Extreme Beam boats

I've been looking into Canadian commercial fishing boat builders. It appears that the majority with offerings in the 40-50 foot range have pivoted to the extremely wide lobster boat style. 24-27 foot beams (or more) on these vessels. Singles with some semblance of a keel, and generally designed for displacement or moderate speeds.

Does anyone have any real-world experience with these style hulls and how they handle rough water conditions?

No experience on any of those hulls but I know the winter conditions they operate in. They routinely work in horrendous conditions off Atlantic Canada and the Grand Banks. Tons of them in St Johns ,Newfoundland.

Mako said:

I've been looking into Canadian commercial fishing boat builders. It appears that the majority with offerings in the 40-50 foot range have pivoted to the extremely wide lobster boat style. 24-27 foot beams (or more) on these vessels. Singles with some semblance of a keel, and generally designed for displacement or moderate speeds.

Does anyone have any real-world experience with these style hulls and how they handle rough water conditions?

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A beam that is 50% of the length-pretty wild. I'm guessing it's the same reason trawlers are getting wider-more room for "stuff". In this case, more holding for fish, crabs, etc. I'd be curious about the draft. Seems it would have to be proportional to the width. Good question about stability. Beam is considered for forward movement and efficiency, but I've never seen anything about stability. i.e. handling, righting ability etc.

I've seen these types of boats. No experience - my impression is they are "rule beaters" for some obscure fishing regulation.

Peter

mvweebles said:

I've seen these types of boats. No experience - my impression is they are "rule beaters" for some obscure fishing regulation.

Peter

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I seem to recall Mike (Northern Spy) was saying that design came from the Canadian fishing regs for a particular fishery. So as you note, the design was based on the rule, not seaworthiness.

Much like the old ton classes for sailboats. Hulls started to be designed to be as fast as the rules would allow. It produced some odd hull configurations.

Can you get slips for that beam without having to get really long slips?

Greetings,
I was on one many, many moons ago, probably at one of the NE boat shows. Purpose built (in Nova Scotia, Canada) pleasure craft on a beamy, commercial "lobster" hull. The ONLY thing I actually remember is the cavernous ER. One could only sit but the space was MASSIVE!

Last time I was up there talking to the fishermen, I was told that some Canadian fishing regulations were based on boat length. Nothing about beam. Hence if you want a bigger boat, you make it wider. I was in one yard where a guy showed me a boat which was being split down the middle and widened. He said they were doing that a lot. Since it was only waterline length which was counted, there were also a lot of boats with huge overhangs on the stern.

Not sure if this is still the case. But it's good to know the US isn't the only place with poorly thought-out regulations.

I suppose the first few built were to skirt regulations.
Having been on wide beam cats in rough seas and not feeling it, as compared to a monohull, there is a place for a wider platform for stability over fuel economy.

For say a 49ft trawler, an 18ft beam would be wide. But these fishing boats are minimum 24ft beam and some over 30ft. Obviously built to skirt regulations creatively. I can't imagine the directional stability challenges faced in heavy quartering seas or going downhill.

The lobster fishers I've talked to in Nova Scotia all love them. They say they're much more stable pulling traps, and the deck space for stacking traps is remarkable.

I think there are LOA restrictions on the Maritime lobster fisheries, which explains the evolution.

Viewers that have seen my opinions expressed on this site may know I sing the praises of my MS 34. Unlike most boat manufacturers , the 34 does not include the swim platform and pulpit etc. That being said, my MS with a 14ft 3in beam is hell on wheels in a big following sea.!

keith c said:

Viewers that have seen my opinions expressed on this site may know I sing the praises of my MS 34. Unlike most boat manufacturers , the 34 does not include the swim platform and pulpit etc. That being said, my MS with a 14ft 3in beam is hell on wheels in a big following sea.!

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Most fishing boats in this part of the world have the up swept hull at the stern-actually coming out of the water. My old boat, Krogen Manatee (designed after lobster boats) had this same feature. It was a dream in following seas. It would be nice to see pictures of the hulls described above.

Beam alone is definitely not an indicator of performance in following seas. Waterline beam at the stern is more relevant, but other factors in the hull shape, keel design (if the boat has a keel), rudder size, etc. all have a big effect. A more full bow shape will tolerate a broader stern in following seas, for example, as it won't dig in and want to bow steer as much when the stern gets lifted by a wave.

If there one takeaway from reading/seeing Junger's "The Perfect Storm," its that fishermen will sacrifice safety to bring more fish to market. I wouldn't read too much into their designs and especially their modifications.

We're not talking highly engineered America's Cup technology here.....

Peter

keith c said:

Viewers that have seen my opinions expressed on this site may know I sing the praises of my MS 34. Unlike most boat manufacturers , the 34 does not include the swim platform and pulpit etc. That being said, my MS with a 14ft 3in beam is hell on wheels in a big following sea.!

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Clarify. Is that a good or a bad thing?

The crazy width we are seeing on some Canadian commercial fishing vessels are indeed built to work around the length restrictions on each vessel license. Though I commercially fished for 28 seasons I was never on one of these monstrosities.

One extremely crazy example was a friend of mine that purchased a wood troller that was four feet longer than his license allowed (majorly difficult to widen a wood hull). He wanted to transfer his license to the new to him vessel. DFO (see below) demanded that he bulkhead off four feet of his stern and have large holes drilled into the aft complement below the waterline to allow water to flow into and out of the extra length. He did that but soon abandoned the vessel as it obviously impacted this vessels stability in a negative manner.

A few years back I understand the WCB (British Columbia's now Work Safe organization that covers commercial fishers in British Columbia) met with representatives of the Commercial fleet, the DFO (Department of Fisheries and Oceans (the group responsible for the crazy rules) and TC (Transport Canada the group responsible for vessel stability) to discuss the increase personal injury claims from the commercial fleet workers. The object of the meeting was to see if they could reduce the increasing injury claims?

The fleet representatives said get rid of the length restriction's and we will have safer vessel. DFO said no way. TC said not in our control under present rules for these licensed commercial vessels, other than for stability requirements against for roll over prevention which it seems to not be too negatively impacted with the widening?

So it remains. If you want a bigger platform to fish off of you have to do it by widening the vessel.

I've a friend with a 36ft lobster yacht that's 15ft wide, he has to look for 50ft slips because of that beam. At that point you might as well have a boat that is 10ft longer.
I think it's safe to say that if you went to a naval architect and told him to draw you the best boat it would not have an extreme beam.

I've prodded the shipyard further in Nova Scotia and received some interesting comments back:

• Asked about client feedback and they stated generally they're told "stable and seaworthy" from those fishing the winter lobster season. Granted that is not open ocean fishing.
• They stated "we could put a slight bend/arch in the stern (hull bottom profile), this would decrease the possibility of having tracking issues as well decrease the amount of drag from the stern." Certainly a rec boat, not carry huge loads of cargo, does not need a deeply submerged transom.
• Since they have flexibility in how their molds are setup, they could reduce the beam on the 50 footer to 20 feet, which is wide but not freakish.
• The draft of the boat would be 7 feet, which adds to tracking, but it could be lowered if requested.
• Average displacement in the 45 to 50 metric ton range.