Do your worst!

A most unusual design brief.

It's sometimes a matter of necessity that a vessel is designed to meet certain criteria, other than what the owner might personally prefer due to factors imposed by the environment, govt. regulations, function and form, economics and a plethora of other considerations.

This is the position I find myself in.

Seeking design suggestions for what appear to me to be mutually exclusive requirements from one boat.

Obvious answers a mothership with a shallow drafting flats fly fishing tender vessel, however finances, distances traversed nor charter license allow that "easy" option.

Such is the burden of being the "first" in any new industry, trying to work within existing often outdated rules and regulations…

Fly Fishing Charter Guiding…in Downunderland.

OK - easy you easy - Fly Fishing's been around for ages, designs in the US Florida boat building industry are well advanced, no problem - buy a boat - go to work…

If it were just so easy.

Many constraints here.

1. Boat must be towable… this restricts beam to max 2.5meters or 8ft 4 inches for local road transport laws. 2500 miles of coastline to operate over in different zones at dfferent times f year.

2. Boat must meet Dept Marine transport 2C Survey regs…meaning - in order to get to remote offshore islands where the best fly fishing opportunity/product exists it must be min 25ft long surveyed length (Stern to where bowstem meets foredeck).

3. Charter License restricts boat length to no more than 25ft surveyed length!

4. Boat must meet stability requirements - when loaded with full passenger manifest it must have more than one eighth beam in clear freeboard with all passengers on one side at same time!

5. Boat must traverse up to 30 miles seaward to reach offshore fly fishing destinations comfortably.

6. Boat must draft bare minimum to be able to negotiate shallow corals and sand flats at offshore islands.

7. Must be economical to operate fuel wise.

8. Must be capable of being comfortably operated in both temperate and sub tropical climate (dry in temperate - walk around? and cool/shade in subtropics Center console T top/Bimini?).

9. Must have elevated casting decks fore and aft and full length fly rod lockers for min 12 fly rods rigged

10. twin 4 stroke OB rig for reliability. (Max 250 KW / 330Hp combined)

11. Must be long range ~ 350nm min.

12. Must have ample space for waving fly rods back n forth, but still have ample shade for all passengers 6 +2

13 Twin Electric Lenco 85 pound thrust trim tab mounted electric trolling motors for shallow maneouvering.

14 Mini tuna lookout tower atop T Top/cabin

This is but one area it must operate!

http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/iams/images/earth/STS072/lowres/20205644.jpg

This another offshore archipellago 50nm one way, shallow piatella and staghorn coral when you get there!

http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/iams/images/earth/STS41B/lowres/10049494.jpg

An impossible design brief perhaps?

What say the learned ones?
It's got me stumped!

Cheers!

 

I think you've covered most things, but a few questions:

What are your speed requirements? Target cruising speed and max speed, fully loaded and lightship.

How many passengers? Bait well? How much fuel and provisions?

Are you completely sold on outboards, or are jet drives an option?

 

Thanks Stephen,

Thanks for the additional questions - was wondering what I'd forgotten to put in the list.

I'd like to go 60 knots, but economy of operation (charter business bottom line), and the coxswains qualification limit to HP of 330HP Max (250kw) dictate that probably a 22 knot cruise and maybe 28 ~ 30 max is all that will be achievable if I'm lucky?.

Survey will preclude any gas powered inboard, - deisels no problem, I'd happily consider jet, surface pulse drive - even Ahrnessons to surface piercing props..

I just figured twin OB's were sorta "convenient", as far as bolt on / off, for maintenance / replacement, and trailerability?.

I guess for shallow draft the twin OB's could even be jackplate mounted if needs be with low water pickups ala Bob's Machine Shop Florida or Cook Manufac Co, and run surface piercing props in a twin tunnel config?.

That link to the space shot of the two large bays (circa 150nm long and 20 - 40 nm wide each) means that on the days when the winds not up, if a boat could pull 60 knots say - a round trip from the resort hotel located half way up the middle penninsular to the end of the outermost island would be about 40 odd mins one way! This opens a heck of a lot of remote fishing ground in short space of time, and means for guests a mornings wade fishing can be had and still be back at resort when afternoon sea breeze pops up, by say 1pm ish for a late lunch and cold beer in air con comfort watching the bikini clad girls sunning on the beach! ;o) (tough Job but someones gotta do it!) LOL.

I just don't think I've got the budget to be able to finance a cigarette style racing hull (canyon runner) unfortunately...although I'm willing to listen to ANY options!!!

Hull material can be glass or alloy...whichever works.

Hull style can be mono, cat or tri, or cathedral - whatever will work!

I would say maybe $75 - $80K US will see out my "allowable" budget for this vessel.....maybe a tad more if I hide it from she who mistakenly thinks she wears the pants! ;o)

Would probably fish 4 pax max - usually me alone to operate sometimes a deckie tag along maybe, but would like to be surveyed for 6 pax + 2 crew - just for convenience ferrying groups of guests to island based lodge etc..

Baitwell - don't tend to use one a lot for fly fishing - but wouldn't object to having provision for one aboard - there are the occasional times when fussy tuna's etc can be tempted to a fly with a few livies over the side.

This one fell for that sorta tomfoolery at the tip of the long island on the right in the spacepic.

http://www.fishingworks.com/Users/Photo_album/viewPhoto.cfm?photo_id=12803

Theres a lot of sailfish and marlin out there as well, but it's a long haul in a slow boat and uncomfortable punching home into southwesterly seabreeze chop, that gets short & steep in the shallow bays.

It's basically a day trip fishing boat - no need for bunks etc - just some spare clothes, tackle etc...

I believe to get thru survey it must have a head aboard, maybe an "inconsole" type?...head compartment has to have 6ft 6inch minimum ceiling height for survey regs....

Would be nice to have self draining decks of course...

Freshwater washdown would be a luxury but probably not worth the weight - better to hose off back at resort I guess.

Let me know if I havent covered anything.!

Thanks again & cheers!

 

Just to say I registered!

Just to say i registered so you all know who "guest" in the post above means!

Is it acceptable to link photo's into a post?...and is this done with [ img ] [ /img ] tags...or is just the html link preferred for forum speed?

If so - this is a sort of mock up I did of an alloy Cathedral hull about 28ft long with cuddy cab removed & a centre console cut n pasted on roughly in place...



You can see I'm no boat designer...just fooling with photo programs and hulls / boats I've seen about the place to get some "conceptual thing together" to give some idea of a concept maybe.

Hope it works and doesnt chew up too much bandwidth.

Cheers!

 

Welcome to our forums!

The way you included the image is just fine.

I also added a section to the FAQ at http://boatdesign.net/forums/misc.php?s=&action=faq&page=3#Images (which basically states that you are welcome to use IMG tags as long as you are relatively confident that the image will remain on the other server, but if you think the image might not be there in the future, we prefer that you actually attach the image to your post so that people later on won't be confronted with broken images.)

Again I'm glad you joined our forums. Interesting Project!

 

Thanks for the welcome Jeff!

Thanks indeed for the welcome, I've lurked here abouts once or twice, just didn't know if it was the "done thing" to ask advice about a boat design...

I'll leave that linked photo on my album page so it doesn't show as a broken link.

In future I'll attempt to attach any pics to my post so you have them for permanence sake!.

As an addendum - I had been wondering about a "reverse" idea of deep V hulls that flood underfloor area for stability at rest, and drain the underfloor as they plane to a deep V for ride comfort.

I figure since I need a shallow drafting boat once I get to the islands but a comfortable riding boat to actually get offshore to my destinations - maybe I could water ballast it for the offshore trip - and jettison water upon arrival for shallow draft?

I see some major fuel cost disadvantages with carrying the extra ballast weight for offshore running, but can't see any "other way" around the conundrum...

I've wondered about some sort of catamaran hull for stability, maybe with a hysucat foil to reduce the wetted surface area and increase speed / fuel conservation for the offshore running?

All just "idea's" - i'm just throwing them into the melting pot in the hope of getting someones imagination fired

Cheers!

 

You have what appears, to me, a very tough design brief. What is your projected load capacity, including passengers and stores? It is hard to see a 25 foot boat accommodating 12 anglers at the same time and still meeting your other goals. The most advanced boats made in the US for this kind of use are probably the Worldcats. One link is at:

http://www.goboatingmag.com/goboating_mag/August00/worldcat.htm

I have a friend who recently bought a 26 foot version of the Worldcat and is extremely happy with it running to sea in the Gulf Stream off North Carolina. I think he uses a pair of 200hp Evinrudes but says it could do quite well with a bit less. It would deliver all your needs with the possible exception of the number of active fishermen. I have no idea how many it could serve.

 

I especially like constraints #2 and #3 at the top

So basically we have a boat with:

LOA: 25'
Beam: 8'-4"
Capacity: I'm sorry, what is "pax"? Is this 8 people or 14 people the boat needs to hold?

8 x ~200 = ~1600 or say 1800 lb of people
14 x ~200 = ~2800 or say 3000 lb of people (live weights)

"when loaded with full passenger manifest it must have more than one eighth beam in clear freeboard with all passengers on one side at same time!"

So that is an interesting stability challenge for a 25' boat if it is 14 people!

The range needs to be 350nm min - with two 150-200 hp OB's; let's see, how many gallons of fuel is this?

My initial thought was a shallow v out of aluminum for weight savings and durability and minimal draft, but then the question is what kind of seas does this boat need to handle at speed without pounding (since it is long range with passengers)? Maybe a kind of small tunnel multi would be called for?

A challenging project....

 

Ah - not so easy!

Forget boats - what about a hovercraft !?!
You may run in to dramas finding something that would be acceptable in regards to survey - and outboards tend to be the power system of choice for charter boats as they are cheap, and easy to repair or replace, and simple when it comes to survey.
Perhaps not a viable solution (might be rather expensive...) but worthy of consideration.......

 

Answers...

OK...sorry for the confusion.

Pax is abbreviation for passengers ...

so Crew = me plus deckie (2).
Passengers = 6 Maximum, usual load (4) = two pairs of fly fishers.

Total load = 8 persons maximum, usual working load 6 persons or less.

Requirements 2 & 3 above re 25ft length are a beauty aren't they?

You see - Marine Transport Dept issue Vessel Survey Certificates...and their legislation says anything under 25ft isn't allowed more that 5 mile from shore even if fully surveyed (it's classed as a "restricted" 2C survey).

Fisheries Departement issue Charter Licenses and their categories are 25ft and under, or over 25 ft.

What I want to do is exploit the 25ft length to stay within my Fisheries Dept charter license and still be able to get offshore to these islands like the bigger charter boats under marine transport legislation!

Ideally - say a Maverick / Hewes style flats/bay type fly fishing boat would be great to work out of BUT...they can't meet our survey requirements for even "restricted survey" (within 5 miles of shore).



In addition - any of the smaller 18 ft flats / bay boats....wouldn't be able to "legally" get to any of the locations where the best fly fishing is - the closest island is 12 nm - some of the others are 24nm and 50 nm offshore.

Theres no "recreational angling or small boat licensing" for the general public in this state - so a 10 year old kid in his parents bathtub can legally sail 50 mile offshore to these islands no problem...but it's different as soon as you want to start charging to run a bonafide tour where the safety of the paying public is involved!.

So....in order to do this - I need something that will get me to these darn islands and back legally - and still float skinny enough for me to access the flats and coral shoals to be able to drift around and fly fish the deeper holes within the coral...

You can see what it's like out there from this:-



These coral trout are what hide in the holes in this coral.



On the sand flats we can get out and wade so thats not a problem - but you can't wade over sensitive piatella and staghorn corals...



Believe me - I'd like a smaller boat - the idea of towing 25 ft of Cat over 2500 miles of coastal highways back and forth through out the year to cover all the seasonal fly fishing opportunity's doesn't overly thrill me from a cost and time angle, but as said - I'm trying to operate legally within a legislative framework thats been designed for kill and grill demersal charter fishing ops from ex commercial lobster vessels etc....50 - 70 ft long with 20 passengers...what the US folks might call a headboat?

No one n Fisheries or Marine transport here have ever heard of Fly Fishing as say they might have in Florida.

Here, the flats have in the past been considered "bad" places where the tide goes out and leaves your Deep V hull stranded, and you have to get out and weight it to lay it onto one side and push it home off the flats thru the sea snakes and sharks...

Generally speaking anglers have avoided flats here ...until now.

I just want to go to work guys doing what i know how (guiding fly fishermen), but since this tough new legislation they've enacted here, I have to jump thru an awful lot of hoops to be able to offer some truly world class fly fishing to international fly fishers at remote locations.

Lost of folks would like to tangle with fish like this - I have to knock back a lot of tour work, for these sorts of destinations thru lack of a suitable vessel.





I've been casting an eye about at various cats etc - no one here makes a 25fter with centre console - they are all cuddy cabs (Noosa, Kevla, Leisurcat etc.)

From a survey stability point of view - a Cat seems the answer...so far unless someone can think of something else (rigid inflatable, hovercraft etc).

I'd imagine for the range at say 1.5 litres a side /mile...1050 litres = say roughly 250 gals fuel?

West Coast seas offshore can be about as bad as anywhere - our West coastline didn't gobble up all the Dutch east indiamen they could throw at her for nuthin!

Worst I've been out in at the Houtman Abrlohos islands above was 48 knots, and six or seven meter swells with a few meters of sea on top - but the vesel was 70 ft long!



Thankfully the wind had dropped a little from the 68 knots it was howling at during the night! (Lobsters don't stay in traps beyond 2 days as the bait runs out...you go to work regardless in that industry!)

Don't think I'd be tackling anything quite as radical as that in 25ft.....well not on purpose anyway!

The idea of an alloy cat or alloy tunnel multi really appeals to me....BUT - I know squat about boats which is why I'm here asking for "ideas"...imaginative solutons to the dilemma.

Theres 3 of us with these new fly fishing charter licenses, all looking for a boat to "get around" the archaic survey laws to be able to get started on saltwater fly fishing tours over the whole of the state and we can't seem to find an off the shelf proprietry boat to do the job.

It has to be built local so Marine Transport inspectors can witness the hull layup and certify it to specifications which rules out virtually all US built vessels.

Aslo virtually all US vessels have a 1:3 Beam / length ratio - meaning they are invariably 8ft 6 inch beam - which is 2 inches wider than we can legally tow on our roads and so on.

We have a LOT of alloy vesel builders here - most of the 600 boat commercial lobster fleet are now alloy...so getting one builts not a problem - finding a design is another story - the couple local naval architects are all flat out designing big tuna longliners, Lobster Boats and live aboard mutherships - us guys looking for small stuff arent even on the waiting list for a cad cam design unless it's one off their books they've done before (which aren't suited to fly fishing of course!).

This is what you get when you start a new industry....you have to be the first one to find innovative ways around archaic legislation, that others will no doubt try and follow.

Such is life - I just want to get on with the job, theres fish getting away out there!

Thanks for any ideas...keep em comming please!

Cheers!

 

Trouty - would love to see the pics - slight problem that they all lead to a "please sign in" screen - at least for me anyway...

Sounds like a design challenge - I would have thought that a multi would be your only option. Unless of course you have the boat in one form for getting there and a different form for fishing from... - some form of extending platform, inflatable rafts/pontoons -just an idea.
...

Paul

 

Have you spoken to Noosacat or any of the other local builders about building a custom deck one one of their existing hulls?
This would be by far the cheapest way of getting what you are after and they tend to have their hulls pretty well sorted.
Another little problem for you to consider..... Here in Tassie there are only a few vehicles that can legally tow something that big. We use a Holden Suburban diesel to tow our 26ft Edencraft (Formula). Even that is marginal when it comes to towing capacity. I seem to recall that we now enjoy national regs when it comes to this sort of thing - the manufacturer's own claim regarding max towing weight is the law - so I would think that unless you go for a light truck, you might be aground before you even get to the water......

 

Are RIB's commonly used for sportfishing?

 

I think of RIB's as sportboats for general recreation rescue boats, dinghies, some racing, but I've never thought about RIB's for a fishing rig. Is puncture from hooks and gear an issue, or are the tubes plenty thick and durable so this is not a problem?

If a RIB would be appropriate, how would the maintenance compare to an all FRP or aluminum boat?

 

Ahhh - sorry about the links - they all work for me....

I included img tags but they turned to links somehow - you can see I'm no expert at this - Please have patience with me - I'll get the hang of it..Jeff might have to coach me a little maybe?.

I have an idea tho..

Lets see if this works.

The first link above to the normal style flats / bay style centre console refered to..was this pic!.