A commercial fisherman’s boat is probably the most important thing he owns; his life and his livelihood depend upon it. So, throughout his career, he changes vessels as he changes how and where and in what fisheries he earns his living; and he upgrades and downgrades size and equipment as necessary. Some fishermen own as many as 15 boats over their fishing careers. Leroy Bridges, of Sunshine Island, off Deer Isle, is building his sixth.
Bridges, 47, is downsizing from the 42-footer he had built to fish offshore to a 38-footer, but what a 38-footer it is! It’s a brand new design, only the second Northern Bay 38 to be built.
Northern Bay 38 designer John Hutchins, of Downeast Boats & Composites, in Penobscot, has been building boats for 30 years. He’s built sailboats, cruisers, and fishing boats, and his Northern Bay 25s, 28s, 36s, the new 38s, and a 30-footer he has on the drawing board. All have the grace and ability to slip through the water with the ease of a sailboat. The secret is in the sailboat-like keel.
“People don’t think of a lobsterboat hull as a modern design,” Hutchins said, “but in fact, lobsterboat design has come a long, long way. Through boat racing, etc., fishermen demand more comfort, room, and speed.” Seventy-five years ago, he said, lobsterboats were very narrow, having borrowed their design, presumably, from rumrunners. Since then, although they’ve gradually grown wider, they still push through the water easily. Hutchins said, “a hull that pushes easily uses less fuel.” The Northern Bay 38’s design, he said, “has been evolved and been tweaked” from the Northern Bay 36. The finished Northern Bay 38 is 38 feet, 2 inches long with a beam of 13 feet, six inches.
Hutchins designs his boats on a computer, then e-mails the designs to his partner in Holland, who plans to open a market for them there. (The boat was drawn at C. W. Paine Yacht Design, in Camden. He said he’s had a long-standing relationship with the people there.) Hutchins’ partner makes a plug from the design, which, as Hutchins says, is “like making a cake in a cake pan. You wax the pan, and the cake comes out.”
Hutchins’ cakes, though, are made of a composite of fiberglass fibers, a resin or glue, and a core of balsa wood, put together in sandwich construction. In the NB 38, the hull core, or sandwich filling, is typically three-quarters to one-inch thick end-grain balsa and the “bread” is about one-quarter inch of fiberglass on either side with the fibers running horizontally and vertically, the whole impregnated with a gluey resin. The resin on the outside of the hull is vinyl ester/modified epoxy. It’s extra strong, durable and doesn’t blister. The inside laminates are saturated with conventional polyester. The result is very light and very strong.
“You wouldn’t think high tech could be made of wood,” Hutchins said. “You can’t make something that light, stiff, and strong out of steel or aluminum, or titanium, or any metal. The enemy of boats and bridges and planes is flexing. Anything flexed enough times will fail.”
One of his finished Northern Bay 25s was in the yard. It has a composite double propeller. Hutchins said Boeing’s latest jets will be made entirely of fiberglass composite. Stealth fighters and bombers are typically of composite construction. “Modern aircraft,” he said, “are using more and more composite construction and less and less metal. It’s even getting so automobiles have carbon fiber drive shafts. You’re going to be seeing more and more composite construction.”
He explained that in order to take a design and replicate it perfectly he and his partner use computers and CNC routers with robotic arms to duplicate the design much more accurately than was possible in the past. Tolerances are accurate to a millimeter. In fact, Hutchins said, one of the reasons the NB 38 is better than other boats he’s built is because it is totally symmetrical. The computer has eliminated human error. The 30-footer will be made using the same techniques.
Ira Guptill, a 36-year-old lobsterman from Jonesport, bought the first hull after going for a ride in a Northern Bay 36 and noticing the boat produced no wake, which meant it was sliding through the water efficiently. “It’s an easy sailing boat,” he said. “It went fast, and like Leroy says, `You never ever see one in a newspaper for sale; maybe a cruiser, but not a lobsterboat.'”
Bridges read an article about the Northern Bay 38, which came out in 2003. He’d seen the 36 and how it went. He spoke to one owner, Mike Yurchick, of Sedgwick, who told him, “You’ve picked the right boat.” Bridges was second in line to order a 38.
The difference in Guptill’s and Bridges’ boats will be in the finishing. Each owner has his requirements and each has been deeply involved in building his new baby. Guptill has put 20,000 miles on his car since January from his four-hour daily Jonesport-Penobscot commute, usually accompanied by his father, Lee; Bridges has spent $60 per week on gas commuting from Deer Isle since March. But it’s been worth it for both. Guptill has saved money building his MYSTERY MACHINE by helping; Bridges has saved time.
Rob Cunningham, of Cunningham’s Custom Marine, also in Penobscot, is finishing Bridges’ boat, MISS MADDISON. Bridges said he chose that boat shop because of Cunningham’s imagination, brilliance, attention to detail, and the quality of his product. Bridges’ 38 is far more expensive than the average lobster boat because after 27 years of fishing, Bridges is finally building his dreamboat.
Not one corner has been cut, in fact, some very expensive corners have been added. Bridges wants speed, efficiency, safety, and comfort out of his boat, and comfort starts with a split wheelhouse. “It’s like having two rooms,” he explained. “It gets you out of the weather.” In addition to the monitors, the sitting room will feature two comfortable seats and a microwave. Bridges’ wife, Donna, is going to leave her crab-processing business and go lobstering with him. She’s going to band the lobsters.
“There are sections of this boat’s hull filled with poured floatation foam,” an unusual safety feature, Bridges said. “If we hit a ledge and breach the hull’s bottom, then water can’t enter the hull because of the foam, and on top of the foam there’s another heavy laminate of fiberglass that accesses another layer of the hull. There isn’t another boat like this.”
Two fuel tanks hold 125 gallons apiece. These feed into a smaller tank in the center, draining equally from both outer tanks to keep the boat on trim. The tanks are fiberglassed into the hull, which Bridges admits was “a major, major, major expense.” The point is, if water gets into the tanks, Bridges can shut the valves to the center tank. He then can remove the center tank and dump out the water, which should eliminate the problem.
Anything that would produce drag on the vessel, such as the transducers, the electronic eyes that shoot signals to the ocean bottom and back, telling the fisherman what the bottom’s like and what’s between him and the bottom, have been recessed into the hull so the transducer faces are flush with the hull.
The stainless steel rudder is a thing of beauty. The leading or forward edge is tapered to a point to maximize efficiency and to cut through the water more easily. Cunningham has built an inspection well in the rudder compartment. If a rope or seaweed is caught in the wheel, it can be seen and removed with a gaff.
The brass propeller is absolutely gorgeous, but beauty doesn’t begin to tell the story. Each blade is sharpened to a dull knife-edge to cut through the water efficiently, and MISS MADDISON, named after Bridges’ four-year-old granddaughter, has been etched into one blade. This is no everyday propeller. It is so high-tech, it comes with a certificate and a report of every section of each blade. The thing is tuned like an expensive Swiss watch. Made by Accutech, in New Hampshire, Bridges said, “This company [rejects] between 15 and 25 propellers coming through the door before they get one they’ll keep. This propeller is the best of the best.”
“So much thought has been given to every aspect of this boat,” Bridges said. “Rob created a false bilge to eliminate the normal amount of water usually found in a boat’s bilge. Any water that has entered the boat is not captured, it’s pumped out within a specified time.”
The forward bilge pump turns on at specified intervals to check for water. A pocket was created forward of the engine for the bilge water to collect. The water is immediately pumped overboard using a 3,700-gallon-per-hour computerized pump.
There are many customizations that Bridges is extremely pleased with. Among them are all the recessed features, such as the built-in fire extinguishers, the recessed glove compartment in the top of the main bulkhead, the Racor filter, and, above all, his one-of-a-kind toolbox holder.
Another customization he’s proud of is a wrap-around trap-rack five tiers long and seven traps high that will overhang the transom. It will hold from 115 to 120 traps.
The bulkhead houses all the electrical wires, hydraulic hoses and cables, he said. They’re all encapsulated in the bulkhead wall. The front of the bulkhead is flush, clean.
And speaking of clean, Bridges is installing a high-pressure sprayer with 3,000 lbs. of pressure per square inch. This is the thinking man’s lobster boat.
Back in Hutchins’ boat shop, Bridges gazed up at Guptill’s lovely, graceful hull and said, “I could put a lawn chair right here and lay right back and look at it. It’s easy on the eye.”