What is a trawler?

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pdecat

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Today many people seem to want to buy "trawlers" .

Though many are former sailors not all are. But nobody seems to be able to define what a trawler is. Looking like sailboat inside does seem to help.

It seems if the maker said a twin engine semi planning boat is a trawler then it is and folks will want to buy that rather than a semi planning boat called an aft cabin motor yacht of similar size and displacement.

So I ask the BE brain trust. What is a trawler??
 
Commercial Fishing boat. Single screw with a keel, and soft chine. Sometimes the hull form is used in recreational boats for extended cruising. Yes, the term trawler is over used. IMO
 
There is no sch thing as a recreational trawler, it should be called Trawler Styled

i think the name came from the fact that originally recreational trawlers were low powered displacement speed (not necessarily displacement hull) cruisers. Obviously over time you started seeing larger motors and planning hulls leading some builders to come up with the Fast Trawler, a name which makes no sense whatsoever...

I wonder when the name First appears , I guess mid/ late 70s... I don't think early wooden Grand Banks were called trawlers back then, were they?

Hatteras for instance built a very successful and sought after series of boats in the 70s and 80s with smaller engines, larger tanks, higher freeboard and more efficient hulls but they called them Long Range Cruisers, not trawlers.

It s all marketing...l
 
Many years ago recreational trawlers also looked like fishing trawlers. Many still bear a close resemblance.

George
 
Like what? I don't thnk and grand bank, monk, Defever, ocean Alexander look like fishing trawlers. I guess a handful of of Nordhvn, Selene or Krogen may but i find it hard to say the vast majority of trawler labeled production do.
 
A trawler is a commercial fishing boat used in the operation and dragging of fishing TRAWLS. (Hence the name "TRAWLer"). They are also called "draggers". The recreational boating industry mis-uses the term "trawler". If the boat isn't made to operate and handle TRAWLS, then it's not a trawler, despite what the marketing geniuses want to label them.

Here are a couple real trawlers:

Beam_trawler_with_chain_mats.jpg


08_31_2012_trawler-net.jpg
 
Agreed that lots of boats get called a trawler these days. Few bear any resemblance to either of the 2 working examples above. Suffice to say that a trawler is generally a low powered, displacement speed or close to it, longer ranged, & has better human accomodations for its length than its large engined, fast, cruiser counterpart which has to devote much more room to what moves it & what feeds what moves it.

Trawlers come in all shapes & sizes though somewhere around the 50 or 60' mark everything seems to become a motoryacht since vessels that size are rarely doing much over displacement speed, if capable, unless the owner has extremely deep pockets for fuel.

A27MangroveBay96_1.jpg
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My ex, an Albin 27 aft cabin which was marketed as a 'pocket' trawler. It has a larger than king berth in that aft cabin, a real close the door head, a usable galley plus table & berth fwd. It carries over 50 gal fresh water, 70 gal diesel & 100hp diesel that burned about 1gph at 1800rpm, a comphy cruising speed for its round chined full keeled hull which is closer to a NE lobsterboat hull than a displacement trawler hull.
 
My boat was sold as a trawler so that's what I call it. Nobody I have met in real life has ever argued that it's not.

307094203.jpg
 
What makes it a trawler? Low power? Round chines. Full keel? Trawl gear? Cabin layout?
 
quote:
Originally posted by pdecat

What makes it a trawler? Low power? Round chines. Full keel? Trawl gear? Cabin layout?

Click to expand...


When talking about the recreational trawler, yes & no to all of the above except the trawl gear.

My Albin above has the full keel, the round chines, the single diesel, though at 100hp it is a more powerful option. The cabin layout is definetly very European & extremely practical for a small boat.
 
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