85' Trawler Rebuild/refit

Hi folks.
I am Bill Black of Sebastian, FL. I run a little treasure diving operation here and recently acquired a 1987 steel trawler built by Freeport Shipbuilding in Freeport, FL of good Corten steel. As often happens to boats of all sizes, Sampson changed hands a couple of times over the 37 years since she was launched and ended up in a canal in Freeport, Bahamas for almost 20 years being used a floating warehouse and dock. to complete and we moved her to Fort Pierce, FL in April of this year (2024) to start her refurbishing. We sufferd a few setbacks on getting the project started but we are back on track now.
Sampson is 85' (plus a 9' swim/dive platform) 25' beam, shallow (4') draft vessel built for use in the Bahamas with a pair of 6-71NA Detroits, Twin Disc gears, 25 and 40 KW diesel gensets as well as a 10KW shaft gennie on the stbd main. Raised wheelhouse, 19' x 32' salon that will contain a head and the galley as well as something of a 'lving room' aboard, 5 cabins, engine room and cargo hold. Fuel tankage is 7000 gallons, water is 2400 gallons, there is a 1000 gpd watermaker aboard as well as a K14 Bauer scuba compressor.
The boat was built by and for the Mitchell family as a personal yacht that would accomodate running cargo and doing salvage throughout the Bahamas. Sampson did a great job for the Mitchells for 12 years when they replaced the boat with a vessel with more capacity.
Sooo....we are going to refit her as something of an expedition dive boat over the next year or two and I thought that I might document our progress here, as well as asking for ideas, discussion and advice when we run into something that we can't figure out.
Here are some 'back then' pictures to get this started.
More soon.

A few more recent photos.

Wow, what an understanding. Good luck and keep posting.

Does a project like this make economic sense? The easy answer, of course, is that almost no boat does. My current boat I purchased new, having convinced myself based on my experience with prior project boats that project boats didn't make sense, and by going new, with a semi-custom builder, I could have everything exactly as I prefer, and would come out ahead, financially, as compared to starting with a project boat. Of course, I am ignoring the lightly used boats (and my boat was better when a year old than the day I took delivery), but for the type of boat I wanted (long range well suited to fishing, there wasn't much to choose from. No sister ships were for sale at the time, and I had been on board most of the 13 that preceded it, and greatly preferred my layout. I never did explore the possibility of a major project, such as you have undertaken. It is tempting to believe it does make economic sense.

In any event, I will be following along with great interest. Thanks for sharing.

Thank you for sharing your project, my heart has always ached for the boats I saw moored to the wharf in Nassau harbor which the decks stacked full of junk and no sign of movement in years

Wow, what a boat and cool history to go with it. Looks like you went into this knowing what your getting yourself into. A great example of this kind of project is Delfin, a boat well known in the PNW. The owner bought her as pretty much a bare hull and she is a shining example of a gorgeous former project boat. She obviously was a purpose built boat, and your purpose seems to align well.
Good luck on your project!
HW

Not one but TWO seaplanes on deck! I hope Samson still has that crane, too.

Holy Moley, what a project. Please keep posting with updates. Really interested in how it progresses.

I'm hoping the boat was hauled out, sandblasted to bare metal, and hull thickness scans were done all over. Having owned a steel hull boat back in the 90s, there's no point starting a project of this magnitude before knowing the hull is sound, has been recoated and properly zinced up.

There's an old saying about steel boats, "Start chasing rust on the day you buy it. Don't stop till you sell it ".

Ted

Thanks for launching this thread, Bill. Sampson is a great-looking vessel. My experience with Freeport's commercial vessels (built later than Sampson) was good, so I expect that you have a boat whose bones are worth preserving. Do you happen to know who the designer was?

Looking forward to seeing how things shape up.

MYTraveler said:

Does a project like this make economic sense? The easy answer, of course, is that almost no boat does. My current boat I purchased new, having convinced myself based on my experience with prior project boats that project boats didn't make sense, and by going new, with a semi-custom builder, I could have everything exactly as I prefer, and would come out ahead, financially, as compared to starting with a project boat. Of course, I am ignoring the lightly used boats (and my boat was better when a year old than the day I took delivery), but for the type of boat I wanted (long range well suited to fishing, there wasn't much to choose from. No sister ships were for sale at the time, and I had been on board most of the 13 that preceded it, and greatly preferred my layout. I never did explore the possibility of a major project, such as you have undertaken. It is tempting to believe it does make economic sense.

In any event, I will be following along with great interest. Thanks for sharing.

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Does it make economic sense? I will give you my opinion, but I will caution readers that I have a pretty blunt presentation.
It all depends, of course, on what your ultimate goal is and the means that you have to achieve it.
This will be the last big project boat for me. After this, someone can pay all the bills and I will merely make strong suggestions.
Let's start out where one should start - What is the goal for this rebuild?
To return Sampson to service as a safe, reliable, fairly comfortable platform for salvage, towing, diving, vacations, liveaboard, etc. It is NOT to make Sampson into a Superyacht, just to make Sampson into a SuperComfortableFunWorkBoat. So very many people buy an old boat and spend years in the boatyard trying to make it into a new boat and then age out, get sick or just wear out before they get to do something on the boat other than trying to make it look like a new one.
My plan is to do this in a sorta affordable manner. There is a very similar vessel that was converted to a Superyacht at a cost that came in North of 2 million USD. (M/V Pink Shrimp See her here: Pink Shrimp Yacht | 32m TM Jemison | Superyacht Times ) Pink Shrimp is the model of how I would like to do Sampson if money was not object, but since it is…we’ll do a close approximation.

1) What would a new vessel with the specifications that Sampson will have when we are done?
A minimum of 1 to 1.25 million USD built to bare bones workboat specs. $3M to $5M if finished to Superyacht standards like the Pink Shrimp. I sure cannot afford that!
2) What would a used (but in decent to excellent condition) vessel with the specs of a finished Sampson cost?
Somewhere between $300,000 and $1,000,000 dollars depending on a thousand factors.
What will this refurb/refit cost? Depending on what decisions are made and how much bargain shopping, horse trading, asset juggling and downright begging I do - between 100 and 250K USD.
I am a sort of retired guy with degrees and experience in engineering and project management that has rebuilt boats from 14’ to a 38’ Bertram. I won’t be doing all the work. I have friends, a couple of crew folks and some volunteers.
So- does it make sense? I think so (obviously). I got the boat for a very good price from a friend. The boat is visually appealing to me as a long time admirer of shrimp boats. She is in reasonable condition and is built of Corten steel (8X the corrosion resistance of mild steel). We will do her refit in steps.
Our first phase was to get her moved after 20 years on the hook.
The second phase is to return her to everyday usability. (Mains and gears cleaned up, serviced, new gauges. All 3 generators to be serviced and serviceable. Watermaker online, SCUBA compressor serviced and working. Garmin electronics, comms, etc)
Our third phase will be to make her habitable to use as a mothership for our treasure diving boats, refurb the 5 cabins, downstairs head, laundry, build out the galley and a head in the salon, etc.
Fourth and final goal… well…we shall see!!

Blissboat said:

Thanks for launching this thread, Bill. Sampson is a great-looking vessel. My experience with Freeport's commercial vessels (built later than Sampson) was good, so I expect that you have a boat whose bones are worth preserving. Do you happen to know who the designer was?

Looking forward to seeing how things shape up.

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Thanks for the kind words, Bliss. I have talked to a fair number of Freeport's old employees (on Facebook) and no one really knows. One possible was "Sigfried" and another was an engineering firm out of Jax called "DeJONG and LEBET" according to Shorty Murray, the son of the former owner.

O C Diver said:

I'm hoping the boat was hauled out, sandblasted to bare metal, and hull thickness scans were done all over. Having owned a steel hull boat back in the 90s, there's no point starting a project of this magnitude before knowing the hull is sound, has been recoated and properly zinced up.

There's an old saying about steel boats, "Start chasing rust on the day you buy it. Don't stop till you sell it ".

Ted

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We have not hauled her yet. We did do some pretty extensive in-water surveys and this boat has access to the hull plating almost everywhere that there aren't tanks. We'll do a proper sounding, do repairs where needed, make note of suspect areas and be glad that we have a pretty complete shop aboard.

I'll try to get a complete description of what Sampson is and what the plan is this weekend.
There is much going on!
OH! Here is a link to the AWESOME M/Y Pink Shrimp on my Google Drive - be sure to peruse the PDF file as well as the photos. The pdf details every little thing about the Pink Shrimp: M/Y Pink Shrimp - Google Drive

billblack said:

Thanks for the kind words, Bliss. I have talked to a fair number of Freeport's old employees (on Facebook) and no one really knows. One possible was "Sigfried" and another was an engineering firm out of Jax called "DeJONG and LEBET" according to Shorty Murray, the son of the former owner.

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Freeport built a number of commercial boats designed by DeJong & Lebet (including one that I formerly ran). Although Norman DeJong passed away about ten years ago, Andy Lebet continues to operate the firm here in Jacksonville. Sampson does not resemble anything I've ever seen come off his design board, but it couldn't hurt to message them and ask whether they have any info.

KnotYet said:

Not one but TWO seaplanes on deck! I hope Samson still has that crane, too.

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No seaplanes and that crane is long gone. We WILL be mounting a crane this winter though, as funding allows.

A quick picture of Sampson when launched.
BTW - Sampson has a 25' beam, 4' draft, the house is 18'8" wide and 29'6" long.

great project!...She seems worthy of your rebuild efforts.This will be an interesting thread to follow

This will be a topic I will be following with a lot of pleasure. What an incredible undertaking and I admire you for your will to see this through. A boat that has been 20 years on the hook and now has to be build up basically from scratch ? That is going to be an enormous achievement, hats off.

Do keep us posted here with pictures etc, think many will be interested.
Good luck with your project, looking forward to seeing the final result.

I love this stuff too! Along similar lines, the YT channel "Onboard Tangaroa" is restoring a 78' aluminum boat.

I don't know about the boat, but the name "Bill Black" and "I run a little treasure diving operation" all scream modern day pirate. Haha.

Wow! what a project! Just curious as to where you keep her and are you able to find insurance? Best of luck and I look forward to following you on this adventure. I've rebuilt a few boats but nothing of tis magnitude!

billblack said:

We have not hauled her yet. We did do some pretty extensive in-water surveys and this boat has access to the hull plating almost everywhere that there aren't tanks. We'll do a proper sounding, do repairs where needed, make note of suspect areas and be glad that we have a pretty complete shop aboard.

Click to expand...

Great project. Many people don't understand that the trip doing the "project" is as much fun and enjoyment as the finished project. You can't put a price on the feeling of figuring out an engineered fix to a problem making the boat "Mo betta"!
Just a related story about hulls, during COVID the "Kona Aggressor", a large 100ft + livaboard dive boat in Kona was not allowed to operate and sat at anchor for a few years fully crewed and maintained. They decided to do a complete retro fit costing millions while waiting for operations to resume. After the retrofit, they hauled out and found the hull was unsound and the vessel had to be scrapped. That was a bummer, always wanted to just go out for a week on her doing some diving in Hawaii.