Gamefishing for Sail Under Sail (and power)

Size Range & Diesel Electric Drive

With the style rig I show here I do not think a vessel less than 40-45 feet qualifies.

I agree there. I am particularly interested in this latest 'rim-drive' technology as associated with electric propulsion (diesel-electric).
http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/technical-discussion/3961-rim-driven-propellers.html

And I believe there is a case to be made for a less sophisticated kevlar belt driven rim propulsor in a jet-pump configuration....looking at that now for a smaller RIB adaptation (actually the one or two tenders for the 65 gamefisher)
http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/technical-discussion/4470-jet-drive-vs-prop.html

I had a pretty serious inquiry on a 85-100 foot version of this design (without the fishing gear) for fast cruising with small crew, but it fell through. Now talking with a prominent gamefishing group about the concept.

I think you're right there. The forestays begin to get too long

The rim-driven prop units are reportable very quite as to have that extremely close fit between high tip speed props and the outer wall of the tunnel. Note that I am only proposing the belt-driven rim- drive configuration as an alternative to the more complicated electric-driven rim for very small craft (RIBs) that might be able to take advantage of newer generation, more efficient jet-pump drives.

The D-E setup could make use of just DC electric motors directly driving conventional props, ala submarines.

But in a sailing mode it would be nice to be able to retract the props rather than contend with less efficient folding ones. A rim driven electric propulsor might well offer that retractability, along with azimuting also, plus quite operation and less interference with fishing lines. You might even be able to pull the propulsor out for maintainence without hauling the vessel

TaraVana's fishing success

Hello Nick,
First off let me say I am not an experienced ocean fisherman, but I have listened to and read a number of their stories.

And one statement I present on my website that is bound to create a lot of controversy (I've got my body armor on for the replies);
"I've also heard the many claims by various captains about their individual boat's particular sound being an attraction for raising fish. I find it difficult to believe that a very loud (water is a great amplifier and transmitter of sound), foreign sound would act to attract a large predator fish seeking out their food source in the ocean's natural environment. Loud, unnatural noises have in most cases acted to disperse aquatic life."

"Tara Vana, the only other professional sailing/gamefishing boat (catamaran) I know of, certainly excelled in the fishing tournaments off the Pacific island of Bora Bora "

I found this website listing a few of their tournament wins;
TARAVANA'S maiden 18,000 mile voyage included fishing stops in Valdivia, Chile, the Galapagos islands, Costa Rica, Mexico, California, Hawaii, the Marquesas, Tuamotus and Bora Bora. Since TARAVANA'S 1995 arrival in the Leeward Islands of French Polynesia, this unique vessel has compiled an impressive list of celebrity, international clients as well as an impressive fishing record. Captain Richard Postma has been fishing the Leeward Socitey

Islands for over 20 years. Some of TARAVANA'S recent tournament victories include:

• 1st Place: 1999 Overall Points for Bora Bora Tournament Season
• 1st Place: 1997 Inter-Island Championship
• 1st Place: 1997 World Billfish Series
• 1st Place: 1996 Women's International
• 2nd Place: 1995 Inter-Island Championship

Fishing Cockpit Layout

Thanks for adding that video reference, I had forgotten it.

For the fishing layout it is not just simply a question of adding two chairs. You will note that this was also done on Taravana:
http://www.runningtideyachts.com/archives/TaraTour2.html

http://www.runningtideyachts.com/archives/TaraSoundings.html

http://www.runningtideyachts.com/archives/taraarchive.html

If serious fishing is contempated there needs to be a much more serious attention paid to the cockpit layout. I have collected a few good articles in reference to this subject including a good one from Professional BoatBuilder. I have had a few short conversations with Peter Wright (very well known name in offshore fishing), who has indicated a willingness to help with this cockpit design with a serious client. And I have recently made contact with another potential source of help with this aspect of the design. There are lots of subtleties involved in this detailed area.

Where less serious fishing is involved, simply adding two chairs is very adequate.

I might make one other observation. Carrying the yacht tender in davits, or on a portion of rear deck, at the stern is unacceptable on a fishing vessel. I am working on a new tender design that would allow for the craft to be carried up in the bow area, but not become a liability if swamped with a wave.

As I mentioned above I had a pretty serious inquiry on a 85-100 foot version of this design (without the fishing gear) for fast cruising of the Mediterranean with a small crew, but it fell through due to a family illness. Actually they initially inquired about an 85-120 size, but I worked it down to 100. Even at that I really believed the 85 fitted their needs much better when they emphased non-commercial, family use, with a small crew. I wanted to keep the length of those forestays and the size of the sails to a reasonable size.

Design Issues Reply

Thanks for your criticism Daiwa. I must always remain open to outside suggestions. Please be aware that this is not a final design….it is a concept from which an individual will modify it according to his/her needs.

I understand your concern here. I believe the model of the vessel helps create this ‘balloon’ misconception both with its pronounced rounded shape, and with the color distinction between the deck edge and the hull sides located in a ‘sheer sort of manner’. The curvature on the scale model is actually greater than on the actual drawings of the vessel. The deck in this area is actually much flatter than it appears on the model. Carrying the deck color over into the topside area to ‘fake’ a lower sheer line also contributes to this more rounded appearance. Then there are lifelines provided along this deck’s edge that are not shown on the model, nor on the drawing.

You might note that a “change of sails” is not required of my sailing rig, so there is not the necessity to go forward to do anything with the headsails. And since I don’t have a traditional mainsail, it is not necessary to climb up on the deckhouse roof to facilitate a reefing or storing of that sail.

No problem to add a ‘soffa’ to the bow area

Again I emphasize this was just the concept drawing. I elected to show the very minimum of an upper control station, and particularly one that would not interfere with the fishing cockpit. There was a seat provided for the helmsman, and there could be another beside that. Further to the opposite side there was an open deck area where one might lay out a big cushion for two sunbathers or lounging passengers. In this fishing version it was a limited flybridge area. At the aft edge of the deckhouse roof there could be a rolled-up deployable shade that could provide rain or sun cover to the most aft portions of huge aft maindeck area. And of course there would be a foldable bimini cover for the helmsman and his mate.

Alternatively for the non-fishing motorsailing version there could be a provided a larger flybridge area ala the Lagoon 500, or an even bigger area much as with the new Lagoon Powercat 44. Steve Dashew has praised the use he gets out of his flybridge area onboard FPB. http://www.setsail.com/dashew/Fly_Bridge.html
But have a look a little closer. In most cases the flybrige area is expanded when the lower deck availability is more limited. If you have a really nice BIG aft deck area and big sunning areas up front, you begin to question the need for a really big flybridge area in addition.

I have one other problem with really expansive flybridge areas. You need to provide increasing amounts of headroom and clearance for the boom of the mainsail. The booms get to be 20 feet off the water, and thus the overall rig heights go up to 100 feet and more. Stability of the vessel is adversely affected. And the very positive aerodynamic interaction between the big lower portion of the genoa with the non-existent mainsail area of this high-boomed mainsail, is lost. For a visual http://www.wb-sails.fi/news/98_11_PerfectShape/Main.htm and scroll down to "Think One" Discussion http://boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?t=457&page=7

I will assume you are questioning both the bulk of my hulls in this area, as well as the size of the backsteps?? Far too many of the French cats are designed for the charter trade and carrying big loads in shorter boats. The slenderness ratio of their hulls is often in the 8-1 or 9-1 range. My vessel carries a 14.5-1 ratio. It’s this slenderness that allows the vessel to avoid displacement resistance, and to carve thru the water with less sail and/or power requirements. Big fat transoms are more buoyant and require a resisting buoyancy at the other end….thus fatter bows that plow up more water or increase the pitching tendency. And be particularly concerned when running down big waves with big sterns.

I’ve seen all of these ‘grand stairways’ to the sea that incidentally most often offer no handholds to grab onto….fine at the boatshows, but not at sea. I much prefer to walk down my more narrow, indented steps with something to hold onto, or lean against rather than fall over the side. Besides I don’t need a big width of steps to stroll down side-by-side. I did notice that the great looking Exclusive 72 also chose to 'indent' their stern stairs. http://www.exclusive-marine.com/page-catamaran-event-exclusive72-article-28.html

No factory, nor my own brand. This is not intended to be a ‘production boat’. It is a custom design, a concept, and meant to be the basis from which to do some similar vessels. If I could afford it I would definitely have one for myself.

I only do the design, not the building. I suggest to the client good builders from around the world that offer their history at building & warranty. And I offer an extremely cautious warning about building in China. Many of these yards will promise everything and not deliver.

I’m not exactly understanding your English here, but I assume you are saying ‘other than my sailing rig’ my design offers nothing new??

Well I beg to differ with you, but then not all new designs offer new innovation each time….many are variations on the past with differences in layout or appearance. Each design has its own style. I happen to think the current ‘fade’ of plum bows is often quite ugly, and particularly on already ‘boxy’ catamarans. And I think those sheer-lines that are drawn with a straight-edge ruler are ugly as well. A posting I made on the subject, Bow Aesthetics,
http://boatdesign.net/forums/showpost.php?p=63853&postcount=87
http://boatdesign.net/forums/showpost.php?p=63855&postcount=88

BTW, did you notice my plum bow variation on my 60 footer? (a variation of Lock Crowther’s Super Shockwave“Wahoo” http://www.boatdesign.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/5406/limit/recent


....Lets see, not including my innovative sailing rig….

How many ‘modern’ cruising cats do you find with centerboards??.
Or with the suggestion of a single centerboard, nacelle mounted??
How many with belt driven props, or forward facing props, and retractable props??
How many with a different type of bulkhead construction (resilent)??
How many with the rigging loads keyed so directly with the main bulkhead??
How many with a fore-to-aft bulkhead stiffening arrangement??
How many with an aux fuel tank that gravity feeds the engine in an emergency??
How many with a crow’s nest??
How many with a sword-fishing bow pulpit??
How many with a custom tender arrangement??
How many with the man-overboard pole slot in the transom??
How many with the rear seating over the engine to provide extra access and standing headroom??
How many with an aerodynamic-shaped deckhouse??



...Wahoo bow on mine
.

Hybrid Fishing Boat Project with Sails

This site was just brought to my attention on another forum,
http://www.hybridfishingboat.org/index.html

This vessel intends to make use of a 'different sailing rig' and 'diesel/electric technology', as does mine, but it is a monohull rather than a multihull. It is also geared towards the commerical market rather than the sportfishing market



"The mission of the Hybrid Fishing Boat Project is to design, build, test and produce a hybrid commercial fishing vessel."

Little more than a hundred years ago, most of the boats in San Francisco's fishing fleet were feluccas, such as the one pictured above. Feluccas were seaworthy and easy to handle, but with the arrival of marine engines and cheap fossil fuel they disappeared from San Francisco Bay.

With a nod to the felucca, the Hybrid Fishing Boat Project hopes to produce a modern fishing vessel powered by the wind the sun and alternative fuels.

Successfully harnessing wind and solar power power to drastically reduce the burning of carbon based fuels in commercial fishing boats has obvious benefits for the environment, but this project is equally about saving an endangered species -- the small independent fishers.

While the price fishers receive for their catch (their income) has remained flat or decreased in recent years, their costs for everything from bait to berthing fees have increased, but few costs have increased as much as fuel.

In 1985, San Francisco wholesalers paid about $3.75 a pound for salmon and a gallon of #2 marine diesel cost about 45 cents. Today, in 2006, fishers still receive about $3.75 a pound for salmon while marine diesel fuel sells for close to $3.00 per gallon -- six times the 1985 price. This is eating the profits of fishing boats that use a lot of fuel and/or travel great distances. Read a good article from the Juneau Empire about the effect high fuel prices were having on the Alaska fishing fleet -- before the post Katrina price increases.

"If the fishing industry were a country, it would rank with the Netherlands as the world's 18th-largest oil consumer, a team of fisheries scientists is reporting. In 2000, the scientists said, fisheries around the world burned about 13 billion gallons of fuel to catch 80 million tons of fish...." NY Times 12/20/05

80 million tons = 160 billion pounds of fish
13 billion gallons = 88 billion pounds of fuel

Using those numbers, it would seem that for every pound of fish caught worldwide, more than a half pound of fossil fuel is burned. Yikes!

Fishers are environmentalists by nature. They rely on clean oceans, abundant wetlands and free-flowing rivers for their livelihood. Helping the environment and realizing significant savings on fuel costs will appeal to many fishers, but the hybrid fishing boat must be a practical commercial vessel if it has any hope of success in the marketplace. That is the challenge of this project.

Hedley Prince -- Updated July 2006

Transom Steps on Catamarans

I was just attending the Annapolis Sailboat Show and took a couple of photos of these two different sterns that illustrate my point. Which one would you rather negoiate, particularly at sea?

Ltr to the Editor of Professional BoatBuilder Magazine

Just looked thru Bruce Pfund’s latest article “Shootout” in PBB No 101, Jun/Jul ‘06. I thought I would drop you a short note to be taken with a little light-hearted ribbing.

I’ve really enjoyed Bruce’s articles in the past, and particularly took note of one where he detailed the fishing cockpit, PBB No 78 (“Sportfishing Boat Layout”). I hope to make use of some of those insightful details when I finally find a brave client to really push the boundaries of a new gamefisher design.

In “Shootout” Bruce wrote, “…deviations from the day’s norm are small. Will anyone dare to break away from the now traditional tuna tower and try a single, aerodynamically efficient, unstayed mast with an aero-style crow’s nest…”
Well I guess you might say I’ve taken that ‘crow’s nest-on-a-composite-mast’ challenge to the EXTREME. I’ve extended that mast, and added a sailing rig. I need to expand the size of my crow’s nest a bit more, and it wouldn’t necessarily have to be located as far up the mast. I do like the idea of the ‘elevator’ as on Jim Smith’s Boca Jima. He was quite an innovator wasn’t he.

Interesting that Smith did not feel the need for the additional flybridge helm as well. I had included this additional helm on my deckhouse roof since the crow’s nest was not sufficiently expansive in my original drawings. I had also considered exploring a sort of fold-away, pop-up, podium type helm station at that roof location. This would provide for good communication between the captain and the fishing cockpit in close fighting situations, and might be rigged to handle the teaser reels also.

Bruce wrote, “Will 2006 be the year that large low-drag unstayed carbon outriggers appear?”
I think being able to clip lines on both my twin backstays and my relatively short unstayed carbon outriggers, and across the whole big beam of this vessel, should make for quite a bait spread without unruly longer riggers.

The new Volvo IPS prop system might substitute for my belt-driven concept, but lets go up another whole notch and eliminate conventional props and supports altogether. How about adapting the latest Rim-Driven Propeller technologies:
http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/23867-post8.html
http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/technical-discussion/3961-rim-driven-propellers.html

These propulsion units can be 1) smaller in diameter than their prop counterparts, 2) tucked under the hull closer to the hull bottom, 3) located further forward from the transom, 4) retractable, 5) far less nosey, 6) less susceptible to fouling, 7) serviceable without hauling the vessel, etc. Rim-drives are electrically driven by a magnet component in the rim of the prop, so they would require the latest technologies associated with diesel/electric propulsion. Carbon blades in the rim-drives combined with low speed, hi-torque electric drive would produce phenomenal maneuverability at slow fighting speeds, and without any reduction/direction gearboxes.

Plus you would have all of the electricity you could possible want onboard without the extra weight of the usual one or two auxiliary generator units. Set up right this could be a real fuel-sipping offshore fishing machine (much less fuel weight to propel & haul around). The sails could all be electrically furled.

Bruce mentioned, “within a year or two the first oven-baked, carbon-fiber, pre-preg sportfisherman will arrive on the scene….the quantum leap its presence will represent…”
By analogy this 65 gamefishing cat I’m proposing done in all-carbon might find its nearest comparison with the very lt-weight built GunBoat 62 catamaran:
http://www.deltayachtsbrokerage.com/dyeng/gunboat-en.html
http://www.gunboat.info/home.html
My design will of course be heavier with its significantly greater engine power, and it won’t carry that same sail area to displacement ratio, but it does maintain that slenderness in the hulls and a relatively lt-weight of a carbon build.

Upon looking at the opening photo of the article down the long line of boats, I noticed that not one of the vessels had a tender onboard (nor chocks for same). These vessels are all ‘dock dwellers’. They would have a hard time spending a night away from the dock, or a few days away from a fuel supply. So rather than refer to them as ‘offshore fishing vessels’, I think they might better be termed ‘tournament fishing vessels’. They are specialized for tournaments, something mine is not.

Bruce wrote, “The challenge is to innovate while still creating a boat that is not so radically custom, or weird that no one will want to buy it. Or that is so finely tuned for a particular fishery that its efficiency is compromised when chasing other species.”
Well I guess I failed the ‘radically custom’ part by a long shot, and it certainly hasn’t been easy coming up with a client to buy one (the mixture of sail with fishing or power has been no easy sell). But then I have never represented this design as a tournament boat. It is clearly a ‘get out there on your own bottom, go-anywhere-in-the-world’ vessel. I would surely think there’d be a few of those really adventurous fishing guys around. My vessel should not appear so radical to them, and its versatile enough to fish on the flats as well as the ocean.

And it just might fair well in a couple of tournaments…..if they dare let her in.

Note: I posted some of this same discussion in the specific sportfishing area. If you want to see a picture of the 'pod-tower' have a look here:

Another Catamaran Fishing Convert

The recent issue (Oct ’06) of Power Cruising Magazine contained the following editorial by the editor Pierce Hoover. I thought I might post it to this discussion as it comes from a gentleman with a fishing interest, and it’s another affirmation of the multihull vessel configuration for ‘other-than-sailing-vessel’ application.

I’ve highlighted a few passages that caught my attention. These passage subjects are either addressed in other portions of this forum thread, or I make a short reply to them at the end of the ......editorial:

Cat Fancy​

Like a growing number of cruisers, I’ve developed an interest in powercats. The increased popularity of twin-hulled cruisers has in turn fueled a wave of design innovation, and in the months and years to come, we are likely to see a whole new breed of cat on the water.

My fascination with power-driven multihulls began in the mid ‘80s when I was editor of a big-game fishing magazine. While in Kona, Hawaii, I often fished aboard a friend’s homebuilt cat that was essentially a platform set atop a pair of long, thin hulls. Twin 15-hp outboards propelled this improbable 28-footer through benign Pacific swells with minimal effort, allowing us to troll all day on a meager few gallons of fuel.

I encountered a somewhat different breed of cat when I fished Australian and South African waters. There, frequently tumultuous seas and rising fuel costs had spawned a crop of rugged, planing-hull cats that were increasingly the small boat of choice for local anglers.

Several U.S. builders dallied with similar concepts in the mid ‘90s, and in my enthusiasm, I acquired a 24-foot center-console cat with the expectation that it would he the finest small craft I’d ever owned. This was, in fact, a pretty nice boat, but like all things that float, it had its good and bad points, which included a high degree of weight sensitivity and a tendency to bow steer alarmingly in certain sea conditions.

I learned a lot more about the realities of multihulls when I bought a half-ownership in a 39-foot sailing catamaran. It didn’t take long to discover that for every advantage gained, others were lost or at least compromised.

Soon afterward, I became quite involved in a friend’s search for a fast, efficient, shallow-draft cruiser with sufficient range to linger in the more remote regions of the southern Bahamas. We patrolled the boat shows, talked with brokers, and studied plans from designers such as John Shuttleworth. None of the craft then on the market fit the bill, lacking either the desired range, accommodations or performance.

One of our wilder ideas was to remove the mast from the aforementioned 39-foot sailing catamaran and add larger engines. On several occasions since, I’ve met cruisers who actually did pull the stick from their catamarans and were happily motoring about at 6 or 7 knots, sipping diesel at a ridiculously low rate.

Some of the first powercats to reach the market followed a similar philosophy and had as much (or more) in common with their sailing cousins as with traditional trawlers or motoryachts. Traces of this heritage can still be seen in various current model, though the builders have long since modified hull shapes and other aspects of the design to accommodate the power format

But in the last year or so, there seem to be a growing number of designers and builders who are breaking new ground, creating boats that are more than just modified sailing cats or flybridge cruiserswith their hulls split in half. Due to ample media coverage and a reputation for economical operation, these new designs are receiving considerable interest from the cruising community.

How much of this interest translates into increased sales remains to be seen. There is no perfect, one-size-fits-all boat, powercats included. But they do offer a number of attractive advantages for certain styles of cruising, and they will likely become an increasingly familiar fixture of the cruising scene.


Noted:
1)…good and bad…
Both the large and small multihull can be very sensitive to weight capacities and weight distribution along there slender hulls. Bow steering can be more alarming at high speeds running with the wave form, and particularly with small or no rudders.

2)…search for….
As I’ve pointed out on a number of occasions one might be able to get a fairly large catamaran capable of world wide ocean cruising of remote areas and still be able to negotiate the shallow banks surrounding islands.

3)…growing number of designers…how much of this translates into sales...
I’ve been promoting these ideas for a long time and I’ve not seen it translate into sales. Admittedly I have been trying to marry up the power guy with a vessel with sails…extra tough sell, but explosive fuel prices might push things along. The smaller vessels may well lead the way.

Alum Build in SE Asia & Charter Questions

On another forum this subject came up...

Hello Richard,
If you wish to look at SE Asia for your alum project, I might suggest you contact Bob Mott who is doing some nice 50 footers in alum. I believe he is going about with proper alum materials and welders. He is actually building in Malaysia. I met him in Thailand several years ago when he was initially looking for a builder, and I've followed his project sparingly.

Am I to assume you already have the design you wish to build? And why are you so set on alum?

That's a pretty big cat you have in mind. What portion of the charter market are you aiming at, and what location for the charters? At the high end of the charter market you might not need so large an accomodation (vessel). Have you talked with a charter specialist? I know of one, and this one has done lots of work with large cats.

Here's one alternative idea in charter....remote area fishing groups. I once had several gentlemen talking to me about building 6 of my gamefishing cats and stationing them around the world in various prime, remote, big-game fishing areas in lieu of a 'mothership operation' that was anchored to one location and had to be moved as a whole entity. They figured the cost equation was near the same at 6 of my vessels.

Noise and Fishing

Just looking thru the forum and ran across a few comments about noise and fishing:
http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/general-yachting-discussion/6453-underwater-exhaust-good-bad-indifferent-raising-fish.html

....I had written on my website, "I've also heard the many claims by various captains about their individual boat's particular sound being an attraction for raising fish. I find it difficult to believe that a very loud (water is a great amplifier and transmitter of sound), foreign sound would act to attract a large predator fish seeking out their food source in the ocean's natural environment. Loud, unnatural noises have in most cases acted to disperse aquatic life."

I think I might agree with that