YouTube Trawler Channels

Hi All
There are literally hundreds of sailing channels on YouTube but I can't find many trawler related channels. Apart from "Winty", which is a great resource, I'm looking for help to locate channels where i can get tips on trawler maintenance and operation.

I'll be interested in this too. Millennial Sailors figured out that if they produce a relatively quality product they can eek out a meager living via Patreon gifts. The rest of YouTube amateur videos channels (powerboats included) are mostly stream of consciousness where they just turn on the camera and start babbling without an outline or script.

That said, I've watched a couple videos from MV Dirona (nordhavn owner) that were incredibly interesting from a technical perspective. Where guys like that find the time to do what they do is amazing to me. His attention to detail is amazing. Makes me want to grab a beer and take a break.

A non-boat specific YouTube channel with crossover appeal to me for mechanical reasons is Project Farm. He has about 900k subscribers and does mostly comparison videos like this one on whether synthetic oil will blow seals in an old diesel.

https://youtu.be/Pa4RwsiZUmI

Here's a few that I follow. Some building, some maintenance, and some travelogues.
Brupeg, Six Points Wood Work (building a George Buehler Diesel Duck), Cruising Sea Venture, The On Board Life, Aboard Mermaid Monster, M/V Cassidy. Check em out and enjoy!

‘Tulsa’s Endless Summer” starts out as a trawler video. It eventually turns into a sailing video.

Seattleboatguy did a series of videos on doing the great loop in a Marine Trader 38. I found them to be interesting and enjoyable.

+1 for “Winty”. He has some good tips on Ford Lehman service as well as general maintenance.

Searching for C-shels is really good. They are in a mid 40’ aft Cabin Tollycraft.

A couple more which I enjoy: MV Freedom and Travels with Geordie.

ksanders said:

Searching for C-shels is really good. They are in a mid 40’ aft Cabin Tollycraft.

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Sheldon had an emergency heart episode and then they disappeared for last few months from all of their social media platforms . I fear the worst

I follow the MV Freedom folks on their 40 + Nordhavn. They are out cruising the Washington waters. They had another boat more in the Express Cruiser vein before their current boat. They moved onto this boat roughly 5 months ago. Their plan is to eventually do long range cruising.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBiguozH2oA217lkkj04mvg

I second Travels with Geordie but usually it is more about restoring two Monks he and she own. They are out and about now and have posted some nice Salish Sea cruising:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzjS_6kYzuWNznwIfQdqt1w

If you are relatively "local" you'll enjoy his beer of the week at the end of each of his videos.

Caesar said:

Sheldon had an emergency heart episode and then they disappeared for last few months from all of their social media platforms . I fear the worst

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I have been in touch with Sheldon since his last videos. About a month ago if memory serves. The boat is on the hard in FL. He is pretty much ok now...

There was a couple cruising the Bahamas and down to Mexico aboard Grand Banks 42. They had converted from sail and had a couple kids. Boat was stabilized as I recall. Decent website too. For the life of me, I can't remember their names and can't find them online. Any ideas?

Maybe BUMFUZZLE? They went around the world in a sailing cat, and now have a GB.

I think the MV Freedom channel is pretty well done. I subscribe to that along with several other that are more on the sailing side.
Although not a trawler channel, for those that are interested in wooden boat building I have been a Patrion of Sampson Boat Works channel with an English guy rebuilding a 110' classic sailing yawl called Tally Ho. Wonderful work and very inspiring to watch. He's up in the PNW. You can't help but learn a lot watching them work.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg-_lYeV8hBnDSay7nmphUA

If you are interested in superyachts, esysmen is very good.
https://www.youtube.com/user/sevenseasvoyager


I don't watch regular TV anymore, there is plenty of interesting content on Youtube to keep me interested.

Maldwin said:

Maybe BUMFUZZLE? They went around the world in a sailing cat, and now have a GB.

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Thanks. That's the one. Looks like their blog has been kept up go date. Not their YouTube channel. They are good writers so fine by me.

Thanks Maldwin

lwarden said:

I think the MV Freedom channel is pretty well done. I subscribe to that along with several other that are more on the sailing side.
Although not a trawler channel, for those that are interested in wooden boat building I have been a Patrion of Sampson Boat Works channel with an English guy rebuilding a 110' classic sailing yawl called Tally Ho. Wonderful work and very inspiring to watch. He's up in the PNW. You can't help but learn a lot watching them work.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg-_lYeV8hBnDSay7nmphUA

If you are interested in superyachts, esysmen is very good.
https://www.youtube.com/user/sevenseasvoyager


I don't watch regular TV anymore, there is plenty of interesting content on Youtube to keep me interested.

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Samson Boat works. I have just finished binge watching that show from the beginning and waiting for the new ones. Futtocks, Trunnels, and Fashion pieces.... who knew?

The quality of work and Leo's explanations are amazing.

BailMeOut said:

The quality of work and Leo's explanations are amazing.

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I watch it too... As an amateur woodworker I am fascinated by it. However, what I am totally enthralled by is Leo's materials handling ability. He has had to move, manage, cut, reposition, lift, spin, and manipulate these HUGE pieces of wood. His ingenuity in setting up the tools he has to manage this, often times solo, makes it look effortless.

You know, it's funny, I regularly watch several YouTube sailing channels, Tula's Endless Summer, SV Delos, Project Atticus and Millennial Falcon are my favorites and I've tried to watch a few trawler channels but they've all been kind of meh at best.


I'm not sure why this is, as I I'm not a sailor and never really have been. I think it may be because the sailing channels go to much more exotic destinations and the people on the sailing channels do more exciting stuff. I'm not interested in just watching the boating, it's the freediving, fishing, spearing, hiking, surfing, kiting, etc. that draws me in. I also enjoy the boat work. No trawler channels seem to do those things.


I tried Mermaid Monster but found the woman to be obnoxious and they just reek of trust fund kids paying their way around the Eastern Seaboard with few skills of their own. Searching for C-Shells got boring very quickly for me.



I sponsor four or five sailing channels through my company as marketing, but I haven't found a trawler channel yet that I'd consider sponsoring. I'd like to find a good one, I'm just not sure one exists.

Dougcole said:

I tried Mermaid Monster but found the woman to be obnoxious and they just reek of trust fund kids paying their way around the Eastern Seaboard with few skills of their own. Searching for C-Shells got boring very quickly for me.

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I tried Mermaid Monster and also found the woman obnoxious and the kids a bit bratty as well. It's a shame since it has good potential. SVDelos is certainly not as fun as it was before the baby but I still drop in from time to time. Same goes for Ran Sailing which I very much enjoyed, especially when they were up in Alaska. They are doing ok with the baby onboard but are limited now to where they go. I have been following Sailing La Vagabond for years since they are usually in exciting places and I think they are both pretty charming and do a good job on their videos and I like the free-diving and spear fishing portions. It was also fun to watch them learn to sail from novices to now being pretty competent.

Just watched Mermaid Monster videos, for parents who envisage home schooling on their boat with the potential second wave of Covid 19, it is interesting. I guess the cruising limitations due to the Covid has significantly changed their plans and it is now difficult to keep up with the interesting videos not being able to cruise to real adventurous destinations.

The best trawler videos I have seen are done by Tony Fleming, founder of Fleming Yachts. He has a series about cruising the inside passage to SE Alaska and beyond. Also, cruising around Vancouver Island and up the Columbia River. He does all the camera work and the editing and you would think you were watching a National Geographic show. He has one episode where he shows how he edits his work. Very interesting if you ever thought about trying it yourself. There are a few promotional videos for Fleming Yachts on the channel but you don't have to watch those unless interested.

Yeah, I have not found any trawler channels that hold our interest.

We watch the various channels for these reasons:

• Discuss technical stuff
• Show sailing techniques
• Go to interesting places
• Entertaining

Mainly we watch Delos, since the beginning, lately Ruby Rose, Tom Cunliffe, RAN, and Patrick Laine. There are some others that we watch but Delos and Ruby Rose we watch consistently.

RAN and Delos have a baby on board which makes it interesting to see how they handle cruising with a baby. We don't think the baby makes it uninteresting but what has certainly impacted the shows is the virus. Being stuck in one place for a long time, or locked up at home or a hotel, really prevents one from making interesting content.

Delos has been opened our eyes to some places to visit that we would never have considered. Since they have been locked down in the Bahamas, the length of their videos has dropped to 20 or so minutes from 30-40 but I like the reduced video length but it shows they are struggling to come up with content. How many times can you show them playing water sports, fishing, lobstering, walking on the island and still have new content?

Since none of the trawlers channels we have seen are traveling the world, it is hard to hold our interest. It really is difficult to come up with entertaining content. Most people themselves are not that entertaining or interesting. We surfed into a new channel last night about a young English couple on a sailboat. We only watched a couple of episodes but they had good photography, production, AND they were very entertaining. Not sure that will continue but they did some very clever and funny things so we will continue to watch them to see how it goes.

Later,
Dan

Dangar Marine is a YT channel by a personable Aussie (a friend of the much more ambitious Brupeg crew) who takes aver a near wreck of a 30-foot steel trawler and is slowly turning it into a small expedition wreck hunter with side scan sonar and other really updated electronics and wiring. He has a an old Detroit which he spends many episodes on as he rehabbed it and aligned the shaft.

For sailing, I recommend Gone with the Wynns. But maybe not right now, though they have a couple of videos being on a guest boat with great water and under water scenes. Their boat is in Tonga but they have be detained in Fiji as the border hasn't opened up to Tonga (they went home to the States to visit family and got caught on the way back to their boat when the borders closed).




Sailing Uma is one that has grown on me. At first I wasn't that enthralled but they have been out there for a few years now and are quite adapt at dealing with issues. The guy is Canadian, I forget where the gal is from however she speaks five languages. The couple have adapted their sailboat to all electric drive.

rsn48 said:

For sailing, I recommend Gone with the Wynns. But maybe not right now, though they have a couple of videos being on a guest boat with great water and under water scenes.
...
Sailing Uma is one that has grown on me.... The couple have adapted their sailboat to all electric drive.
...

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We watch Gone with the Wynns from time to time and their videos have surly been impacted by the virus. Though one video we watched about supply filters to clean water for the people on the island was very interesting.

My understanding is that the woman on Ulma is from Haiti. Ulma seems to get recommended frequently but there are sooooo many channels and only soooo much time.

Later,
Dan

My sense is that while many of the more interesting channels/episodes look extemporaneous, they are actually scripted or at least have story-board organization to tell a cogent story. There is a crop of young sailors who have backgrounds in videography and production and use it well to support their sailing habits. They do a good job of weaving a story that highlights the boat, the journey, the destination, and themselves.

Without that training or natural ability, many folks (and virtually all Powerboaters) just hit the <RECORD> button and wing it. When I used to read magazines, I'd see the same thing - low-budget magazines do very little editing of submissions thus have boring tick-tock stories "On Monday, we awoke at 4AM. At 4:30 we did an engine room check. By 5AM, we had finished our breakfast and second cup of coffee. Ready to hoist anchor by 5:30AM so we could reach our destination by 4PM."

My hunch is that if people spent 20-mins story-boarding their episode before shooting a single second of digital film, the end product would be vastly improved.

Peter

mvweebles said:

My sense is that while many of the more interesting channels/episodes look extemporaneous, they are actually scripted or at least have story-board organization to tell a cogent story. There is a crop of young sailors who have backgrounds in videography and production and use it well to support their sailing habits. They do a good job of weaving a story that highlights the boat, the journey, the destination, and themselves.
....
Without that training or natural ability, many folks (and virtually all Powerboaters) just hit the <RECORD> button and wing it.

Peter

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We have watched Delo's from the beginning of their channel and one can see a HUGE improvement of their production value. The photography, be it underwater, drone, or "normal" everyday images/video, has gotten really good. Some of their stuff beats what is professionally done and on TV. People think what Delo's does is easy. It is not. They spent quite a bit of time filming, and then the hard work, editing. They have quite a bit of money in their equipment. They do not just push the record button, download and put up on Youtube. Over the years the have learned to take excellent photos and make excellent videos but as importantly, if not most importantly, figured out how to edit the content to make an interesting story.

I don't think Delo's scripts their videos per say but I do believe that they think about the possibilities of what they can film before they go to certain places. They do plan at that level. And I suspect they have done certain scenes/events to get viewership. Nothing wrong with that and it fits their story. On some other channels I wonder if they start to go down the Reality TV path....

Later,
Dan

Yes, I've spent some time on Uma's channel, Gone With The Wynns and LaVagabonde as well.



Of the three, Uma is the one I enjoy the most, though I have not gotten as much out of their UK travels as I did when they were in the tropics. That's just me though, I know others love cold water voyaging. Dan is super resourceful and is not afraid to be unconventional, I really like that. Even when I don't agree with what they do, boat work wise, it is fun to watch them try things. I think the electric motor is a monumentally bad idea for a cruising boat, and sometimes they try too hard to prove it will work, but they seem to be getting around it. Sailors seem to have this innate urge to avoid motors, or use the smallest possible motor they can get away with. I don't understand that, but then, I often don't understand sailors, so there ya go.


Loved the early LaVagabonde. At some point though they jumped the shark. I was not pleased when they did a shark feeding video in an area that is close to where I free dive and spear, a place where the sharks have been getting more and more aggressive every year. I personally know two people who have been bitten in that area and have heard of three more whom I have never met. You don't feed wild, dangerous animals like bears, alligators and sharks. It puts everyone at risk. It was reckless and they should have known better. I shot them a comment and then unsubscribed. I doubt they cared, but it's my opinion.


I'm up and down on the Wynns, they go to some cool places. I watch every once in awhile. Same thing for Nahoa.


Agree with the storytelling aspect, that's what separates the good channels from the bad. Project Atticus is particularly good at story telling. Their channel is getting more and more popular.

Good call on Tony Fleming - very high quality videos that tell a good story about serious cruising.

On YouTube, search FlemingYachts

One example

Of the three, Uma is the one I enjoy the most, though I have not gotten as much out of their UK travels as I did when they were in the tropics. That's just me though, I know others love cold water voyaging. Dan is super resourceful and is not afraid to be unconventional, I really like that. Even when I don't agree with what they do, boat work wise, it is fun to watch them try things. I think the electric motor is a monumentally bad idea for a cruising boat, and sometimes they try too hard to prove it will work, but they seem to be getting around it. Sailors seem to have this innate urge to avoid motors, or use the smallest possible motor they can get away with. I don't understand that, but then, I often don't understand sailors, so there ya go.

Some, but not many sailors, don't use motors at all. I know when I was sailing, I surprised myself at how much I could use sail coming in and out of marinas and sail away from jetties. In the above, concerning Ulma, a new or newer electric motor was installed so I guess for them, they feel electric will do the job. They don't rely on the motor for long term transiting, they use it more for marinas, entering and exiting ports, etc. You will be happy to know that they are now back out to sea, destination unknown.

The Wynn's have been nomadic now for ten years, six in motorhomes and four on their sailing Cat. I installed a composting toilet based on their motorhome experience. My understanding is that on their Cat, their toilet is composting but for their guests a more traditional marine toilet is used. In fact the best videos for composting toilets are the ones they put out during their motorhome phase, they have stood up to the test of time.