13 minute read
Around the Yards
SOUTH aluminum bowpicker extending from the bow. On a day fi shing this spring, Everett New power for a 25-footer in Chesapeake Bay; and crew caught 10,000 pounds of menWright skiff is ready for sale in Deltaville, Va. haden. “She was loaded down to the gunnew motor, we can fi sh two more 1,200- foot gillnets in a day than we could with the old engine,” says Everett.
As a young boy, Everett started his commercial fi shing career on the Pamlico River in Beaufort County, N.C., working on a crab boat. He eventually got his own boats and moved to fi shing in the Atlantic Ocean and Carolina Sounds out of Hatteras Village, N.C. wales, but she brought us home,” he says. By Larry Chowning Everett does his own maintenance on the boat by hauling it out at Robbins Boat Yard’s boat ramp located next door to Still Kickin’ Seafood’s crab house. “We just pull it out on a trailer, put her up on the hard, and take care of the maintenance,” says Everette. “She is a lot easier to maintain than the bigger boats that I have owned.” Moving to Deltaville, Va., we announced the retirement of 84-year-old boatbuilder Lewis G. Wright of Deltaville in the October ’86 NF Around the Yards. Wright learned to build wooden boats from
This Parker 25 worked by Nathan Everett on Chesapeake Bay his father and three uncles who were piorecently got a new 300-hp four-stroke outboard engine. neers in the development of Chesapeake athan Everett of Still a 42-foot fi berglass vessel built by Provinboats at the turn of the 20th century. N Kickin’ Seafood in White Stone, Va., uses every square inch of his 1991 cial Boat & Marine Ltd. out of Kensington, Prince Edward Island in Canada. He still owns the boat and has someone fi shing it in Wright’s cinderblock boatshop on Jackson Creek in Deltaville, with its sweet aroma from heart pine wood chips, linseed oil model Parker 25 to crab North Carolina waters. and copper paint, has long since been repot, gillnet and dredge for oysters in ChesWith the move to the Chesapeake, Evplaced with a fi ne waterfront home. apeake Bay. erett had Tim Cahoon of Belhaven, N.C. Wright’s boatbuilding legacy, however,
In April, Everett and crew were crab modify the Parker 25. The modifi cation inlives on in Deltaville as boatbuilder John potting when his Yamaha 250-hp outboard cluded installation of a used Privateer cenEngland of Urbanna, Va., and the Deltawith 8,000 working hours on the engine ter-console wheelhouse; modifi cation of ville Maritime Museum continue to build blew up, requiring a tow home. the stern and bottom, originally designed Lewis Wright style skiff s in the museum’s
Everett purchased a new 300-hp fourfor inboard/outboard power; and raising of boatshop. stroke outboard from Jett’s Marine in Reedthe ceiling (fl oor) inside the boat. A StainInside the museum’s shop in June, a 19' ville, Va., and Lee Haynie of Bull Neck less Marine motor bracket was installed to 8" x 6' 2" x 18" Lewis Wright deadrise style Marine in Reedville installed the engine. extend the engine aft to provide maximum skiff was nearly complete. The museum uses With the 300-hp outboard, Everett has work and gear space inside the boat. the new boatshop to provide a cultural expicked up 15 percent better fuel consumpThe 25' x 9.5' x 2' Parker has a gillnet perience for visitors and as an outlet to sell tion and 3 more knots in speed. “With the reel mounted at about amidships and an Continued on page 37
Bay deadrise and cross-planked wooden Some years later, he met his future bride in Virginia and moved from off shore Carolina fi shing to inshore Chesapeake Bay fi shing. As part of that move, he left behind John England of the Deltaville Maritime Museum is building this 19' 8"x 6' 2" deadrise skiff at the museum’s boatshop in Deltaville, Va. Larry Chowning
WEST of Norcraft Marine & Design in Anacortes, Wash., and work will begin on it this summer.
Washington builder prepares to close its doors; The make of the second boat hasn’t been de new boatyard takes shape in northern California termined, and work won’t start on it before struction,” says Jon Petrzelka. That would be the St. Elias, which received new aluminum decks, new fish hold and a refrigeration system. The fish hold was expanded because “he was a little shy on hold space.” Raising the deck and adding a fish hold solved that issue, which also required moving the two fuel tanks farther aft. October.
By Michael Crowley Of the two gillnetters in for repair, one is to be repowered with a MAN diesel. The second gillnetter needs to be rebuilt after catching fire in Bristol Bay this spring. Once those boats leave, “we might be about done,” says Petrzelka. “We’ve (Jon, Joel and Paul Petrzelka) talked about it enough; it’s just how quick it all happens.” Reincke Marine Fabrication, also known as RMF, didn’t exist four years ago. What there was in Field’s Landing, Calif., a Petrzelka Brothers small community at the southern end of Humboldt Bay, was the Fields Landing Boat yard. It was basically a boat storage and doit-yourself boatyard with a 150-ton Marine Travelift operated by the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District.
Petrzelka Brothers will be finishing off this 32-foot Norcraft hull for Bristol Bay with a Scandia engine and Namjet propulsion package. Then four years ago Tod Reincke took etrzelka Brothers sent the boat required new bottom plating for the Fabrication. Before that he ran a boatyard in
Pthree rebuilt gillnetters to Bristol Bay this spring. Two new gillnetters will holds and new keel cooler boxes. The third gillnetter, the Erin L had been barged down to Petrzelka Brothers the preTennessee for 14 years followed by a yard in Stockton, Calif., for 12 years. Now instead of the do-it-yourself yard, Reincke describes be finished off next winter, vious two winters. This past winter the boat’s RMF as “a full-service yard. We do every and two older gillnetters will be repaired. Af owner brought it back to have the refrigerathing: metal fabrication, lengthening, refits. ter that, Petrzelka Brothers, a family owned tion system worked on, a new power steering Everything is full service. There’s nothing we and operated boatshop in Mt. Vernon, Wash., system installed and the single Traktor Jet updo not do.” RMF has the 150-ton Marine since 1977, will probably close its doors. graded with a new impeller. Travelift and a building large enough for a
The Bristol Bay gillnetters that were reOf the two gillnetters that need to be 100-foot boat. built this spring were all between 25 and 30 finished off by spring 2021, one of them is A recent project was the three-year-old years old. “One was a pretty major reconcurrently in the shop. It’s from Dick Smitha Continued on page 37 over the lease and started Reincke Marine
The Jade was another gillnetter that fell into Petrzelka’s “pretty major reconstruction” category. Both the hydraulic system and the refrigeration system needed replacing. Then the bow plate had “some real bad dents,” which Petrzelka attributed to “fishing condi tions. Running into other people.” As a result, the bow plating was replaced on both sides. Reincke Marine Fabrication
Corrosion in the fish holds and bottom of Reincke Marine Fabrication lengthened the fiberglass crabber High Hopes from 42 to 51 feet.
NORTHEAST traps the Simmonses will be hauling this summer. “The season doesn’t look good More horsepower is driving force for new boat; for lobstering,” says Simmons. “Between boatyard expands lineup with 38-foot model the [covid-19] virus and the whales, I don’t lobster tanks underneath the platform, and V-bunks and shelving up forward. A small door is built into the transom. “The Mussel Ridge is pretty high sided,” says Gilbert. The door makes “it much easier to get aboard.”
The Salt Shaker is the second boat Sim mons Boatworks has built for Harrington. The lobster boat it replaces is also a 42 Mussel Ridge. Horsepower is the major difference know,” he notes, referring to proposed federal By Michael Crowley rulings to protect the North American right whale by restricting the use of lobster traps. Just in case Gilbert’s worst fears come to fruition and Maine’s lobster season isn’t as lucrative as it has been in the past, the Sim monses have a fallback option, a 38 Calvin hull with a 476-hp Caterpillar C9 that’s been sitting in the yard to be finished off as a spec boat. “I haven’t got to it,” says Simmons, “but I might work on it some in the summer and launch it in the fall.” After a fire and explosion destroyed the R.P. Boatshop in Steuben, Maine, on March 1, 2010, along with all its Willis Beal designed R.P. molds, most fishermen assumed that was the end of the R.P. boat line. But they didn’t figure on Peter Taylor of Taylored Boats in The Salt Shaker, a 42-foot Mussel Ridge hull was finished off by Simmons Boatworks for Friendship lobsterman Eugene Harrington. Addison, Maine, who worked at R.P. Boats his past winter and spring Most boatbuilders have experienced de Willis Beal, has been creating the next gen T Gilbert Simmons and his son, Jason, operating as Simmons Boatworks in lays in obtaining equipment for new boats and repair work, and Simmons Boatworks is no different, primarily when it comes to eration of the Willis Beal designs by using existing R.P. hulls as a plug to create a mold and by lengthening and expanding hulls to make Friendship, Maine, finished windows. larger sizes. off one lobster boat, instead of the usual two “Been able to get everything but winThe latest example is the 35-foot Karen boats they’ve done in years past. Reducing dows,” says Simmons. Bomar windows for the Marie, an R.P.-built lobster boat out of Yarthe output by one was to create more time Salt Shaker “were ordered months ago.” Thus mouth, Maine, that Taylor figures was built at for them to be lobstering in the summer. The the Salt Shaker went in the water with temleast 15 years ago. In early June, the Karen boat they launched in June is the Salt Shaker, porary windows. “When we get the Bomar Marie was at Taylored Boats for repairs and a 42' x 15' Mussel Ridge for local fisherman windows, we’ll have to change them out — to be extended to 38 feet by adding 3 feet at Eugene Harrington. it’ll be expensive.” the stern, “following the lines that Willis had
It’s finished off using all composite con Now that the Salt Shaker has been done years ago,” says Taylor. struction. There’s a split wheelhouse, two launched, it’s hard to say how many lobster Continued on page 37
early in his career. Taylor, with the help of between the two boats; the new lobster boat comes with a 1,000-hp MAN, as opposed to Harrington’s previous 42 Mussel Ridge with a 700-hp Caterpillar C12. “He wanted more Taylored Boats power. He wants to go fast,” says Simmons, The Karen Marie, an RP-built lobster boat, was stretched from 35 to 38 feet by Taylored Boats adding, “He probably will be racing.” and then used to create a 38 Willis Beal mold.
Around the Yards: South
Continued from page 34
skiff s when completed.
This new skiff is the third one at the museum’s boatshop that has been built in stages. The skiff is built out of Georgia heart pine, white cedar and pressure treated wood.
Keel, stem and stringers are built out of pressure-treated wood; chine log, timbers and transom from heart pine; and bottom and side planks and removable fl oorboards from white cedar. The fl oorboards and entire inside of the skiff are coated with a mixture of turpentine and linseed oil. “This is easy long-term maintenance,” says England.
The deadrise bottom is made from two layers of white cedar planks laminated with epoxy. The bottom is coated with Pettit Hydrocoat 1640 Red Ablative Antifouling paint, and a semi-gloss white latex paint is on the sides. The boat is fastened with 3/16" stainless bolts and stainless nails. Inside the skiff , a riser strip attached to frames holds seats or can be used to tie down side bumpers.
The skiff will be powered by a used 65-hp outboard Suzuki engine, and when completed will be on the market. This is the second Lewis Wright style skiff built by England. The fi rst skiff was based on a Willard Norris style.
Around the Yards: West
Continued from page 35
High Hopes, a fi berglass crabber out of Half Moon Bay, Calif., that was built by H&H Marine in Steuben, Maine. The High Hopes was hauled at RMF as a 42-footer and left as a 51-footer, after being extended at the stern. The additional 9 feet not only allows the High Hopes to carry more crab pots, but reduced its fuel consumption by 30 percent, says Reincke, though the top speed is down by 6 knots to 18 knots.
Another project involved the Mary C, a 46-foot wooden crabber and tuna boat built in 1942. The original wooden mast, trolling poles and standing rigging were all removed and replaced with new standing rigging and an aluminum mast and trolling poles.
Reincke points with pride to the new paint jobs on fi shing boats that leave the yard. “I’ve got fi shing boats that look like motor yachts,” he says. The secret to the motor yacht paintwork is “lots and lots of prep work.” The most recent example is the 40-year-old Celtic Aire, a 65-foot steel crab and albacore boat launched on April 26.
Future work includes the sponsoning and lengthening of the Miss Cynthia in August. It’s a 56-foot steel crabber out of Eureka, Calif., that will be stretched 8 feet at the stern and given 8 feet of additional beam. She’ll also be getting a new whaleback and pilothouse.
Around the Yards: Northeast
Continued from page 36
A one-off splash mold was used to fabricate the stern extension, which was then fi berglassed and bolted to the hull. Then the now 38-foot Karen Marie was used to create a 38 Willis Beal mold. This follows the introduction of the Willis Beal 50 in October 2019.
“What we can make right today,” says Taylor “is the 35, 36, 37, 38, 40, 42 and 44, and the 50, though there’s no mold for that. Have to make it out of the 42,” which is done by adding 5 feet of beam to a 42 hull — pushing it out to 19' 6" — and lengthening the hull in the middle by 7 feet.
A new Willis Beal 44 with an 800-hp Scania is currently being built for a local lobsterman and should be completed by September or October. It will have a split wheelhouse with a baiting room on the back of the house.
Taylored Boats, like Simmons Boatworks, has experienced delays in getting equipment for new and existing boats. Taylor’s major hardware supplier went from being “a good supplier to a terrible supplier. I waited fi ve to six weeks for multiple, multiple things.” In early June, Taylor had still not received a propeller for an existing fi shing boat from another supplier that had been ordered in December. “Unless you are really a well-stocked boatbuilder, which I am not, it really can hurt.”
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