunk warranty issue, but it was purchased on some kind of dealer terms, so I had to go through ACB to get it replaced. They dithered around in a very frustrating manner on this. I finally got it replaced, and found out later that the issue was they owed a bunch of money to their electronics supplier, and he did not want to help them with the warranty issue till he got paid.

The complication of managing the build process and commissioning did change my perception of what is possible or advisable for future fantasy “perfect” trawler custom builds. I have big fantasies, and many of the boats and builders that excite me, and seem to be a little more affordable are very far away from where I live. New Zealand, Turkey, Netherlands, etc. After going through the process with the ACB and reading about others experiences, I feel like you would either have to plan to spend a lot of time at the builder, possibly a couple years. Or pick a very high end, experienced builder. I get the impression there may be some in the Netherlands where this could work out ok. The other thing that would help a ton is if you could cruise the boat locally near the builder for an extended amount of time before bringing it home to shake out commissioning issues. This may get very complicated tax and visa wise, depending on which countries are involved. Right now, for me, I have a kid in Middle school and I can not move for two years to build a boat, so it tempers my fantasies of what might be possible a bit.

The financial risk of having a boat built was another eye opening experience. They want a huge deposit when you start these projects, and it would be a big hit if they went bankrupt and didn’t deliver your boat, or it had major manufacturer defects, etc. The companies involved are all private companies and you can’t look up their financial quarterly reports to try and assess how healthy the business is.

On my ACB build, I suspected that they were not doing great financially, but in the end felt like the product was compelling enough, the price good enough, and the deposit small enough, that I was willing to take the risk. For context, I had this boat built at the tail end of the housing bust. GM had gone bankrupt a couple months before I started seriously started talking with ACB. It was not a good time to be a company short of cash. When I visited their facility it was clear things were not going great. It was huge, like the size of a Costco, and they had obviously invested many millions setting it up just a couple years before. They had finished some big contracts for the Navy, and had 30 million in contracts for the Coast Guard on the books, but there was barely anything going on in the huge factory. Maybe two boats they were actively working on? They wanted a 50% deposit on the boat but there was no way I was going to do that. In the end I offered them a 10% deposit, or I would put 100% in an escrow account, to be turned over when I took delivery of the boat. They ended up taking the 10% deposit. That was an amount that would have hurt to loose if things went sideways, but was a risk I could live with. In the end they delivered all the customer boats they had on the books, and sold the Coast guard contract to another company, so no customers got screwed. They pre sold about 10 of the model we got before they had completely finished the first prototype. They delivered them all, and we were told after the bankruptcy by a former employee that they had underestimated their costs and lost $30K each on the 10 boats.

 

[Snapdragon III]

That was a lot of buildup just to get to the trawlers. Give me a few more days, and many more posts, and I promise I will finally get to the future dream boat ideas. In the meantime I have an embarrassing amount to share about the next two trawlers I have owned, and what I liked and disliked about them.

We sold the ACB for good reasons for us at the time. Since having it built we had moved to a fancier house, and sold our paid off old house. We used the money from selling the ACB and the truck to pay off the rest of the mortgage on the new to us house. It was a good financial move, but we soon missed boating. My daughter was getting older, and the stock market was doing well and it wasn’t long before I was browsing boat listings again. Around 18 months after we had sold the ACB I saw an ad on Craig’s list for a 1990 custom SeaKeeper 40 aluminum trawler, and I convinced my wife to go look at it. I fell in love, and my wife was even pretty excited, (She would deny this later and claim I forced her to buy it).

Some pictures of the SeaKeeper when we first got it. Confusingly, I have renamed al my boats "Snapdragon" since the 32' sail boat I got when I was 19 years old. It makes it hard to refer to them by name, and know which boat I am talking about.

 

[Snapdragon III]

I have so many thoughts on this boat, and I didn't know where to start. I started making a list of things I might expand on and it is silly large list but I guess I will just start at the beginning of it and start plugging away.

-Exterior lay out
-Interior lay out, and finishes
-Unique engine, exhaust, keel cooling
-Pony engine system
-Electrical system
-Custom hydraulic dingy lift and anchor windlass
-Custom dingy
-Refrigeration
-Integral tanks
-Aluminum corrosion issues
-Composting head
-Parivane stabilizers
-Fuel management system
-Seachest, great engine room ventalation,
-Beefy protected rudders, emergency tiller
-Adding bow thruster
-Ancient electronics
-Anchor experiences
-Twin engines vs single


Here are some pictures of the exterior to go with the coming section.

 

[IRENE]

Great story!

 

[Snapdragon III]

It was a medium displacement, twin screw, aluminum trawler designed by Ted Brewer. I know very little about the company that built it. It disappeared before the internet, and had a very generic name, like “Aluminum manufacturing corp.” there is no record of them online that I was ever able to find. It was also in a crazy location you would never expect for a boat like this. Somewhere in the midwest like Ohio, or something? There were some scanned pictures of the build that came with it on a DVD and it was built in a crappy looking tin shed in the middle of endless looking flat green farms. Not where you would expect and ocean going trawler to be built. I was told that they built 6 or 7 of them, but I have only seen direct evidence that there were at least 2. I was told the boat did the great loop and the Caribbean with its original owners. Then somehow got to San Diego where it did multiple Mexico trips. Then was purchased by a guy in Olympia Wa who owned a machine shop and took it to Alaska 6 times, then a couple from Alaska who only owned it 6 months then had a change of plans due to knee surgery and sold it to me. I have no doubt that the boat was capable of all those things, but the engine hours seemed way too low for it to all be true so who knows?


The exterior was nothing radical, but it was very smartly set up in a lot of ways. It must have been somewhat unique because I probably had 100 guys row up in their dingy and ask about the boat. Shockingly it was never women. ; ) I will hit on some of the things I liked about it, and some of the downsides.

The hull itself seemed like it was on the narrow side for trawlers this size, with no center keel and twin protected rudders. I really liked this setup since it had the Paravanes to stabilize it. I will talk more about them later, but they were a huge help. To boat would have been too tender for me and my family without the Paravanes. The nice part was it was super easily driven buy the twin Yammer 65hp engines, and having such a small draft, and everything completely protected was really nice. I also liked that the props and rudders were well protected and I didn’t have to worry too much about them. You can’t see it on the outside but there was keel cooling for the three engines and two transmissions welded right into the bottom plate of the hull. It was really sweet.

Moving up above there was an adequate swim step, but it would have been better if it was 6” longer. After living with this one for years I added the commandment to my dream boat list that the swim step needs to bo deep enough to comfortably kneel on and clean off muddy stuff you don’t want to get all over the rest of the boat. This one was a little too small and I often felt like I was about to fall off when doing this.

Unlike most trawlers the rear cockpit area had separate side decks, then built in bench seats like a sailboat has. I mostly really liked this setup for the most parts. The side decks were up high and separated from the seats and were a good place to stand and run down riggers while fishing. They were also a nice place to set your fish down and bleed and clean it without getting it all over the cockpit. It was way easier to hose down. It also kept green water from running back and filling the cockpit if you ever stuck the bow in a huge wave, which we did multiple times in one terrible wind/current storm in Johnstone Strait in BC. The first great thing about the benches was that they had a ton of storage inside of them. The tops hinged up and they were open all the way out to the edge of the hull. It was really nice to have a good spot for all you extra dock lines, boat cushions, buckets, cleaning supplies, mooring line’s, etc. I really miss this on our current boat that is 16’ longer, but has less storage on deck level. They were pretty nice for seating too. We had a ton of boat cushions that we would get out that would make them very comfortable. I lot of boats likely have a fly bridge that serves a similar role for hanging out outside, My biggest complaint with the cockpit area was that there was no cover, for shade, or to shelter from the rain. It would have been hard to add one without totally messing the boat up for fishing.

The rear cabin was much lower than most trawlers. This had some disadvantages with interior layout, but was great for center of gravity and the exterior. It was a great place to store the custom 11’ dingy that was super easy to get on and off, and on the port side was a great place to store prawn traps, paddle boards, extra coolers, etc. The other great thing was that since it was so low, the pilot house had great 360 views.

The side decks were great, nothing special but I really like having full decks on both sides. Especially when dealing with the stabilizers. When I got the boat it did not have railings on the rear part of the side decks. This was crazy. I had a local guy in Anacortes fabricate me some rails to match the ones of front. I had spectra lines connecting the space between the two rails, which kept you safe underway, but were not in the way of the stabilizer poles when they were up. It also worked out great at the dock so you could easily get on and off the boat.

The pilot house was longer fore and aft than most trawlers this size, and likely a bit narrower than average. It was carried pretty far forward on the bow, and this together with the moderate height of the bow, and the low rear cabin, made it feel high up with exceptional visibility. I will have more to say about it in the coming interior section, but the pilot house felt like an enclosed flybridge in many ways on this boat. The aluminum construction allowed for very thin supports between the windows and there was lots of glass and great visibility.


The bow area was lower than most modern trawlers of this size and got the headroom for the bedroom below with a doghouse directly in front of the pilot house. I am not sure if it was designed this way on purpose, but the front face of the pilot house was at the perfect angle for a backrest if you were sitting on the bow. With a few boat cushions it was a super comfortable spot for a couple to sit and have a sundowner. The windlass and bow pulpit were exceptional but I will get into those later in another section.

 

[Snapdragon III]

The interior of the boat had a few interesting features. The layout of the table/extra bed was way above average in my opinion, and so simple. The pilot house was unique and really great. And the finishes were unique.

The dining table was just two facing benches on either side of a large table. It was very much like the booth in a restaurant. It was big enough to comfortably sit 6 adults. It was so simple, and so practical. I can’t believe more boats don’t use this design. The backrests sat on some cleaver folding racks that kept them at a comfortable Angle, but folded out of the way when you dropped the table down into a bed with the backrests as the center cushions. The benches were long enough to comfortably recline with your back along the back wall, or even take a nap with your feet hanging off the end a little bit. The table was bumped up about 6” from, natural height so you could see out the windows when you were sitting at it. I don’t have any pictures of it, but they filled in the area between the benches with a 6” tall box with two lid on piano hinges. This gave you a place for your feet to rest at natural height and when you opened the lids they had divided the space into about 8 compartments one each side that were around 6”x6”x18”. It was the absolute best for organizing small spare parts on a boat. I had a bin of zip ties, a bin of tape, a bin of plumbing fittings, a bin of shackles, etc. When made into a bed it was huge and very comfortable.

It did have some downsides though. It was great when we got the boat, and our daughter was little. But as she became a teenager, bringing her teenager friends along, it was’t quite as sweet. They really wanted more privacy, and they wanted to be able to sleep in without us being right on top of them. The other part that was a hassle was just having to convert the bed table twice a day, and put away all the pillows and sleeping bags. Not the end of the world, but it got old on long trips.

I had better go to bed, but here are some pictures of the dining table.

 

[Snapdragon III]

Also, while I was looking for pictures of some things I didn't have on my phone I found this old YouTube video tour of the boat from the listing broker we bought it from.

 

[Snapdragon III]

Moving forward with our tour, the Galley and Head were fine, but not note worthy, except for the top loading refrigeration which I will write more about later. Then We proceed up 3 steps to the pilot house which was very unique for a boat this size. It extended a little farther forward on the boat than typical, and due to the generous walk around decks, was probably a little narrower than is typical on a boat this size. It was laid out with two fixed Stidd helm seats with a small cabinet/table between them on the port side. A nice nav table/desk at the back on starboard. And the helm seat was a third matching Stud chair, but on a mobile base. Due to the low cabin in the back, aluminum, construction, and the modest height of the bow, this pilot house had exceptional visibility. It felt almost like an enclosed fly bridge in many ways. The thing that was great about this design was that with the larger than average size, the inward facing fixed chairs, and the helm seat that could be moved around once you were at anchor, it became your comfortable living room at anchor or at the dock. With space at such a premium on a boat, it is really nice to have the pilot house with the best views, also be the most desirable place on the boat to hang out in the evenings. It was a really good use of space. As smart as I think the design was, when we got the boat the two fixed seats were set low at normal chair height, and when sitting in them you could not see out the windows! It as insane, and had been that way for 30 years. If your wife was sitting in the pilot house with you while you cruise she could not see. The bases were standard Stidd, and I got some longer ones and foot rests, and it was magic.

When I got the boat I thought the helm chair on the mobile base was a dumb idea, but it turned out to be so great. It was so much better to be able to move it around depending on the circumstances. It was amazingly stable. If it got really rough I would usual pull it over to the starboard side so it was braced on the wall in that direction, then with one hand hanging on to the boat it was little effort to keep you from tipping over. There were a couple times in really extreme weather when it was too much, and I just tipped it over on its back at the back of the pilot house and stood, or used one of the other chairs. The ultimate setup in my opinion would be to have a mobile chair, but some preinstalled bolt down points flush in the floor where it could be quickly bolted down with no tools for the rare occasions that would be nice. I will have more to say about this when I finally get to my dream trawler designs.

The heat for the boat was also in the pilot house, at the back, against the shaft that carried the exhaust up from the engine room below. It was a a Dickson oil wall stove. It was both a strength and a weakness of the boat. On the good side, it was silent, used zero power, could run continuously for weeks, had a really nice fireplace look and feel, and was super simple and reliable. It was also a convenient spot to boil a pot of water for coffee or tea which was nice. It had some downsides too. The biggest one on this boat was that it was up high in the pilot house, and the heat wanted to stay up there and not go down into the v berths and especially the rear cabin. I installed Hella fans at the tops of the stairs down to the cabins to blow some warm air down there that helped, and if it was really cold I would bring a larger 120V fan to circulate the air. We used the boat quite a bit in winter and if it was below about 45 degrees out, the condensation got really annoying in the lower cabin. You could keep it warm enough down there so you were comfortable with a sweat shirt on, but the condensation on the windows got really bad, especially when cooking. This boat could have benefited from a second diesel forced air heater but there was no really good place to put it that would have been a nice clean installation.

While on the subject of condensation, I will bring up something that I think was super weak in the design of this boat, and something I will consider for all future boats. There was no overhang, or lip at the outside edge of any of the cabins, or pilot house. It was a nice clean look on the outside, but it meant that rain would run off the roof directly onto the windows. Having the windows constantly covered in cold rain water made the condensation issues way worse. It also made it harder to crack a window to let in air, without letting in a bunch of rain. You rarely hear it talked about, but I believe this is the main reason reverse angled helm windows became popular. They are so much easier to keep condensation free in the Pacific NW because they are not constantly wet from the rain.

My current boat which I will write about more later, is that exact opposite of this situation. It has completely covered side, fore, and aft decks. The windows don’t see a drop of water unless you are in a huge storm. It is a really nice design for the Pacific NW. I am sure there are wind resistance and weight issues with the huge overhangs, but they are pretty sweet. They were also nice when we had the boat in Hawaii, as they kept the tropical sun off the windows.

Some of these watermarked pictures are from the listing when I bought the boat 6 years ago that I found on the web. Most of the pictures I had of the interior were pictures I took of my family and the interior just happens to be in the background.

 

[slowgoesit]

Loren, it was great to meet you in Ketchikan last Summer. I love your thread on your boat selections! Scot

 

[Snapdragon III]

Loren, it was great to meet you in Ketchikan last Summer. I love your thread on your boat selections! Scot

I am glad you are enjoying my ramblings. It was great to meet you too, and to get a chance to tour your super unique boat. For those of you that have not had the pleasure, Scot's boat is a serious offshore optimized machine. It is not the prettiest boat on the dock, but probably the one you would would want to be on if you had to choose one to cross some oceans on.

Features of Scot's boat that I particularly liked were the great U shaped booth seating in the pilot house, the huge covered back deck, the huge solar system/room for said system, and of coarse the Gardner engine and CPP propeller. It is a great don't judge a book by its cover craft. If you didn't know what it was, you would think "Look at that crazy home built boat." Then once you learn about what it actually is you realize that it is a super optimized ocean crossing machine, and a true piece of history in the recreational passage maker world. A really cool boat, and Scot is a super nice guy.

 

[Snapdragon III]

Couldn't work on the manifesto this evening because we actually came out to the boat. We threw a dinner party at the marina for some friends we made this summer in Alaska. A great time was had, and I might have drank a little too much. I will have more to say about it later, but having enough room for a good dinner party is a key design criteria for my dream boat. Our current boat can comfortably accommodate 7 people which we had tonight. We would have liked to invite one more, but didn't due to lack of room.

We are hoping to get out the San Juan Islands this weekend, but currently are on the dock at the marina in the middle of a pretty strong wind storm.

 

[Snapdragon III]

The interior finishes of this boat were very simple by trawler standard, probably much more like an average nice work boat. Other than the use of wallpaper, I really liked it. It was much lighter, and brighter than our current boat that is all Mahogany of medium quality. I liked that I was never afraid of damaging the finishes, and there was nothing in the boat I could not have easily fixed or rebuilt from scratch. The complete opposite of a perfect Taiwanese interior that I could never repair properly, or reproduce even though I have considerable woodworking skills. One aspect that was surprisingly great was the floor tiles. The builder used commercial VCT 12” Vinyl floor that had a built in Grit texture pattern. They were likely intended for commercial kitchens or something. They were not the greatest looking, but I grew to love them. They were 30 years old, and in great shape. They had great nonslip even when wet, (Not the case with the fake wood flooring in my current boat). You were never worried about scratching or denting them. And they were surprisingly easy to clean. I would consider a similar product in a new build, or replacement in a boat with a more commercial look.

My current boat is all stained mahogany that was done nicely, but not outstandingly to begin with. After thirty years of hard use there are a lot of water stains and damaged areas. They are nothing that impair the use of the boat, but they drive me crazy. I feel like I am in a bit of a trap with the interior. It seems too nice as is to just paint over. But the amount of effort to restore the natural wood finishes in the damaged sections, then try and make it all match would be insane. As a result I just leave it the way it is and am unhappy with it. If I ever build my dream boat, resistance to water damage, and repairability will be high on my list when picking interior finishes.

This was the best picture I could find with the flooring in it. You can tell it wasn't too precious.

 

[Snapdragon III]

The Seakeeper had a laundry list of cool offshore boat features in it’s mechanical system
- Dry stack exhaust,
- Keel cooling
- Sea chest for salt water inlets
-Engine driven refrigeration
-Hydraulic windless and Crane
-CV joints to remove thrust forces of prop from transmissions
-Keel cooled transmissions
-Day tank with in Pilot house that gravity fed to engines and heater.

When I got the boat it had belt driven salt water pump who’s only role was to supply cooling water to the dripless shaft seals. They had leaked at some point and the front of the engines were a bit of a mess. I removed the pumps and replaced them with a small mag drive 12v pump intended for air conditioning systems. It worked super sweet as long as you remembered to reprime it after haul out. I spent a ton of time cleaning up the engines and they looked pretty sweet when I was done. I really liked having zero salt water, or cold seawater pumps that condense around here and drip all over, on the engine.

Since it was an aluminum boat the keel cooling was just a section of the bottom of the hull right behind the engines that was a welded box with internal dividers to make the cooling take a long path through it. There was no sign of it on the outside of the hull, and no maintenance other than changing the coolant like any engine. It was so sweet. There were so many pain in the ass parts eliminated.
-Raw water strainer
-Raw water pump/impeller
-Heat exchanger
-Wet exhaust elbow.

The other thing I liked about the dry exhaust, that might have been more in my head than reality was that there was no wet muffler sitting there full of salt water a couple feet of hose away from the engine. In my current boat I worry that that water is evaporating out of the muffler and condensing in the motor if I let the boat sit unused for a long time. I never worried about it on the dry stacked boat. It might not really be any better, but it made me feel better. I have similar worries about stagnate salt water sitting in the heat exchangers, but the way it is set up on my boat it is a pain in the ass to fresh water flush at the end of a trip so I rarely do it. If I was building a custom dream boat, I would push for dry stack, keel cooled. If that wasn’t possible I would at least figure out a built in system that would make it easy to fresh water flush at the end of a trip and leave everything full of fresh water when it was sitting.