fishing sailboat

I ran across a center cockpit yesterday. That crossed my mind

 

Have you studied the weather patterns in your locality?If the wind isn't consistent,you will be using the auxiliary quite often.

 

Not sure on mackerel, even salmon species pack in to a fish hold different. I can get 53lbs a cubic foot of pink salmon but 50 per cubic foot in an rsw hold. Cod packs into several different media's for chilling but in the mid 40s. Our rockfish aren't very dense and I kinda knock a third off my sockeye and am not usually disappointed. Guessing the mackerel are nearer rockfish and cod.

Keep in mind sail is likely only going to be useful in transit to and from the grounds. The modern engine is probably the single biggest development in all fisheries.

 

Maybe I should be a little more explicit, a thirty foot boat carrying any quantity of fish will be a displacement boat if it travels under sail.It might see six knots on a very good day.Which would make those fishing grounds eighty miles out a long,long trip.How much of the catch would be in prime condition on returning?Different story if the fish are ten miles or so away,but lots more people are likely to have tried their luck there.

 

I can't think of any fishery where sail would be advantages. Even centuries ago before steam or IC, large sailing vessels would transport small rowboats to do the actual fishing from.

 

80 miles at 6 knots is probably par for the course on a lot of boats. Truthfully we all drive slow and live and die with our autopilot. Couple inches extra spray foam in the hold can go a long way.

One thing to note, very few fisheries in the developed world are viable a ton at a time. The ones that are almost certainly have a corresponding permit that's usually very very expensive.

Fleet consolidation and increased efficiency is how we survive. One of my main species is within pennies of what my grandfather fished for before I was born, not adjusted for inflation... the same actual price. This is true across a large swath of fisheries in north America. It's been good for middle men and processors and to some extent consumers to have a steady almost constant fish price, but it's come at the cost of fisherman. Case in point. The amount of permits in my home district was set at 100 in the late 60s and finalized in the early 70s. 86 were transferable and 14 were interim and went away after the original dies or retires. Last year 26 permits fished, the 5 year average is probably in the upper 30s. As a kid there were still 100 active registered permits (I'm a millennial so not that long ago) now were looking at 30 some odd permits. While our dock price has not meaningfully increased, certain portions of boats catch way more fish. Last year 10 of the 26 boats caught 55% of the fish. I was 7 or 8 in that lineup and the top boats doubled me... it's a dog eat dog world that's very competitive. Fisheries that aren't, usually aren't profitable enough for anyone but bored retires.... not knocking it but it's just the reality. Insurance, food, fuel, regulatory compliance.... it's not cheap. My break even harvest numbers are around my grandfather's "really good year". On the flip side, the year he gave his operation to my uncle the insurance bill for the boats and crew for the year was less than my insurance bill for one crewman on one boat for 3 months.... so the world just changed.

All that to say, hook and line fishing can be done on just about anything. Keeping a few thousand pounds of fish cool for a couple days isn't all that taxing. Making a living on 2k pounds of fish is the hard part.

 

As a kid, I use to dream of just that type of commercial fishing life. 50' sailboat, out for a few days, living aboard. I even designed a fishing vessel for it as my senior project in high school drafting class.

Maybe with flash freezing, longer outings could be handled.

Keep overhead low by living on the boat full time.