cool trawler I saw

Marin said:

Chinook is not a fishboat conversion. She was built to Garden's original plans for a recreational cruiser based on his troller design.

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Thanks, Marin, I thought you were saying Chinook was built from the troller plans. So, was the hull shape changed too? I don't see how just making the house longer and putting an aft cabin where the fish hold would be could affect empty stability very much.

Marin said:

And Garden's troller design itself was not "woefully unstable without a load of iced fish."

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Well, in the article refugio posted, that is supposedly a quote from Garden himself. Tad Roberts comes to a similar conclusion, and points out that 157 fishing vessels capsized in BC between 1975 and 2005. Though I don't know how many of those were trollers that flipped because of underloading, and I don't know of a database like the NTSB aviation database to search to try to find out. I would like to know. I think PNW salmon trollers are beautiful boats; I just need to do more due diligence before I commit to one as a cruiser.

Chinook's hull is identical to the 37' troller plans. As it was explained to me by the previous owner, Garden adapted his troller design for cruising. Apparently several were built over the years but Chinook is the only one that followed Garden's plans to the letter.

The previous owner took me and my wife through Chinook one day and while it is a really great boat, the inside spaces are fairly small, particularly below-decks in the galley, stateroom, and aft head/shower/closet. Chinook is powered by her original Cummins diesel but I don't know what model.

Whoa...

manyboats said:

Here's a cool trawler I saw.

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I really, really, really lust after this boat. Must be the scandahoovian roots...

Any more info on this boat?

For different names/types may be choose on this list from "apollo duck"
Aft Cabin
Aft Cockpit
Catamaran
Classic
Commuter
Day Boats
Downeast
Flybridge
Flybridge Aft Cabin
Launch
Pilothouse
River Cruiser
Sports Cruiser
Trawler
Twin-Deck

For example for our we send advertising in Apollo under Trawler/passagemaker and they put her in ...pilothouse.
And when we contact Wosper for stab they put, on the front of the quotation :not 'trawler' or passagemaker but"patrol boat" and finally it is the closest definition of the look of our boat

more details at

SomeSailor said:

Well... there are some tugs with sails...

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http://navirelemanguier.com/crbst_1.html

Here a beautiful girl sitting in the yard

QB said:

Though I don't know how many of those were trollers that flipped because of underloading, and I don't know of a database like the NTSB aviation database to search to try to find out. I would like to know.

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To followup on this... The Transportation Safety Board of Canada does have online searchable marine investigation reports that go back to 1990: Marine Reports.

Quite educational to read. For example maybe like me you did not know that a net full of sardines panicking and sounding can capsize a seiner; but that happened to the Prospect Point in 2004.

Anyway, I tried to look at all capsizing incidents and found 12 involving medium-sized fishing type boats on the west coast from 1994 to 2008. In my reading of the reports I didn't see underballasting as the cause in any of them per se. However there were some cases of center of gravity problems due to mounting a second seine reel above an existing one, carrying 500 heavy prawn traps above the deck, and the like. And an awfully high fraction of the cases implicated the free surface effect due to holds only partially full of ballasting seawater. That and/or loose hatches when the deck goes awash can be a really bad combination...

So far as converting a troller to a cruiser goes, I'd conclude from all this that you definitely want to take stability seriously. Having a NA run a stability analysis on your design sure could be worth the money. But with small or well-baffled tankage, low superstructure, and the ability to seal hatches and doors to belowdecks you ought to be able to have a seaworthy boat.

Can't help but be smitten with the style of this Legacy 32 tug-ette. I see there are a few on Yachtworld including one in the PNW. I not much conversation about them, but I like their fairway flash.

Marin: Thanks for the background info on Chinook!

Marin said:

So it's not like these boats had to cruise around with a permanent load of iced fish in the hold for stability. Even if they had, the ice would have melted fairly quickly and then they'd have had a really stinky boat on their hands.

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My boat - a "yacht-like" version of a commercial fishing hull, was originally built by and for what could be called a "gentleman fisherman". He intended to troll to supplement his retirement, so there was an insulated fish hold extending under about half of the saloon and half of the cockpit, a trolling valve, and even an icing machine under the starboard side deck. That machine is gone now, of course, and I converted the hold into more usable stowage (batteries, w/d, et cetera). The trolling valve is handy sometimes when we're in a slow procession (e.g. the "Special People's Cruise" at Christmas).

healhustler said:

Can't help but be smitten with the style of this Legacy 32 tug-ette..

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Yes, but a bit cartoonish.

markpierce said:

Yes, but a bit cartoonish.

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True. Perhaps a little help would come from removal of the fake stack (photo). Still, the hull and draft look like intentional boat building. Side by side with the Coot in the same marina, I doubt they would evoke similar responses. It's a character boat rather than a boat with character.

Refugio: Sure would love to see some other photos of your boat. Too bad about the ice-maker removal though. With such a machine here in Miami, you'd have been the "supply guy" for the big weekend cooler parties on the water!

markpierce said:

Yes, but a bit cartoonish.

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Maybe. But I bet the ladies love it! "It's so cute!"

Concerning the 'Legacy' trawler boats, there are/were multiple versions available with options for semi or full displacement hulls and 3 or more configurations for cabins etc. all on this 32' base. All came with a canoe stern.

This company did build a number of boats in the late 80's and 90's. They are reputed to be a pretty solid little unit.

A good friend of mine from here in the PNW contracted with the company owner to custom build a semi-displ. with a pilothouse configuration, similar to the photo previously posted. Instead of the aft cabin, there would be a covered cockpit and swimstep. Dinghy could be stowed on the saloon roof and deployed with a small crane.

This custom boat was to have a Cummins 5.9 developing 270hp, an articulated rudder and a number of 'cool' features.

His plan was to take delivery of the boat in Fl, cruise a bit around the Keys and then truck the boat home, where he would become the PNW rep for the brand, showing the vessel at boat shows etc. He expected to compete favorably with the Nordic Tug 32, Camano 28 etc.


The first sad part of the story is that the boat company was in decline at the time this boat was contracted to be built around 2004. Further complicating matters was the new owners lived in WA state and the 'factory' was in Clearwater, FL.

Much $$ was sent to FL to build the boat, but without any accountability controls the project was not only absurdly far behind in production, but much of the cash had vanished before the owners finally admitted the 'plan' was faulty.


Today (2012) the partially complete boat is still in FL. The second sad part of the tale is the husband who commisioned the boat became ill with a fairly aggressive cancer 3 years into the alleged 9 month build, and did succome to the cancer, leaving his widow to try to deal with the disposition of the boat.

Attorneys became involved and the most recent agreement(2010) is that the boat-builder will try and finish the boat and sell it in an attempt to recoup some of the monies paid toward the project.


Of course, there are many lessons here, but one very noteworthy one is this: go boating. Do it now. Do it on what you can afford presently. There are a million ways to boat, and a million boats to do it on. A canoe may be small, but it is still a boat.


This sweet generous couple who suffered these things, sold their current boat in anticipation of getting the 'custom' boat to replace it. Instead they ended up missing several years of boating together while 'waiting' for their dream boat to be finished.



See you out there.

On the design of fishboats:

I worked on a 48 ft Salmon Troller, wooden, built new the year I worked on it, 1967. We fished fairweather ground, so had to run from Vancouver to Prince Rupert with an empty hold, (not even a speck of ice), refuelled and got ice, ran to fairweather ground, fished till the ice was starting to melt, about 2 weeks, back to PR to off load fish, take on new ice, back and forth, for the season. All running was at full speed, about 10 knots, in all conditions. Later in the season, in Hecate Straits, we had to run for cover from weather, so were running West to Haida Gwaii, in swells that rolled us 45 degrees each way. Nothing the weather threw at us fazed the boat, or threatened the safety of the crew, in any condition of load.

I wouldn't reject a fishboat design for a pleasure boat on the grounds of safety. Unless modified with no regard to stability, here I am thinking of the movie "Perfect Storm", the only drawback to the fishboat hull design will be in its design being sufficient for a heavy load that the incarnation as a pleasure boat will never require.

The reports of capsizes referred to by QB are worth closer reading. I know one of those sinkings, for which I had a brief personal involvement as a lawyer. The initial reports in the media had suggested the "diving " of the netload of fish had sunk the boat. Physics prevailed in the investigation, however and the NTSB report contains no reference to the media reports, but lists the actual causes of the sinking and the associated fatalities.
Stuggle as they might, a netload of fish, acting with one urge to dive, will be incapable of adding any significant weight to the line lifting the net. That netload will indeed get heavier as it is raised above the water, as the winch takes more of the weight, it will tend to heel the boat. In the case above, the "cod end" of the trawl was raised to the power block, well up above the deck, raising the COG of the boat and depressing the Starboard rail below the waterline, unfortunately, to the point that the uncovered hatch was downflooded. This sort of action is incapable of replication on any similar boat in pleasureboat configuration.

Almost all of the relatively few cases of commercial fishing/crabbing boats capsizing or listing to the point of filling and sinking I have read have ended up with overloading being the cause, most often with additional equipment or crab pots that were added to or stacked on the boat, thus altering the initial stability characteristics of the boat.

Chinook is not a light boat. She is fairly simply finished on the inside so below decks much of her structure is visible, even in the stateroom. She is heavily framed and planked. Most of the weight is low. The owner never spoke of the boat being ballasted in any significant way, and while I did not stick my head in every nook and cranny, I didn't see any evidence of any ballast anywhere.

The same is true of my other favorite boat in our marina, Donna. Again, a heavily built boat from the 1940s, in this case powered by her original gas engine. But Donna was run empty to the fishing grounds the owner fished solo for many years in SE Alaska and then was run back south empty. Like Koliver, Donna's owner told me he'd been caught out in bad weather on occasion but while Donna rolled around a lot he said she was never in danger of getting into trouble. And Donna is a true double-ended boat so in following seas has little no tendency to be pushed around.

koliver said:

Stuggle as they might, a netload of fish, acting with one urge to dive, will be incapable of adding any significant weight to the line lifting the net.

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So it's one of those myths? Disappointing to hear that! I liked thinking that the sardines had a chance of making it a fair fight .

Anyway, TSB Canada's report goes with it on the Prospect Point capsizing:


The full report is here: Transportation Safety Board of Canada - MARINE REPORTS - 2004 - M04W0225

bshanafelt: That is heartbreaking info. Thanks for sharing that, but I sure wish the best for the poor souls caught up in the mess, as if loosing your partner isn't enough. I suppose there are many such stories among all the mfgrs. that bit the dust.

Marin said:

Almost all of the relatively few cases of commercial fishing/crabbing boats capsizing or listing to the point of filling and sinking I have read have ended up with overloading being the cause, most often with additional equipment or crab pots that were added to or stacked on the boat, thus altering the initial stability characteristics of the boat.

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Quite true. I recall the book "Lost at Sea" about the two Anacortes-based crabbing vessels that reached the same conclusion.

I've always wanted to get a stability curve of my vessel....

healhustler said:

It's a character boat rather than a boat with character.

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Looks somewhat like Jay Benford's later designs (when he got away from all the exterior wood).

healhustler said:

Refugio: Sure would love to see some other photos of your boat...

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I have some - maybe I'll put a few up.

Near Måløy, Norway.

Northern Spy,
You must be referring to the boat in post #33. No .....I'm sorry. Took the picture in Ketchikan and Mark took his pic at the same place ...different time. We will be in Ketchikan soon and may see her again but she was at the "City Floats" and most or all boats there are transients. I'll take a look.

A few conversions from the west coast work boat association. Plus the seiner conversion ( neighbor ) Welcome Spirit, and the Steam driven Tug SS Master. I believe the last shot is a Garden design pleasure boat but not sure.

SS Master was at Vancouver Expo 86, where I picked up this pen and ink cutaway drawing (sorry for the lousy photo):

Is that an anchor davit on the bow?

As the kids say ........... AWSOME DRAWING.

OFB,
All conversions except "Symphony". Looks like all but one are lying on their water lines. Hard to tell but it looks like it. New Rosa looks a bit stern light. I like the bottom one best. But if I was given one of them I'd want Symphony as she probably is the only one that is efficient. Terrible looking aft cabin though.

This weekends nicest and least nice boat observed.

The bottom boat is a catamaran, by the way.

Carey said:

This weekends nicest and least nice boat observed.

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Well illustrated for "nice" to observe. However, if you focus on nice to own and operate, I imagine that both owners are satisfied. Of course, if you focus on maintenance cost those boats flip ends of the spectrum.

Holy smokes. Here's another one of those PNW trawlers that isn't missing much in detail. I don't think I've ever seen a "walk in" tank inspection plate before.

2002 Custom Michael Kasten Steel Commercial Grade Luxury Tug Style Trawler Power

healhustler said:

Holy smokes. Here's another one of those PNW trawlers that isn't missing much in detail.

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A lot of interesting details on this one. The pilothouse overhead access into the false stack for safety gear is clever. I also have a hydraulic windlass, and I hadn't seen that arrangement for a backup winch before - I might copy that. Ya gotta love the caption for image 136: "name's welded on....hope you like her name!" And the original owner clearly got a lot of good use from his label maker!

The photos indicate that the filters were changed at 681 hours over 3 years ago - and the listing says 1172 hours, so I'm guessing that the original owner (who clearly suffered from OCD) was replaced by someone with a little less attention to detail.

A very impressive vessel, but $374K for a 10 year old steel boat - even one this nice - seems optimistic.

Eric, here is our favorite trawler yacht again. Picture taken May 26, 2012 in Ketchikan.