Around the Yards

By Michael Crowley

Mainely Boats in Cushing, Maine, sent a Calvin 34 about 11 miles up the coast to Rockland for an early May launching. That was the Bottom Line, and it was built for a Boston tuna fisherman.

S.W. Boatworks in Lamoine, Maine, built the Bottom Line as a bare hull and top before sending her to Mainely Boats, which finished her off with composite construction, including fiberglass Ibeams under the deck.

“It’s pretty much all we do,” says Mainely Boats owner, Mike Hooper, referring to the composite construction.

The Bottom Line has a full wheelhouse that was raised 6 inches and extended aft 4 feet. That allowed the 500hp Cummins QSC 8.3 main engine and a Cummins 5-kW Onan generator to fit under the wheelhouse, while providing ample room up above for the guy at the wheel, as well as cupboards, a table, bench and captain’s chair. Hooper figures the 500-hp Cummins should easily get the Bottom Line up to 25 knots.

Tuna will be kept on deck in iced bags; the ice will be kept cool in two small, insulated holds beneath the deck. Tuna are stored on deck because once the fuel tanks and exhaust system were in place, not much room remained below deck for a fish hold.

Up forward is a full bathroom with sink and shower, and V-berths. There’s also a utility room, hydraulic and electrical room.

Mainely Boats started finishing off another Calvin 34 from S.W. Boatworks the last week in March for a Massachusetts tuna fisherman. “Basically the two boats are identical,” Hooper says. That includes the 500-hp Cummins main engine and the 5-kW Cummins Onan generator.

A pair of bare hulls will be finished as offshore lobster boats. One is a 44 Calvin from S.W. Boatworks that will go to Maine’s Vinalhaven Island with an 800 MAN. The other is a 46 Osmond from H&H Marine in Steuben, Maine. When completed it will leave for Port Clyde, Maine, with an 800-hp Scania.

Down the coast on Maine’s Westport Island, Dana’s Boatshop has had a couple of boats in for what Dana Faulkingham refers to as “overhauls.” The Syringa, a 36 Calvin out of Cape Porpoise, Maine, was one of those. It arrived in early April with “a pretty healthy list of items he wants done,” says Faulkingham. A major item — and one that more lobstermen are turning to — involves covering the deck with a rubber mat. The Syringa is the fourth boat to have its fiberglass deck covered by Dana Faulkingham and his son Jason.

The process starts by grinding down the entire deck, removing the hatches and then adjusting them to make up for the half-inch-thick rubber mat.

The rubber mat comes in rolls from Rubber Flooring.com, and Faulkingham has the boat owner order “his own rubber because I don’t want to be picking the colors.” The mats have generally been dark with colored pigments. “It’s very attractive and looks good when it’s down,” he says. The mat is glued to the deck with a quarter-inch gap between the mat and the hatches, wheelhouse and bulwarks to allow for expansion in the sun. Then the gap is filled in with a bead of sealant.

Everybody that’s had the deck covered with the rubber mat “likes it,” says Faulkingham. He describes the rubber mat as very tough and not slippery. “It’s kind of kind on you because everywhere you go, you are on the rubber deck.” The rubber mat also cuts down on engine and hull noises. Faulkingham doesn’t know its life expectancy but says, “the first one we did is going into its third season and looks just as good as when we put it down.”

Prior to working on the Syringa, the At Last, a 26 General Marine out of Southport, Maine, arrived for a new wheelhouse top, to have the port bulkhead repaired and the deck replaced. When the deck was removed, it was discovered there were holes in one of the two aluminum fuel tanks below the tank;

The Bottom Line is a Calvin 34 that Mainely Boats finished off as a tuna boat for a Boston fisherman.

Dana’s Boatshop

The Syringa, a 36 Calvin lobster boat, pulled into Dana’s Boatshop to have its deck covered with a new rubber mat.

By Larry Chowning

Southwind was one of the last round-stern deadrise boats built by George P. Butler at Reedville Marine Railway in Virginia. When Butler died in 1976, his son took over.

Since 1906, Reedville Marine Railway in Reedville, Va., has been owned by the Butler family. In April, the 106-year stint of ownership came to an end as George M. Butler, 69, sold the railway.

Butler’s grandfather, Samuel Butler, and Joseph Davis purchased the railway in 1906 from Isaac Bailey who had opened Bailey’s Railway on Cockrell Creek in the early 1890s.

Samuel Butler bought Davis out sometime in the mid-1920s, and then Samuel and his son George P. Butler ran the yard. George P.’s fi rst job at the yard as a boy was to fi re up the boiler to the steam engine that powered the planer and band saw. The saw and planer worked off a jack shaft from the ceiling inside the shop.

Samuel died in 1933 and George P. took over the operation. He built boats and operated the railway until his death in 1976, when George M. took over the yard. Over the years, George M.’s reputation for working with wood on all types of bay boats has become legendary.

In the next breath, Butler says he was having poles set in his yard at his home to install a boat lift for hauling small boats to do bottom work. He also had the 40-foot Iris Marie, a 39' 6" x 12' 4 1/2" x 4' 6" deadrise wooden boat he built 2003 at his home dock on Cockrell Creek in for some top work repair.

Butler has a small boat shop at his home in Reedville where he can work on small boats. He has a 1950 ChrisCraft runabout stored away that he has been talking about fi xing for 25 years, and that’s in his plans, he says.

The railway was purchased by Matt

Larry Chowning

The Miss Katie is at Hudgins Horn Harbor Marina getting some major repair work done to work in Virginia’s blue crab pot season. Smith of Reedville, a lover of classic boats whose website, WoodyBoaters, promotes the “restoration and preservation” of classic wooden boats.

Smith says he plans to continue to allow “classic” commercial fi shing boats to use the railway. “I’m keeping it (the railway) as the treasure it is,” he says. “I’m going to clean it up and preserve it, and there are no plans for condos.”

Smith’s wife, Suzy, has a Northern Neck, Va., boatbuilding connection. Her grandfather, Claude Bray, was one of three brothers, with Raymond and Wilson Bray, who were all well-known boat carpenters in the Reedville area. The couple own a 40-foot yacht tug-style vessel built in 1968 at Rice’s Marine Railway in Fairport, known today as Jennings Marine Railway.

Coincidentally, Junior Fisher of A.C. Fisher Jr. Marine Railway of Wicomico Church, Va., called the same week we reached out to George M. Butler concerning the sale of his railway. Fisher called to say he had the deadrise workboat Southwind waiting in line to go up on the rails for painting and routine maintenance. Southwind was the last round stern deadrise workboat built by George P. Butler in the late 1960s. Southwind is owned by Larry Lewis of Ophelia, Va., and he works it in Virginia’s blue crab pot and gillnet fi sheries.

Reedville Marine Railway has been sold out of the Butler family, but three generations of Butler-built boats are still plying the waves. Southwind and others are quality statements that for 106 years the Butlers have built some mighty fi ne wooden boats.

Moving over to Port Haywood, Va., Eric Hedberg of Rionholdt Once and Future Boats called to let us know he was working “on call” for Hudgins Horn Harbor Marina doing some woodworking jobs. Hedberg recently closed

By Michael Crowley

Rozema Boat Works had nearly fi nished a 20' x 11' seine skiff in mid-April that’s going to Prince William Sound. As opposed to the three 19' x 10' seine skiff s the Mount Vernon, Wash., boatyard had previously built with the steering console in the bow, making it easier to go from side to side and hand lines off to the seiner, the new 20-footer is more traditional with the steering console mounted about amidships on the starboard side.

What’s diff erent on this Rozema skiff is the HI500 Thrustmaster waterjet, the fi rst waterjet that’s gone into a Rozema Boat Works seine skiff . It’s matched up with a 500-hp Cummins QSC8.3. The addition of the jet resulted in the skiff ’s design being “updated all the way around,” says Rozema Boat Works’ Dirk Rozema. “The nozzle skiff wasn’t ready for a jet, so we reshaped the hull to make it jet ready.” That includes building the skiff with slightly more length and beam, giving it a constant deadrise hull, removing the tunnel for the nozzle and widening the chine. The wider chine “gives a little more buoyancy and more width, a little more side beam stability.”

An overhead view of the skiff showing the engine cover and tow post would put it very much in the nozzle skiff category, but underneath the back cover, “instead of steering is the jet,” Rozema noted. He fi gures the Thrustmaster and Cummins power package should generate a bollard pull in the 5,000-pound category and a top speed in excess of 20 knots.

Prior to signing the deal for the skiff , orders for new boats had been “on the slow side,” says Rozema. He attributes that to the pandemic. The building slowdown included a couple of deals for Bristol Bay gillnetters that were put on hold when the potential owners became

Rozema Boat Works

An HI500 Thrustmaster waterjet and a 500hp Cummins will power this 20-foot seine skiff being built at Rozema Boat Works. nervous “about parts and pieces and what if something happened in the shop and we had to shut down.” But now buyer activity is picking up, and Rozema is getting calls and requests for quotes for new boats, including gillnetters. Though as of mid-April, no contracts had been signed.

At Giddings Boatworks in Charleston, Ore., the 50' x 14' crabber Sea Spirit left the week of April 19 after fabrication work was completed that’s designed to improve her safety in heavy seas.

The Sea Spirit, being a bit bow heavy, had its forward bulwarks raised 25 inches to break up boarding seas. The added height tapers back to 6 inches amidships. Then because the boat’s owner

At Giddings Boatworks, the Sea Spirit is going back in the water with newly raised bulwarks and a wheelhouse window plated over.

Giddings Boatworks was “afraid of water breaking over the bow and busting out the windows” in the lower house, Giddings Boatworks general manager Wayne Garcia said the windows were removed and the window holes steel plated over and painted. In addition, the shaft was pulled, tuned up then reinstalled, and the cutlass bearing was replaced.

The Pacifi c Hooker, a 76' x 23' troller, crabber and shrimper went back in the water with a new freestanding mast Giddings Boatworks fabricated. The previous mast was “an old style gulf mast — pretty old,” says Garcia. The replacement allowed the exhaust to be moved out of the engine room and into the new mast, which freed up engine room space. Winches were also reconfi gured and installed on the new freestanding mast. Below the waterline, the prop was sent away for retuning after hitting a shrimp door, which tore up the wheel’s tips.

The hull was sandblasted and painted, and the Pacifi c Hooker went back in the water in April.

The 71' x 22' Coho, another crabber and shrimper, came in with a “long list of items” that needed to be completed, says Garcia, much of that involved below-deck work, including gutting all the foam and fi berglass out of the fi sh hold. A bulkhead then went into the fi sh hold. Thus there are now three sections instead of two. One of those will be a bait locker. Sumps in the forward hold were reconstructed. Giddings also fabricated and

Continued from page 46

so they were replaced with one 50-gallon fi berglass tank.

The Streamline, a 36 Northern Bay lobster boat out of Pemaquid, was also in to have its deck covered with rubber. Though before that took place, the old fi berglass deck was torn off and replaced with a new fi berglass deck. The wheelhouse and trunk top were also sanded and repainted.

Work on the Syringa needs to be completed by mid-June, for that’s when the Faulkinghams close the shop doors, load up their boats — Dana’s Kam-Too a 37 Osmond and Jason’s No Sympathy a 41 Libby — with lobster traps and head out to the grounds.

Continued from page 47

his boatshop at Gwynn’s Island. There he had specialized in building deadrise skiff s out of PVC panels.

On a visit to the marina in April, owner Wayne Hudgins said that Hedberg helped him complete two boats but was not on call that day. Inside the marina’s boatshop, was the wooden 40-foot deadrise Miss Katie built by the late Earl Weston of Deltaville, Va., in 1969.

Owner Scott Griffi n of Lancaster County was doing most of the work with a three-member crew. “I am rebuilding half my boat,” Griffi n jokes. “We’ve got to get her ready. I’m missing my crabbing season.” Griffi n says he replaced the shaft log, a portion of the bilge clamp and several bottom planks.

Wayne Hudgins is a crabber and oysterman and has done well enough in the seafood business to buy his own boatyard. He is dedicated to making sure commercial watermen have a friendly place to maintain their boats.

Continued from page 48

installed new bin board stanchions. On deck, the Coho received new fi sh hold hatches with stainless steel coamings.

Giddings Boatworks has also suff ered from the pandemic. Before the Sea Spirit, Pacifi c Hooker and Coho arrived, “for six months there was zero work,” says Garcia.

Materials are harder to get. Isocyanate spray foam for a fi sh hold, which is normally three days out of Seattle, could be six weeks or better, if at all, Garcia says. It’s 9 to 13 weeks for doors and windows. “All the normal stuff , the price just skyrocketed beyond belief once January struck.” Any type of stainless fi tting — nuts, bolts, hatch rings — “has jumped 35-plus percent.”

Lately, one thing has been improving: “The phone won’t stop ringing,” Garcia says. Though no contracts had been signed as of mid-April, Garcia is optimistic: “Maybe we’ve got work coming.”

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