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From: Brian (no email)
Date: Sat Jun 04 2005 - 16:04:08 EDT
Just saw the following story in the Wall Street Journal (see below) and
started thinking about investigating Trawler/Fishing boat conversions
(50ft to 80ft) to an expedition yacht - and was wondering if anyone on
this list has done this. Where does one find these used/decommissioned
fishing boats on the West Coast, and how extensive do the conversions
need to be? Are there other mailing lists that may be more appropriate
for this topic (dedicated to conversions perhaps?) Does anyone have any
good resources (web sites, etc.) on conversions?
Thanks,
Brian
============================================
The Lug Boat
New Wave in Yachts: They're
Ugly -- and Once Hauled Tuna;
The SUVs of the High Seas
By JONATHAN WEINBACH
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
June 3, 2005; Page W1
On a recent trip to the South Pacific, Scott Cate traveled in style
aboard his 184-foot baby, the Pangaea, furnished with six state rooms, a
basketball court, 16 sets of scuba gear, an on-deck fishing boat, and,
for rainy days, an indoor theater. But the state-of-the art vessel isn't
your typical sleek mega-yacht. It's a hulking steel behemoth designed to
look like an oil tanker -- complete with a hull that's painted black.
"Who cares about pretty lines?" says the former long-distance
phone-company president from Salt Lake City. "It makes more sense to
have a boat that's as big and fat and nasty as possible."
Toss the blazer and cancel the regatta. In the clubby yachting world, an
avid group of sailors is moving on to the industrial look. Dubbed
expedition yachts because they can travel to rough, distant waters,
they're the SUVs of the high seas. Some are custom-built and feature
cranes, massive loading decks and hydraulic systems -- even though their
typical cargo is jet-setters in swimsuits. Others are actually old
commercial fishing boats, sans crab pots and gear lockers, refitted for
luxury cruising.
In Anacortes, Wash., expedition yacht-builder Northern Marine says
business has doubled since 2000 and that it currently makes between four
and five boats a year. Sacks Group, a yacht-charter company in Fort
Lauderdale, Fla., has expanded its business to convert decommissioned
fishing boats. One leading builder of mega-yachts estimates that the
expedition business is generating 5% to 10% of the $33 billion
recreational-boating business -- up from almost nothing a few years ago.
Dining Room inside the Pangaea
"They may be ugly ducklings, but they're ugly ducklings that can go
anywhere," says Lenny Noble, a yacht builder and broker in Fort
Lauderdale, Fla. His company represents the owner of Latitude, a
170-foot converted oil-supply ship that now features a large outdoor
Jacuzzi, helipad and five guest bedrooms. Already a veteran of trips to
the Amazon and the Galapagos Islands, the Latitude is "way too big for
most marinas," says Mr. Noble. The $15.5 million boat is also likely too
expensive for most weekend sailors: It charters for $165,000 a week, not
including fuel and crew.
Industry experts say the demand for the mega-boats is growing in part
because of their macho "Perfect Storm" appeal -- a big selling point for
thrill-seekers. With their massive fuel tanks, expedition yachts can
also go further between fill-ups than speedier mega-yachts. (The
Pangaea, for example, has a 65,000-gallon tank and can travel 12,000
nautical miles at a cruising speed of 11 knots, at least double the
range of a comparable mega-yacht.) And the prices of the old fishing
boats are hard to beat -- $150,000 to $1 million -- compared with new
yachts over 100 feet that can cost upwards of $5 million.
Six Satellite TVs
Larry Castellani, chairman of Advance Auto Parts in Roanoke, Va., just
bought an expedition boat because the speedy yacht he's been using was a
little shaky during bad weather. At 78 feet, the expeditioner is three
times as heavy and much slower than Mr. Castellani's previous boat, but
it will have nearly twice as much interior room -- so there's plenty of
space to put six satellite TVs and three computers. "We're not likely to
go fast anymore," says Mr. Castellani, 59, who lives in Sarasota, Fla.
Tub on a tub: The Latitude, a converted oil-supply ship, includes five
guest rooms and a Jacuzzi.
There were flickers of interest in expedition-style boats in the '80s
and early '90s, when a few rich enthusiasts -- including Tyson Chicken
founder Don Tyson and former U.S. Treasury Secretary William Simon --
converted commercial fishing boats into plush, ocean-ready pleasure
craft. Mr. Simon, who died in 2000, spent nearly $1.5 million renovating
a former tugboat, and once traveled the Arctic's Northwest Passage, one
of the globe's roughest stretches of water.
But more boaters are turning to the rugged models now, in part because
there's a growing number of commercial craft available to be converted.
(A government program to buy up commercial fishing licenses to curb
fishing of certain species is prompting more fishermen to sell their
boats.) In the state of Washington, nearly 35% of all federally managed
Pacific Coast ground-fish trawlers have been taken out of service since
2002, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service. In turn, boat
makers that used to build commercial fishing boats are picking up the
slack by manufacturing expedition pleasure craft.
Rusting and Buckling
Of course, yachtsmen who take on expedition boating can hit some rough
waters. Inevitably, older boats can rust, buckle and otherwise require
thousands of dollars to fix, if you can find parts that may no longer
exist. Maintenance, too, can be exorbitant: An expedition boat larger
than 100 feet typically costs $1.5 million to $2 million a year to
operate, including fuel and crew. An even bigger issue is resale value,
which is generally lower for renovated ships compared with newer
vessels.
Dave Champion, for example, spent two years and $1.4 million refitting a
52-foot salmon and halibut fishing boat with new plumbing, wood-paneled
staterooms and stabilizers. Now, because a divorce and work obligations
leave little time for cruising, he's putting the boat on the market for
$695,000. In spite of the financial hit, Mr. Champion, the owner of an
aircraft engineering firm in Seattle, says he is "very proud of the
boat."
And then there's the boats' unstylish reputation. "You can't expect
folks to come flocking when you pull that kind of boat into the dock,"
says Emmett O'Donoghue, a broker with Merle Wood & Associates, a
high-end yacht brokerage firm in Fort Lauderdale. Adds Mr. Castellani,
the auto-parts executive in Florida who is buying an expedition vessel:
"My wife was concerned. She didn't want it to look like a tuna boat."
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