T&T: Seaworthy trawlers

[LRZeitlin@aol.com]

> Quote  "If the application of the word "trawler" to recreational boats 
> whose
> configuration is copied loosely from seaworthy commercial fishing  boats,
> "trawler" is probably the much more universal  term."   
>
>
The idea that the old fishing trawlers were particularly seaworthy is another
one of those maritime myths. Fishing trawlers were work boats whose features
were optimized to tow and drag nets. The low freeboard and "graceful" sheer of
the fishing trawler was intended to ease the chore of hauling loaded nets
aboard. Open amidships storage holds facilitated dumping fish from the nets.
The
high bows which characterized most trawlers were just about the only
concession to seaworthiness since the boats were easily pooped from by waves
coming
from the side or stern. The typical defensive maneuver in inclement weather
was
to slowly power into any sea and hope that the fuel lasted until the weather
calmed.

Fishermen in Norway, Iceland, and Gloucester were well aware of the dangers
in going to sea in a fishing trawler but "Risk goes with the territory." It
was
both their living and their test of manliness. Old Norwegian records show
that approximately 20% of the offshore trawlers in the fishing fleet were lost
each season. I don't know the figures for Gloucester but the memorial statue
on
the shore indicates that most fishermen did not die in their beds of old age.

The characteristics of a truly seaworthy displacement hulled boat are quite a
bit different from that of a fishing trawler. They resemble an offshore
sailing hull, compartmentalized, ballasted, and probably double ended. In
short,
just like the "lifeboats" that the Norwegian government had Colin Archer
design
to rescue fishermen in danger. There is no record of a Colin Archer designed
lifeboat being ever lost at sea due to bad weather. If you want to see what a
really seaworthy small boat is like, look it up.

Modern recreational trawlers bear very little resemblance to their workboat
namesakes. Thank God.

Larry Z (whose wife comes from an old Norwegian seagoing family whose aged
uncles reminisced interminably about the perils of life in the North Sea.)