85' Trawler Rebuild/refit

[billblack]

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.

 

[billblack]

A few more recent photos.

 

[Comodave]

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

 

[MYTraveler]

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.

 

[Gdavid]

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

 

[hollywood8118]

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

 

[KnotYet]

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