Commerial fishing boat to liveaboard

Discussion in 'Boat Design' started by James Wellington, Aug 28, 2021.

  1. pironiero
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    pironiero Coping

     
  2. comfisherman
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    comfisherman Senior Member

    I know the Wahl boats. Just returned from a 3 week fishing trip to Western alaksa where I interacted with one daily as a support vessel. I've been around and on them since the first one Artic Fox as well as it's competitors from hansen and delta and it's predecessor's.

    The wahls would be exceptionally unsuited for a trawler in that they are extremely slow. Even with a lot of power these things are slow. Wahl took a Jensen design and optimized it for construction speed but didn't fully appreciate just how slow they would be compared to the Jensen design boats. These caught on because of price, and they serve a purpose namely hauling 240k pounds of fish in an under 60 foot fishery for the least amount of money invested. The hansen equivalent was several hundred thousand more but is measurably better on every level most folks measure. But it's still at best about an 8 and some change knot boat.

    Unless you need an additional 240,000 lbds of stuff hauled around with you at sub 7 knots I'd look for a sleeker design.
     
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  3. ondarvr
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    ondarvr Senior Member

    Comfisherman

    We just missed each other in Homer, it would have been nice to meet you.
     
  4. Squidly-Diddly
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    Squidly-Diddly Senior Member

    when they changed The Rules and all the small independent fishing trawlers were being put out of biz in Half Moon Bay everyone was thinking of converting trawlers to live aboard, and general wisdom was it was a pretty bad idea and you'd end up feeling like you were a fish that had been caught and imprisoned in the hold.

    I knew a guy who had been using an old Viet Nam USN modified plastic river boat for off shore trawling and it wasn't ideal for that but made a much better live aboard as its primary layout was for housing live humans instead of dead fish.
     
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  5. comfisherman
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    comfisherman Senior Member

    I just rolled in to kodiak from chignik/Sandpoint. Won't be to homer until after this next blow sadly.

    Assuming the world doesn't cancel fish expo I'll be down for that this year, I'll follow up when I'm in the area.
     
  6. comfisherman
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    comfisherman Senior Member

    I spend a lot of my life around these boats, and have pushed them and their crews both to the limits. For what they are, they are a testament to some ingenuity getting around some onerous regulations.

    With that said they are purpose built boats, with relatively narrow effective bandwidth of operation. Most alaska vessels operate with refrigerated sea water in flooded tanks. It's a fairly stupid way to chill most species but for one reason or another it became the mainstream method of storing catch. So these boats haul an inordinate amount of extra weight around with them at operating trim. The 24 wide wahls will do 180ks of salmon and cod, the 26 wide 205k, and the 28s will do 240k. With normal power for the 26 wide being a 19 liter cummins. The wider have been a range of Mitsubishi and cat mains in the 30 liter range. Unless you burn excess diesel the 28 wide boats front tank full are 7.5 knot boats, back tank mid 6's. The Hansen's and deltas run circles around these things but Wahl cranks them out at a crazy rate. The industry has a bad habit of adopting what is available vs. What is better. Think your looking at a cool 2.8 mil in ever devaluing 2021 dollars for one currently with one available now.


    A better conversion or platform would be one of the delta style seiners, no where near the sea boat but way way faster. Delta made some pretty sweet little numbers in the 60 foot range.

    As to the basargin boats, I own one so feel relatively comfortable saying they would be terrible pleasure boats. Doing battle with the Bristol bay tide and making diesel go away for a month it's great, but I'd prefer almost all other trawler platforms over it for a pleasure craft. And fit and finish is abysmal even compared to my other fishing boats I've owned like my delta, laconner, and hansen. It's a big ol glass bathtub and I love it for what it is, but man o man there are few designs less efficient.
     
  7. James Wellington
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    James Wellington Senior Member

    You can also change the layout of a fishing boat, to accomodate live people.
     
  8. James Wellington
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    James Wellington Senior Member

    Thanks but speed was never an issue. Im fine with 5kts. Am looking at those other boats mentioned as well. So far though, nobody has mentioned what the range might be on these famous 58s. Do you know?
     
  9. James Wellington
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    James Wellington Senior Member

    Not even clear what you could mean.
     
  10. comfisherman
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    comfisherman Senior Member

    I'll be on a 26 wide this evening and ask to pull the fuel consumption numbers for the last week. Guessing 10 gph or so at hull speed. They pack about 9k gallons fuel in normal configuration. You would need to figure out some extra and some ballast as they ride super high and unsafe without at least one tank full.

    Keep in mind these boats are designed to hold up to a quarter million pounds of fish in cold water and associated gear and operate at an appropriate trim. Replacing the hold with living space is going to need some insane amounts of lead to offset. It's just a tremendous amount of reserve buoyancy not needed in any form of trawler.

    The deltas were very successful conversions as they packed in the 90s and were safe untanked. Much easier to build and ballast around that number. They were also really fast comparatively. With some decent power capable of close to 10 on 10, that's why they are still favored with the big salmon district guys.

    Had one friend do a delta Wahl upgrade. He was shocked at the loss of speed, to obtain high 8 knot speeds required mid 20 gph numbers, but if he let it run in the 7's it would be half that or less depending on gear loading. He settled on lower fuel costs and the loss of a knot, but had to rethink his whole district as time of travel was now much longer.

    For a long range cruiser it seems highly unlikely a sleeker longer vessel will not be superior in every way save an extreme beam sea.
     
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  11. pironiero
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    pironiero Coping

    i was referring to that attached pic
     
  12. James Wellington
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    James Wellington Senior Member

    And it has nothing to do with boats, or this thread.
     
  13. James Wellington
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    James Wellington Senior Member

    Comfisherman, fair enough on those specific points. It would be interesting to know the range at say, 5kts. But as you say, its also a weight/configuration issue. One guy thought more low fuel tanks could account for ballast, but not clear if thats true. In any case, it seems not too practical. Thanks.
     
  14. bajansailor
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    bajansailor Marine Surveyor


  15. TANSL
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    TANSL Senior Member

    Most likely, the boat will need fixed ballast added. Probably one of the loading conditions, with the worst stability, is that of the "empty ship" and it would be this that would determine the necessary fixed ballast. Therefore, fixed ballast should never be replaced by variable ballast.
     
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