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From: C. Marin Faure (no email)
Date: Thu Oct 02 2003 - 02:16:16 EDT
From: "Arild Jensen" <>
Subject: TWL: RE: Wheelhouse: Aft or fwd.
>When you look at the old gill netters, troller and salmon fishing boats, the
helm station is usually aft.
Perhaps this depends on the definition of "old." What I regard as the old
gill netters and salmon trollers used in the Pacific Northwest and on up
into southeast Alaska had their pilothouses forward or at best amidships.
These are the classic, mostly double-ended boats 36 to 40 or so feet long
made in the 1940s. Many of them, at least the trollers, were run solo by
the fisherman. So they had engine and helm controls at the aft station
where the fisherman stood to bait hooks, haul in lines, unhook fish, and so
on. The forward or amidships pilothouse was necessary because the nature
of troll gear requires the gurdies and other handling gear to be located
aft of the trolling poles, which were generally mounted more or less
amidships. And since they were often working by themselves, the fishermen
also had to have ready access to the fish well, so that had to be aft, too.
It is this basic configuration that is the basis for the recreational
trawler of the Grand Banks, CHB, etc. style of boat.
>Locally I have seen a number of river fishing boats rigged with rollers and
gear handling equipment over the bow.
Ahh, the infamous bow-picker. It looks very much like a WWII landing
craft, and is one of the most common inshore fishing boat configurations in
the Pacific Northwest. I suspect this configuration is not based on
comfort, but on ease of operation by one person. These "day boats" (but
they often fish at night) have no requirement of a big fish well. The
objective is to get to the fishing grounds fast and get home fast, and the
distances traveled are not great. Fuel efficiency is not a big
consideration. So the hulls are of a planing type, and power is usually
one or occasionally two big inboard-outboards.
There is an open helm station forward of the the gillnet drum, generally on
the starboard side, and it is from here that the boat is usually run, even
going to and from the fishing area. The small aft pilothouse is used to
get out of the weather while waiting for the net to catch fish (always
raining up here, don't forget), to eat lunch or dinner, and to drive from
when the weather is really crappy and you need radar and whatnot. The big
hydraulic net drum is mounted immediately forward of the pilothouse.
An advantage of a bow-picker, and possibly one of the reasons behind its
design, is that the net is handled at the other end of the boat from the
propeller. Since these boats are often run by one person, or at most two
or three, there aren't a lot of hands on board to deal with manipulating
the net.
In practice, the boat runs to the location of the set and drops the free
end of the net. The boat then backs slowly up, paying out the net from the
hydraulic drum as it goes. When the boat reaches the end of the net, one
of two things happens. The boat stops and holds onto the drum end of the
net and drifts with it, or the boat drops the drum end of the net into the
water. This seems to be the practice when the net is set in a busy traffic
area, as the fisherman is then free to run back and forth and warn boats
away from the net, as the buoys marking the ends are not always easy to see
(or are not even there). Or if it's windy, the boat will probably drop the
net so the wind won't blow the boat in such a way as to curve or drag the
net around out of position.
To be honest, I'm not sure how the retrieval is done. I have always
assumed that after whatever the normal waiting period is, one end of the
net is picked up and fastened to the drum and the net is pulled slowly in.
The fisherman can control the boat, control the net drum, and pick fish out
of the net from the forward helm station. However, there are usually at
least two people aboard, so the person running the gear doesn't also have
to pick out the fish. The keepers are put in ice-filled tubs on the deck
between the bow rollers and fairleads and the net drum. This is certainly
how the net is retrieved at the end of a set.
BUT.... I have heard the term "running the net," or "underrunning the net"
which I have always assumed to mean lifing the net out of the water,
removing any fish, and then putting the net right back in the water to
continue fishing. So the boat slowly moves back and forth along the net.
If they do this with bow-pickers, I don't know how they work the gear to do
it. (Now I'm curious, so I'll try to remember to ask one of the fishermen
who hang out at the Web Locker Cafe in the Bellingham Marina.)
Around here, bow-pickers are invariably made of welded aluminum. They are
usually twenty-five to forty feet long, and quite fast. I suspect that
compared to a more conventional type of fishing boat, they are pretty
inexpensive to build. They are plenty seaworthy enough for inshore waters.
I don't know if anyone uses them in the open waters of the Pacific. They
are usually equipped with a hydraulic arm and winch as well as the net
drum. The drum is modular, so when the salmon seasons are over, the drum
is lifted off complete with the net and presto! you have an inshore
crabber that can handle heavy commercial crab traps.
Bow-pickers are very popular with the local Indian fishermen. In
Bellingham there seems to be a good number of Balkan fishermen (I assume
they're Balkan from the language and accents), and they tend to favor
bow-pickers, too.
_______________
C. Marin Faure
GB36-403 "La Perouse"
Bellingham, WA
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