Northeast

42-footer has plenty of horsepower; fire doesn't beat down Maine yard

The first week in October, H&H Marine in Steuben, Maine, delivered an Osmond 42 to Garrett Steele, who will be lobstering with the Stormi Gayle — named after his fiancée — out of Stonington, Maine.

Following a trend for younger lobstermen, Steele, who is in his early 20s, is going with a fair amount of horsepower. Beneath the deck of the 42' x 15' 3" Stormi Gayle is a 700-hp Caterpillar C12. On its sea trials, Steele got the Stormi Gayle up to 27 knots but cruises at about 17.5 knots, says the boatyard's Bruce Grindal.

More horsepower does have advantages. "They aren't running in the corner all the time," notes Grindal. "You get the reduction and the prop right and get a good cruising speed, and you get much better fuel economy than running a smaller horsepower engine right up in the corner."

The Stormi Gayle's split wheelhouse is vacuum bagged using Divinycell PVC foam as the core material. Behind the house is an aluminum lobster tank and beneath the deck is a live lobster well.

The 42-footer has a plywood deck over a pressure-treated stringer system. The deck is covered with fiberglass on the top and gel-coated with a non-skid surface.

After going through some lean times, H&H Marine now has plenty of work ahead. Besides "a ton of repair work," says Grindal, the yard has three hulls to lay up. "I would expect this is going to be a busy year."

Two of the three hulls are Osmond 36s and one is an Osmond 47. The 47 is going to a lobsterman in Connecticut, while one of the 36s is for Justin Sprague, a lobsterman in Bar Harbor, Maine, and the other 36-footer is a commuter boat.

The 36-foot hulls are the first 36s to have the beam increased, going from the standard 13' 3'' to 14' 8''. "It will give it a lot more deck space and carrying capacity," Grindal says.

Work was starting to pick up at Clark Island Boat Works in St. George, Maine. A 46-foot Duffy hull from Atlantic Boat Co. that had been stretched from 42 feet was inside the shop to be finished off for Jacob Thompson, a lobsterman on Vinalhaven Island. A Holland 38 from Holland's Boat Shop was in the yard, ready to go into the shop, next to the Duffy. There were calls from people wanting boats to be repaired or finished off.

At the end of the day on Oct. 2 everyone went home, shutting the power off and taking a walk around the boatshop just to check things out before leaving.

In the dark of the early evening, flames blew out of the building and lit the sky. The fire — fueled by resins, fiberglass, and wood and fiberglass dust and grindings — took off, consuming the shop and the 46-footer. "It went from burning to the roof collapsing in 14 minutes," says the boatshop's Dan MacCaffray. "It was hot and fast."

A drum of acetone exploded behind the shop. The ends of three 275-gallon oil drums blew out.

Three weeks later the foundation of the 4,000-square-foot boatshop was being knocked down. A building permit would come shortly. "Then we can get us a building as soon as the insurance check comes," says MacCaffray.

There's been time for repair work on fishing boats, like the guy who burned his exhaust system up down at Port Clyde. Then again, MacCaffray and his son, Andrew, have been repairing boats for local fishermen for years, which explains why people come down the driveway, handing over an envelope — maybe with $200 — just to help get by.

"We are writing all their names down and when we get back working on their boats again, we'll credit their bills," MacCaffray says. "We've built more relationships over the years than we will ever build boats. It's a good feeling."

The new boatshop will be bigger than the old one with two 60-foot bays and two 44-foot bays. In the meantime, Atlantic Boat is laying up another 46-footer and MacCaffray says, "We are moving along, but it will be a few weeks before we have real direction going here."
— Michael Crowley

West

Yard repairs damaged wooden boats; Wash. shop has a proven gillnetter

Late fall is the time when owners of fishing boats in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska start tying up at their favorite boatyard for winter maintenance checks, a paint job — definitely a coat of antifouling on the bottom — and some adjustments to the fishing gear. They call it a shave and a haircut.

That's certainly the case at Port Townsend Shipwrights Co-op in Port Townsend, Wash., where 10 fishing boats were being worked on the first of November. However, at least two boats showed up not for general maintenance but because they'd have trouble staying afloat if they weren't hauled.

The 82-foot wooden tender Saturn "hit something in the Gulf [of Alaska]. There was quite extensive damage," says the boatyard's Ben Tyler.

The boat was hauled out at Seward where she was patched up well enough to limp down to Port Townsend.

The boatyard is replacing the forefoot, parts of the stem, planking and frames in the bow area. Tyler says "she took on water; it's amazing she didn't sink." Work started in mid-October and will probably extend into mid-December.

The 58-foot seiner Sarah B was hauled at the beginning of November after hitting rocks in Southeast Alaska.

A preliminary inspection indicated four planks might have to be replaced in the starboard bow area and three planks farther aft. Tyler thought some frames might also have to be replaced.

Aluminum bulwarks will probably come off, as there are leaks in the foredeck, and the shaft has a bad vibration. "Don't know what happened to that," Tyler says. "It was probably bent in hitting whatever it was."

The Rolfy, an old wooden flat-bottom Navy scow that's now a salmon tender was in not because she hit a rock but to have planking replaced on the bow and bottom.

Another wooden power scow, the Muskrat, was hauled for shaft work and, says Tyler, "a few little patches." That's a lot different from last year when the 85-footer was in because she had been T-boned by a 110-foot crabber going 8 knots while the Muskrat was tied to a dock in Kodiak. That was a five-month rebuilding job.

On a smaller scale, Master Marine Products rolled over an aluminum hull for a Bristol Bay gillnetter at its Ferndale, Wash., shop the beginning of November. The 32' x 14' 6" gillnetter is for Jay Borovina of Seattle. It's the fourth boat built to a design going back about 10 years.

The design was by Mark Bennett, Master Marine Products' president, for John Edling of Bellingham, Wash. Then the design work was done on blueprints, lofted on the shop floor, and patterns were made from the lofting.

Now it's a computer generated design, based on offsets taken from the original work. Other than minor changes to the hull's scantlings, little has changed in the basic hull design since Edling's boat was built, says the boatyard's Brett Bennett. "We've had good feedback from customers for its durability and fish packing."

The gillnetter has a 650-hp Scania DI12 for power with a ZF 360A marine gear with a 1.767:1 reduction. Bennett estimates she should be able to run in the 24- to 26-knot range. The horsepower rating is a little more than the previous two boats, which had a maximum 600 horsepower.

The gillnetter will have eight refrigerated seawater fish holds with an 18,000 to 20,000-pound capacity. On deck, the net reel and stern rollers are coming from Kinematics Marine Equipment.

Master Marine Products is completing the hull, wheelhouse and decks, and will install the engine and shafting.

The owner will probably do some of the finish work and then take her somewhere else to be finished. Bennett isn't sure where that will be.

Bennett says they are talking to customers interested in building 32' x 16' gillnetters for Bristol Bay.

Though instead of shaft and prop propulsion, these fishermen are talking about installing Traktor Jets from NAMJet.
— Michael Crowley

South

Gulf yard sends a combo boat to N.J.; whiskey plank seals up a Md. skipjack

Jemison Marine & Shipbuilding of Bayou La Batre, Ala., recently launched the 88' x 24' x 8' 6" Pursuit, a combination scalloper and trawler, for Keith Laudeman of Cold Spring Fish & Supply Co. in Cape May, N.J.

This is the second new fishing boat Jemison has built for Cold Spring Fish & Supply Co., along with an older boat that was converted into a scalloper.

A sheltered shucking house for the crew is behind the wheelhouse with three shucking stations. Another sheltered station is on the side of the wheelhouse, which allows the captain to shuck scallops and still operate the boat.

A 600-hp Cummins QSK19-M powers the Pursuit. The Cummins is bolted to a Twin Disc MGX 5222 marine gear with a 7:1 reduction that turns a 73.25" x 74" nozzled prop on a 5.5-inch shaft.

Jemison Marine & Shipbuilding is also building a 93' x 27' x 8.5' scalloper for Tom McNulty of Cape May. This is the third new boat Jemison has built for McNulty. The other two were launched in 2004 and 2005.

"We also have a ton of maintenance work going on right now at the yard," says the boatyard's Tim Jemison. In addition, five keels are in the yard that were built prior to new Coast Guard class and loadline regulations. "We can use these five keels to build new boats to the old regulations, which will save the buyer at least $300,000," Jemison says.

In October shipwrights and apprentices at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, Md., placed the last bottom plank — the "whiskey plank" — on the skipjack Rosie Parks, built in 1955, which the museum has been restoring since 2011.

The name comes from the traditional splashing of whiskey over the final plank that closes up a hull. It's a way to celebrate the completion of the job, says the project's manager, Mark Donohue.
That was followed by a celebration among shipwrights, apprentices, volunteers and descendants of the Rosie Parks' captain and builder.

The 51-foot Rosie Parks was built in Wingate, Md., by Bronza Parks for his brother Capt. Orville Parks and named after their mother. Orville used the skipjack in Maryland's oyster dredge fishery. Hundreds of skipjacks used to work Maryland waters. Now about a dozen remain, plus several owned and maintained by museums.

After the museum's restoration, as well as other work that has taken place over the years, roughly 15 percent of the Rosie Parks' original wood remains. The museum used yellow pine for side and bottom planking, Douglas fir for decking and white oak for structural members. Planking seams were caulked with cotton and oakum.

The restoration included two new sister keelsons and repairs to the keel rabbit, stern, forward handrails and steering box. The shipwrights installed new running rigging on the original mast and boom, and cleaned, primed and painted the original hardware.

A crane hoisted the skipjack overboard in October so the planking could swell up and close the plank seams. The Rosie Parks was officially launched at the museum's annual OysterFest on Nov. 2 from the museum's railway.

Another completed Chesapeake Bay restoration project was the buy boat Peggy of New Point (originally known as the Peggy) at Mathews Maritime Foundation in Mathews County, Va. She was christened on Oct. 12.

Harry A. Hudgins of Peary, Va., built the Peggy in 1925 for Chesapeake Bay's pound-net fishery. She was referred to as a trap boat, a name given to decked-over boats in that fishery.

The restoration started in 2011 when the Peggy of New Point was hauled out at the Maritime Foundation's Gwynn's Island Boat Shop. At the October ceremony, Milton Parks, who worked in the winter crab dredge fishery alongside the Peggy, spoke to a crowd about the boat's history. — Larry Chowning