Boat on its side: Is this a common sight?

[steveinak]

Steve- Great picture of some Bristol Bay boats. I knew Bay boats go dry more than they float, but their keels are only about 18"-24" deep, and they are usually tied one to another. Most lobster boat keels are 34"- 44" deep, and laying over by themselves would make me a little nervous. But from all accounts, it's a common practice, just not one I would feel comfortable doing.

We Inlet guys are a little more "refined" than the Bay guys. We do everything we can to keep our boats floating. Back in the early '90s see say a guy get stuck on a sand bar in the mouth of the Kenai river, his boat tipped over at a good angle, some fuel spilled, and he had a little fire in his cabin. The fire extinguisher came in handy that day.

Yup those bay boats are kinda flat, i saw one boat there that had "stilts" made of square tubing with feet on the bottom so he could go dry by himself and not tip over, the stilts attached to mounts on the gunnels and were adjustable by a bolt/pin going through the tubing.
The trick we used when we got stuck going in to shallow for the fish was that as soon as we knew we were indeed stuck we ran the boat in reverse so we dug a hole under the boat in the sand/mud and that acted as a cradle so we wouldn't tip over. See in the picture where the rest of the fleet is fishing they were all around us before we got a bit too shallow


We got a big set of 18,000lbs in the river for a good start then went outside for the rest of the period and put in 57,000lbs in 36 hours!!

that little Marco boat packed fish well

 

[Powderpro]

57,000 pounds of sockeye in 36 hours is insane. What did you deliver for the entire season? Must have been a huge year. Was that Marco your boat? When was it built and what did it have for power?

 

[RKrough]

When I was visiting on the other side of the pond (England) I was traveling along their west coast through fishing villages and noticed a lot of boats both commercial and pleasure have "Bilge keels" to keep the boat from laying over on low tide . One town I was in (Plymouth) the tide range was 13'

 

[steveinak]

57,000 pounds of sockeye in 36 hours is insane. What did you deliver for the entire season? Must have been a huge year. Was that Marco your boat? When was it built and what did it have for power?

Add another 150k to that and we'll call it close . We did well but not as good as some of the guys that put in over 300,00lbs and were on the planes leaving on the 10th of July. Not my rig i fished with the guy for a couple of seasons before going to PWS. In fact he lives in B'ham. I think the boat was built in the early 80's and it had the standaed 3208 cat that most of the early Marco's had, screamed along at 8-9 knots but they were some of the nicely finished well thought out boats i ever saw and the welding on them was artwork.
I'll pm ya the stuff we talked about last week when i visited, just have to dig it up.

 

[F/V First Team]

I don't know why, but this picture reminds me of a toad

 

[RKrough]

I don't know why, but this picture reminds me of a toad

With all that extra drag below the water line the boat probably handles like a toad

 

[BillD]

28 BHM "standing" on it's own

 

[MDI45]

I don't know why, but this picture reminds me of a toad

Travis that is funny..but you gotta open the barn doors of the shop and get some fresh air to much resin fumes...lmfao

 

[F/V First Team]

do not lick the resin toad

 

[richardh]

28 BHM "standing" on it's own

its against the dock