Creating a fishing motorsailer

First I'd like to thank all of the good people who were so kind as to offer good advice on my dory question. Now I have another, I recently acquired a Tartan 27 sailboat, I have very little invested in it, bought it mostly for the good running 25 hp diesel engine. Now when I'm on it I can't help thinking that if I raised the boom, cut out the existing cockpit to make an open deck to fish from, add a small lobster style house and hydraulic steering I could have a cheap, efficient little fishing boat. I have about everything I need to do this, including the hydraulic steering and electronics, so again I would have little invested. One of my friends has a Cape Dory 300 motorsailer which is close to what I'm considering. I would like to be able to go out fishing for several days and have reasonable accommodations. The sailing qualities of the boat would, I'm sure, be degraded somewhat, and I know that it's a slow boat, neither which bother me. Are there any issues I'm missing, and is this a feasible project?

 

Yep, very doable, though a lot more work than first glance suggests.



There are a few previous threads about this type of conversion, have a look.

 

Thank you, I did read the other posts and most of them seemed on the positive side, I was just looking for a bit more "boat specific" info, such as raising the boom and having a smaller area mainsail. I presently have a Hood Stoboom, which I'm not in love with and the sail needs replacing, if I'm going to replace the boom and mainsail I might as well go all the way. You are correct about the amount of work, I have a good friend with a shop where he finishes lobster boats and he's got his sawzall all warmed up waiting for me to make up my mind.

 

Raising the boom isn't an issue other than the technical details. You wouldn't need to raise it much, maybe a foot or so.

 

Making the main sail smaller will affect balance under sail, may or may not be an issue.

 

For an inexpensive experiment, beg, borrow or buy a used Genoa with a luff roughly same length as mainsails. Attach sail slides for mast groove. Hoist it in place of the main, without a boom. See how she sails with the regular jib and boomless main. For downwind use whisker poles to boom out your sails.

For flush deck, it's a foot or 14 inches higher, but easier. Just deck across your cockpit seats. The old footwell makes a good self draining fish hold if you install a hatch for it, in your new deck. A pedestal chair is MORE secure if the flange bolts down in bottom of footwell and the pedestal pipe also passes through a snug hole in the flush deck you build at seat top level. Very sturdy pedestal chair installation.

 

Maybe just remove the mast and use it as low speed fuel, efficient fishing, cruiser? The ride might be wonderful without that mast's polar moment of inertia.

 

I did take it out several times without the mast and found she was kind of lively like that,but not objectionably so. I use it most of the time now with just the jib and power upwind which makes me think that the cover the cockpit idea has some merit, I would have to build a pipe rail around it to fish but that sure would leave a lot of room below.

 

Noticed cockpit seat lockers in the plan. You get to keep those also, if your flush deck is seat height. Might need to look at gaskets and dogs or clamps for the seat lockers. Or make them shallow so self draining into foot well. You can put duckbill scuppers on the drains, so they're one way and bloody fish water doesn't back up into seat lockers.

 

You're right, the more I play with this idea the better I like it. I have a plastic welder and have made quite a few things out of Seaboard, I got a sheet of white nonslip 3/8" that would be great to make a sort of insulated cooler cover for the cockpit and other than installing the Hydraulic steering and move the engine controls and panel (they're in the footwell) seems like a relatively easy and non destructive way to experiment.

 

For a no cost experiment, use your regular mainsail, but detach it from boom. See how she sails with boomless main. Obviously it will be less efficient, but if it works to some usable degree, might get a few more seasons use out of it. don't need a new sail to sail half arsed!
You will need sheet blocks at transom corners, like the sheet blocks for jib. Yacht Salvage stores sell this stuff or borrow a couple.

 

Good idea, anything to get rid of that Stoboom, which incidentally I'd be willing to sell/trade.

 

8ball --PM me on the Stoboom. It looks the right length for my conversion build " Nancy G" under Boatbuilding meanwhile I'll check with PAR (The project designer) to see if it might be suitable. --- tnx. Geo.

 

Hi Viking north, I think it's 13' 6", but I'll check and make sure.

 

I'm doing something similar with a 23' Kells shoal keel sailboat. It'll have a large open cockpit with a smaller cabin for slow cruising. It'll have a tiller-steer outboard for now, but I'd eventually like to convert to remote steering. Creating the stringers and deck supports is somewhat challenging without plans. Lots of cutting, measuring, cutting again, re-measuring, etc.