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From: Faure, Marin (no email)
Date: Wed Oct 01 2003 - 13:24:32 EDT
> Ralph wrote:
> >Re: "It means mogatin' along at 8.5 knots and wondering why
Catalina ain't gettin' any closer. The only reason we are trawlering is
to
save money on fuel. If we could afford it we would be into a planing
hull
and scootin' right along.
I'm sure a number of people buy trawlers, or trawler-like boats for
this reason. But we could have purchased a boat much faster than the
one
we ultimately settled on. In fact, we could have bought a faster,
newer boat than the one we have, for less money. And I think we could
have
managed to pay for the fuel. But we decided on a trawler for several
reasons,
one of which certainly was the economy of operation.
But we both like the look of a trawler, we like their "fishing boat"
design heritage.
One advantage of the Pacific Northwest is that you can get to a
variety of interesting, and often spectacular, places within a
relatively
short time. As I mentioned in an earlier post, one of our favorite
destinations is a small island, all of which is a marine park. Yes,
it's popular and crowded in the summer, although that in itself can
be entertaining. But the rest of the year, it's relatively deserted.
There have been times in February and March when we've been the only
boat
there aside from the resident ranger's boat. And it's only about a
two hour run from where we keep our boat. So the low(er) speed of a
trawler is not necessarily a detriment in this part of the world.
There are advantages to going fast, and there are advantages to
going slow. Years ago we were fishing at a popular salmon spot in Puget
Sound in our 17' Arima. As we started our run back to where we'd
launched
the boat, we suddenly realized there were orcas (killer whales) all
around us. Apparently a couple of the local pods had joined up and were
moving up the Sound together. Fishermen and "slow-boat" boaters (I
didn't
know much about larger boats back then, so they were either "fast" or
"slow") were having a great time watching the whales. We idled down,
turned
off the depth sounder, and held a course in the same direction they were
swimming. Some of them came up right beside the boat. Pretty
spectacular thing to be around.
All the time this was going on, dozens of "fast boat" drivers, intent on
getting to their destinations, roared through the area. What
was amazing to me was that the drivers and passengers on these big
go-fast boats never
saw the whales. The skippers stood up on their flying bridges staring
grimly
ahead and the hell with any small boats or slow boats that happened to
be
nearby. I don't know how many orcas were in the area, but thinking
back it must have been at least twenty or more. They were all over the
place, and the go-fast boaters never even saw them, so intent were
they on getting to wherever it was they were going.
Some of the people in the smaller and slower boats were waving and
trying to point
out the whales, but to no avail. In one case, a waver and pointer got
an angry blast of
a horn and the finger in return for his efforts to bring the whales to
the
attention of the go-fast driver. Perhaps the skipper figured the
fisherman was
expressing his outrage about the four-foot wake trailing the go-fast
boat...
Now there's nothing wrong with going fast and not seeing things like
whales and such if you view boating primarily as a means of getting
from Point A to Point B across the water. To a lot of people, that's
what boating is. But my wife and I have always been fascinated with the
whole marine scene, particularly the unique and intriguing world
that is the inside waters of the Pacific Northwest. I did enough
open-ocean
boating in Hawaii, both sailing and fishing, to know that I have no
real interest in pursuing that aspect of boating. But from my first
ferry ride down the Inside Passage, the saltwater-island-mountain-forest
environment of the Pacific Northwest has intrigued the hell out of me.
It has a
beauty and mood like no other place I've been. So a trawler is the
perfect vehicle for us to explore the area. You don't overlook the
whales when you're in a trawler. In fact the whales
are usually going faster than you are, so you can't help but
notice them as they pass you...:-)
I'm not going to say I have no regrets about being limited to eight
knots or so. It would be nice to get to our favorite bay in less time,
or to
zip into a harbor or marine park ahead of all the other boats headed for
it and get that last mooring buoy or space at the dock. But so far,
none of these things outweigh our satisfaction with putzing along
looking
at stuff. Granted, there's a lot of stuff to look at in this corner of
the world (when we can see it through the constant downpour and blinding
fog). Perhaps things are different on the longer inter-island runs
in the Caribbean or Gulf or off the California and Mexican coasts. I
don't know, I've never boated in those places except for a one-week
filming stint off San Diego on the "USS Pelilu," and there sure as heck
wasn't anything to see in the water on that trip given the altitude of
the flight deck we were working on.
And while this may not be a consideration in the areas a lot of
people on this list boat in, I've seen what happens when a go-fast boat
hits a log that's escaped a boom a couple hundred miles up the coast and
has meandered down our way. Not that we'd escape Scott-free if we hit
it at 8 knots, but at 17 or 20 knots, the bang is pretty loud and
expensive.
______________________________
C. Marin Faure
36' Grand Banks "La Perouse"
Bellingham, Washington
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