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From: Faure, Marin (no email)
Date: Tue Aug 03 2004 - 13:48:04 EDT
>On the right coast we have many thousands of miles of shallow bays,
rivers and inlets on the ICW and on the US and Canadian canal systems.
New York State alone has well over 2000 miles of navigable shoreline,
canals, and rivers. It would take the rest of my life just to explore
them. Sure I know that the far Northwest is an exception - but who wants
to spend all that time peering though fog and rain while you stoke the
heating furnace to keep warm.
There is (or was until recently) a 30-something foot Lissen in our
marina in a charter fleet. Nobody ever seems to charter it, however,
and most of the time it just sits. Beautiful boat in terms of the
exterior and interior (what I could see of it through the windows).
Staggeringly expensive, which I'm told is why the owner put it into a
charter operation.
If the boat is, in fact, flat-bottomed, I can perhaps understand the
reluctance of people to use the boat. While you can't see it though all
the fog and rain, the water out here can be very choppy, with short,
very steep waves. While a hard-chined boat will reduce the rolling
tendency to a degree, a flat-bottom boat can really get to pounding in
the waves that are often encountered in larger bodies of water, like the
Strait of Georgia, Queen Charlotte Strait, etc.
A flat-bottom, shallow-draft boat offers minimal advantages in the PNW
in my opinion. When we get minus-3 tides, which happens a fair amount,
particularly during this time of year, a shallow draft can be a big
advantage at some of the marine parks and in some of the bays I'm
familiar with. But more typical scenarios are depths dropping below 100
and even 200 feet only a few hundred yards from shore or less. Running
aground out here is not something one wants to do with a boat of any
construction, as more often than not, what you will ground on will be a
rock or rocky reef. Sandbars and mudbanks seem to be the exception, not
the rule. So the advantage, if there is one, of "parking" a flat-bottom
boat like a Lissen on the bottom during a low tide is not something one
would have much opportunity to do out here without incurring some of
that expensive body-work Larry mentioned. (In New Zealand, body-work is
called "panel beating," a term I came to enjoy while down there.)
Looking at the blunt bow of the Lissen in our marina, the comment often
heard was, "I bet that would be a real wet ride going across the bay."
(Bellingham Bay is notorious for its short, steep waves even on a
moderate wind day, apparently because of its relatively shallow average
depth (90 feet), and the funnel effect on the wind at the entrance.)
I'm aware of only two Lissen boats in the Puget Sound area-- although I
have to believe there are at least a few more of them given the huge
volume of boats here-- the one in our marina and one in the Seattle
area. Given the large numbers of wealthy people in boating around here
(I'm not one of them) it's hard to believe the price, as high as it is,
would be a factor for a large number of boaters in the PNW. Perhaps
it's the lack of an organized or aggressive dealership, or the real or
perceived unsuitability of the boats for cruising in this area. And
they look different from the more traditional
trawler/pilothouse/motoryacht configurations that are the most popular
cruising boats in this area. That alone could cause Lissens to be looked
on as "strange" and not accepted as a "normal" boat even by the folks
who could afford one.
______________________________
C. Marin Faure
GB36-403 "La Perouse"
Bellingham, Washington
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