New Trawler Owner

Well, Newby here, jumped into the fray. Put a deposite down on a '83 Atlantic 30 last week. A terrific little trawler. Hopefully bring it home to Vermilion Bay, La. in about 3 weeks. A 400 mile trip. Looking to do the "Loop" in '16 or '17. Have worked (until Jimmy Carter)and played (60 or so yrs) in the rec boat industry for many years. Have no experience with trawlers, mostly experienced with fishing boats. Have owned or operated to many to count, 10ft to 52ft. Hope to pick up some knowledge/advise here on the forum. Looking forward to the slow cruise.

Greetings,
Welcome aboard.

ddalme said:

Well, Newby here, jumped into the fray. Put a deposite down on a '83 Atlantic 30 last week. A terrific little trawler. Hopefully bring it home to Vermilion Bay, La. in about 3 weeks. A 400 mile trip. Looking to do the "Loop" in '16 or '17. Have worked (until Jimmy Carter)and played (60 or so yrs) in the rec boat industry for many years. Have no experience with trawlers, mostly experienced with fishing boats. Have owned or operated to many to count, 10ft to 52ft. Hope to pick up some knowledge/advise here on the forum. Looking forward to the slow cruise.

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Welcome

Greetings and welcome to the forum!

Ted

Welcome! Where is your boat? 400 miles puts you in Fl somewhere. I will be coming back to Tx, crossing from Crystal River the first week of April.

Congratulations!

dimer2
Boat is at Bluewater Bay Marina, Niceville, Fl. Nice place. Randy (co-owner/broker) is going thru all the systems, repairing salon walls/headliner, trim pcs., etc, installing new bimini canvas. He thought it would take about 2 weeks. I'm trying to get it back to La. between Mar. 29 and April 13. I might be cutting it close. Nephew getting married Mar. 28 and I leave for a Panama Canal cruise on the Aprill 13. If it's not ready before that, I want start the trip until after April. My bucket list is getting shorter, I think! Keep finding stuff to put on it.LOL

Welcome aboard!!!! I used to have a Prairie 29... Same boat!!! You will love it!!! That is a fantastic boat! What kind of power do you have in it? Also, half of my family is from Lafayette!!

Un autre Cajun! Bonjour mon aime and welcome to a great forum! Hope your projects go as planned. If you wait till after April you should find better weather conditions crossing Mobile and Miss sound. There are quite a few trawler owners from South La on this forum that you will run across. Are you docking the boat at the Point or Delcambre?
We keep ours in N.O. at South Shore...my admiral loves New Orleans.

Baker
The engine is a Volvo TAMD40-1600 hours- Clean and runs beautifully. Way to much power for this hull but, will cruise nicely a 7.5 to 8knots at 18K (34K max.). It's a little over propped. Has a 4 blade no (I think they came with a 3bld 12X18??) PO says it has a 800 mile range (200 gals). Not use to getting 4 mpg. I'll take it with a grain of salt(seeing is believing). Lol

rajin cajun
I'm going to dock it at the Point behind my camp in the marina. Your right about the weather-very seldom am I able to get offshore, without getting my a$$ kicked) until late April or early May. Of course, I'm going a lot faster than 8 knts.

Congratulations and hope the excitement continues!

Hope to see ya new boat later this spring when we start speck fishing. Bro-in-law has a camp at the point, down there often during the week to fish.

Welcome! I keep my boat in Houma just off of the ICW near Retif's fuel dock. There is also a nice city dock there under the "twin bridges" about mile 57WHL. Send me a message if you need anything while passing through or stopping there.

Ddalme, if it starts to get to tight, you could have it trailered but that's no fun at all. I used to live in Lafayette years ago and still stop for a beer at City Bar in Maurice every time I go through. Have a good trip and when heading down our way holla.

dimer2
hush! Don't tell my wife!! I'm looking forward to the journey. Never ran the ICW east of La. Have a couple of buddies that want to tag along. One is a really good cook and the other is a retired Master captain/unlimited tonnage. My wife is laughingly getting payments from other wives to take their spouses on a cruise. Might pay for the fuel. Taking a legal pad with me to list all the upgrades that I find out that I can't live without.LOL
Steve
I might be overnighting around there. We'll see as the trip unfolds. Thanks for the offer.

Welcome to the madness

Congratulations and welcome to the forum .

Welcome aboard


Sergio "Alemao" Sztancsa

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Well, the broker says the boat will be ready for closing Friday-Starting to get excited-6 hour drive than a 400 mile trip back to Cypremort Point, La. Hope I can average 6 knots. $ Days. Crew is getting ready as I speak. I think they're more excited than I am. It's going to be an adventure learning the systems, i.e.: boat. Hope for good weather.

Good luck, if you can have the owner give you a good rundown on the systems before leaving that will be a big help, also get is telephone # in case something odd comes up on the trip home. I had Chartplotter issues on the trip bringing my boat home I called the previous owner he walked me through it. Spare fuel filter elements might come in handy too.

Steve
Going to have plenty of spares. Sadly, the PO is in cancer treatment in Ark., having a tough time ,but the broker/marina owner has been taking care of it the past couple of years. He's going to walk me through the systems before we leave. The nav stuff I'm very familiar with. I'm bringing a full legal pad to take notes of all the things I need to do to it to make it my own.LOL I have a friend crewing for me that retired from Edison Swest about 4 yrs ago. He was the lead captain and sea trial supervisor for the company. He'll probably take all day just to inspect things.HeHe But, that's not a bad thing.

Greetings,
Buy tow insurance FOR SURE!!! Have a safe trip.

It sounds like you have a good crew! Have a great trip.

Well, had to RESET. On my trip back from Niceville, Fl. broke down in Pascagoula, Ms. Towed to the inner harbor where we where greeted at the dock by a resident (Les) across the street from the Pascagoula City Marina. Helped us dock and gave us a few numbers for parts/mechanic. Of course this was the Saturday evening before Easter. Could not find a part (circulation pump). Nobody open until Monday. No parts in Ms, La, or Ala. I will have the old one that I took off rebuilt for a spare.LOL Finally ran out of time and had to rent a car and drive home (3 1/2 hrs). Had to get on a cruise ship Weds. in San Diego, so I ran out of time. Got all the parts overnighted and my crew went down the next Friday and made the repairs. Thanks to Mary at Action Master Marine in Norfolk, Va. A great parts person, by the way. Now we're rebooted and will start again tomorrow. Boy, by the time we get back home, I think I'll know the boat very well.

Well, it looks like good weather for the next week or so. Considering the disastrous weather last weekend and earlier this week maybe that pump did you a favor by cutting out!
Keep us posted, pls.

dimer2 and STEVE,
Can't thank ya'll enough for all the help. Steve (owner of Gumbo, Houma, La.) hauled me all over Houma, La. getting belts and groceries and "dimer2" (Blue and Michelle) for the tow(I saved about a pint of fuel.LOL) and gave me a huge battery(which I tried to pay for but they would have non of it.) and bought me some jumper cables. Which I forgot to pay Blue for. Long story.LOL We made it back to my slip at 3:30am today. Ran all night with the full moon and favorable wind and current. Made some great memories and had a ton of laughs. The people that I met along the way where great. Now I can get down to making her my own.

ddalme, you and your motely crew more than made up for the tow, in entertainment value. The $100 you gave me for not posting the whole and true story, covered the battery, but you owe me big time for those $9.99 jumper cables you stole.


Glad you made it home safely!! We have two more days.....

Ddalme, congrats to you and the crew for finishing the trip, I hope to see you out on the water soon.
Dimmer2, you all take care, Michelle, keep sweet talking those lockmasters, bridge tenders and tow captains! let us know how the rest of the trip goes.

dimer2 said:

ddalme, you and your motely crew more than made up for the tow, in entertainment value. The $100 you gave me for not posting the whole and true story, covered the battery, but you owe me big time for those $9.99 jumper cables you stole.


Glad you made it home safely!! We have two more days.....

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Glad you guys made it to home port! I do sense a great story here or somewhere???????

Greetings,
Hmmmm....Jumper cables? Deck shoes? What's next? Is this the beginning of a TF crime wave?