Troller Yachts vs Trawler Yachts

norwester,
The Whatcom County museum has a collection of designs by H. C. Hanson. He drew plans for a lot of fishing boats, so there must be a few trolling boats in there somewhere.
You should also just take a look around in the northwest marinas. You might find a jewel for sale at a reasonable price. If you find one you like, the owner just might have drawings or know who designed it. There is a possibility to take the lines off also if plans are not available.
What size boat are you looking for?

 

I think we kinda sorta had this discussion before and concluded that a Grand Banks 36 took 50 hp to make 7 knots and a Willard 40 took 23. I figured the GB would take about 75 hp so even though the real life difference was less than I thought a bit over 2 times as much is not fly stuff. When I bought my last boat I put too much emphasis on fuel burn and now am wishing I had a boat that burned twice as much. Here are some pics relative to the original poster's thoughts. The first two boats are very tired examples of the trollers he had in mind (I think). 1. The Susan B quite likely 100 yrs old right here in Thorne Bay and still afloat. 2. The Clarem, as I found her this fall at Edna Bay on the outer coast of Prince of Wales Island. I'll guess she was built in the 40s or possibly the early 50s. See how full she it in the stern compared to Susan. 3. The Kelly B is a "troller yacht" built in Puget Sound called the Vashon Pocket Cruiser. I see these little 23' boats now and then. This one was at Nanaimo BC.
4. My own Willard 30 seems to be a troller yacht as well. I thing FG replicas of the 27' Monterey fishing boat have been made. No pics.
I do agree w TAD in that people don't want really slow full displacement boats. I'm absolutely Ga Ga over his Yellow Cedar but I'll bet it wasn't very popular. And it is considerably more efficient than the Willard.

 

Asking for "troller designs" is a bit like asking for four door sedan designs......there are hundreds of sizes and types from various eras, they range in size from 13' hand trollers of the 1930's to the monster 50-60' boats of the 1970's........

William Garden's designs are at Mystic, see the list here http://library.mysticseaport.org/manuscripts/coll/spcoll096/spcoll096.html

 

A nice 36' double-ended troller by Robert Allan

 

The vast majority of trollers (and all West Coast fishboats in fact) are not built from plans. Usually they were built in small shops from either a carved half-model or from a set of construction molds (they were all built carvel wood plank on bent frames) which would be altered to suit current requirements. Often boats were built over the winter by the fishermen, who then fished the boat for a season, sold her, and built another the next winter.......

This is a 1934 troller, built in Prince Rupert by Matsamoto, which Tony Grove recorded in Shearwater last year and I made a lines drawing for....

 

This boat, Pacific, was also built by a fisherman with no plans, she's mid 1960's construction and about 48'

 

A 40' troller drawn by Frank Fredette of Victoria in 1961. Note that she is relatively small for her length and has a six-cylinder gas engine for power (small diesels where still quite rare and auto conversions where cheap). Beam is narrow by today's standards, only 10'3", and depth is only 5'1" in the hold. A few years later 40' boats were 12' wide and 6-7' deep.

 

A big heavy 48' troller by Bill Garden, designed in the late 50's. Her beam is about 14', fuel capacity 2000 usg, ballast about 10,000 pounds (concrete inside), and weight without ice or fish of about 80,000 pounds.

 

Wonderful stuff TAD. I especially liked the William Garden page. Troller cruisers. Should've been. I hate the expression "trawler" relative to yachts. As I recall they were called "Heavy Cruisers" in the 50s. I'm looking at a big old fish boat conversion now and am a bit scared of the wood ship construction. This is not a plywood like boat but one w a huge built up keel and stem. I'm also looking at a Nordic 32 and I'm sure you'd say go w the Nordy but with my eye on the big old serious fish boat I may better be better able to see what the Nordy really is. The Matsomoto troller is much like Clarem in my pics. Also the wood fish boat I'm looking at is very much like the 40' troller by Frank Fredette.

Easy Rider

 

84 monterey clipper fiberglass

Here is a 1984 Fiberglass Monterey Clipper built by Joe Fellipi of Moss Landing CA. Boat is undergoing paint. Located in Pensacola, FL

 

Salmon Trollers

On a recent rip from Monterey to san Diego along the coasst highway, I sa a few of the 27 to 28 foot older Monterey Clippers for sale. You may want to search this area as they seem to be readily available and would probably be priced reasonably.

 

I think clipper bows are kinda stupid. They just look cool and are a good example of form dosn't follow function unless function has to do w selling the boat ..and it usually does but it's at the cost of having a short boat in the water and that is usually not good.
And w bulbus bows I always wonder why they don't just make the upper bow as long as the "bulb"?? Most bulbus bow boats/ships look like a clipper bow w a bulb stuck on. Perhaps there's something about the bulbus bow that makes it WLL wise butter than just making the whole bow as long as the bulb???

Easy

 

IF you are willing to operate at a single pre-detirmined speed most of the time a bulbus bow can save fuel.

Problem is if you speed up or slow down the efficiency drops and the fuel burn goes up.

The big container ships are handeling the slowdown in world trade by "slow steaming" , to require more ships to be used.

The cost of modifying the bulb runs over $1,000,000 so many are accepting the poor fuel results , in the hope the trade will resume ,,someday.

There ARE fuel savings from going slower , as in every boat , the savings are just nor optimum.When the gas bill is in Tons per hour , everything counts!

 

Mystic Seaport does not have Tralwers. It is a historic preservation of the boatbuilding era of NewEngland from the days of Yore. ie: Dories, Whitehalls, Peapods, Barks and Schoonners

They do have a fine Whaling vessel Charles W. Morgan the last surviving wooden whaling ship from the great days of sail. You can still smell the Blood & Blubber.

You simply must visit.


Another fine place is the Peobody Museum in Salem, be sure to Visit the Salem Maritime National Park while there.

And you should drop into Bath Maritime Musem. Plenty of great boats and you can go for a ride on an old Grand Banks Schooner, but it has been retrofitted with Diesil and smells like it.

For a real authentic experiace go to Gloucester and join the crew of the Schooner Adventure. its 127 feet long and Sail powered. Nothing like comming abourd on a cold winters morning for some bacon & eggs and a hot cup of coffeee cooked on the wood stove in the galley. It has the real smell that a schooner should have. You will like the feel and sounds of the creaking of the wood as she rocks in the waves. I cleaned her hull years ago and took off about a foot thick of Barnacales & Mussles and she did 7 kts when I finished. WOW!


A Morden Trawler such as a Grand Banks, A Kadey-Krogen or even a Mainship would be well suited for Trolling for fish


I would eliminate the back cabin that a lot of them have and install refrigerated fish boxes in the decks.

A set of four electric powered trolling/Jigging reels with blocks that could handle 1,000 pound line and a baiting machine.

You could run this as a Longliner and a Troller/Jigger.

As for accomidations 4 bunks in the bow and a gally with stove, sink & diesil cabin heater. a large potty water tank and showers in the 2 heads ( One in the cabin and one on deck to keep the blood & gusts out of the cabin.

A Flybridge with three helms. one up top one in the cabin and one on the back deck

You could make a very nice fishing boat.

If I had somthing like this 72 ft Seaton I would be out Swordfishing & Bluefin fishing all the time

 

Tad posted an attached 37' Garden design to that posting of his, and as I read thru it I noticed this observation by Garden himself:

In the designer's words, “the boat is designed to carry a heavy load of iced fish, without which she would be 'woefully unstable.' As tempting as it might be to some, she would make a wholly impractical yacht conversion. She is however a capable worker...”

...disclaimer...just an interesting observation by me who has NO real knowledge of these vessel types. Brian