My first Blog

This blog was created to document my building of a 44' steel trawler designed by Bruce Roberts. Technically the boat is considered by Bruce Roberts to be a 43' model as the length on deck is 43'10". From this day forward I''m rounding up and calling it a 44' trawler for the purpose of paying harbor fees as the overall length has grown to 48' with the addition of a bow pulpit for my ground tackle ( anchors and anchor rollers in my case) and a 2' swim platform on the stern. The beam of my yet to be named trawler is 15' and she draws 5' of water depth. Her hull form is full displacement. She should displace around 30 tons with a D/L of 398. The D/l is boat speak measuring the displacement to length ratio and pretty much tells one that she is a stout boat and is considered a true trawler.

I'm building this boat during my spare time in my barn and have been working on her for a little over five years now. Due to height restrictions in my shop I've had to build her in two sections and join the sections together outside of the barn for fitting of the wheel house and salon cabinetry. Once I've fitted the wheel house and salon cabinetry I'll lift the upper module off the hull and transport the two units to the river for final fit out and launching. I've kicked around the different options of how to build and transport this boat and the two module approach seems to work best for me.

If all goes well and I keep my welds to the correct side of the lines ( remember to measure twice cut once.....) she should look something like the picture above. Check back often as I'll be posting pictures and twisted opinions of how things are going here at Conall's boat build.



Conall