The finished boat. The 'contraption' on the front is the Minnkota electric motor. The hatch to the right of the rear seat contains a 10 gallon aerated livebait well
|
Autumn 2001
It was time for a new boat. My last dinghy had been sold after I had spent the greater part of 2000/2001 flyrodding for Grafham and Rutland pike during which time the boat was put to little use. There was also the matter of an ongoing parking spat with neighbours, since in a small, busy South London street, a boat, trailer and elderly Volvo Estate can take up a lot of space. But having grown disillusioned with trout reservoirs, my regular fishing partners had changed as well as my regular fishing venues and these new 'hotspots' were virtually unfishable from the bank. A boat had therefore once again become one of life's little necessities.
It was about the same time that I discovered internet shopping and in the bottom of the large box carrying my first fishing tackle order from BassProShops, was a full set of catalogues including one dedicated to boats and boat fishing. Unlike anything I had seen in the UK, the BPS catalogue was full of bass boats with matching trailers, swivel seats, rod racks, the latest electronics, integrated battery charging systems, lots of bright shiny toys and the words 'kid' and 'sweetshop' came immediately to mind.
These were boats, uniquely American in style, with flat casting decks, seats comfortable enough to sit on all day, electric trolling motors, livebait wells and space to hide the mountain of rods, reels and paraphernalia that we are conditioned to take with us on even the simplest fishing trip. Also between 1971 and 1981 I had fished some of the Virginia and Maryland lakes and the Potomac River from similar boats and I remember at the time thinking how completely practical they were in comparison with the small, simple and uncomfortable dinghies that we generally expect to find on UK waters. I was hooked and I wanted one, and for the first time I had a proper answer to the question 'what would you do if you won the lottery?'
In the USA an entry level, fully equipped bass boat, small engine and trailer costs around $12,000 and whilst good value by UK standards, there was also the matter of transport costs across the pond plus about 23% of the purchase price and carriage charges to be paid as VAT and Duty, altogether getting on for $20,000. Not exactly small change and I still hadn't got my head around the problems of purchasing a boat possibly from somewhere in middle America, getting it ready for the road and arranging delivery to the nearest port that had sea links with the UK. So I figured another $2000 for travel and accommodation in the USA whilst the transaction was taking place. Final estimate for a bottom of the range bass boat, decent four stroke engine, trolling motor, electronics and trailer was probably £14-15,000.
However, to cut a very long and frustrating story short, US small boat dealers have little or no experience of shipping boats across the Atlantic Ocean and the logistical problems of getting the boat from 'A' in the USA to 'B' in the UK finally beat me. Reluctantly it was time to put the project on the back burner pending that lottery win and settle for a more feasible and cheaper option.
The point of no return. The centre seat is cut out and the space starts to open up
|
Quite early on I had decided my next boat would be built from welded aluminium. Low maintenance, easy to modify, comparatively light, strong and not prone to leaks. A few weeks later and my luck had changed, or so I thought. A used 14' aluminium Seastrike in camo colours appeared on an ebay auction, which I won for £300 and since a new 14' Seastrike hull cost nearly £1,900 I was feeling very pleased with myself. For fishing rivers and small stillwaters these boats are unsurpassed for handling, stability and space. Charlie Bettell uses a 14' Seastrike in his pike guiding business on the River Yare and it's an absolute pleasure to fish from. But the warning bells began to ring when the seller in Bristol called to say he was coming to London and would 'throw' the boat into his van and deliver it as a favour.
Now you don't throw a 14' aluminum Seastrike weighing close to 300lbs into the back of a van without having a very big van and help from Geoff Capes, so I asked a friend in Bristol to drive around and take a sneaky look at the boat and measure it. Sure enough, she reported back that it was in good condition but less than eleven feet long. The boat was too small for what I had in mind and the deal was off, but anticipating the purchase of the Seastrike, I had already bought a short shaft Honda engine and a trailer - but had no boat to put on it.
For the next fortnight the trailer stood empty outside my house whilst the local kids used it as an adventure playground. Then I remembered a thread on one of the pike forums about the demise of the Crestliner Boats UK agency and the subsequent sale of the remaining unsold aluminium boats to a Birmingham dealer. An email to another Crestliner owner in the North East and a few phone calls later I was talking to John Harvey, the owner of a small family-owned boat showroom in the West Midlands, and he confirmed that they had one Crestliner aluminium dinghy still available. I bought it 'sight unseen'. I drove up to Darlaston with the trailer on the following Monday morning and that same afternoon drove back to London 1,500 notes poorer with a new dinghy and a new 4hp long shaft four stroke Mariner engine, luckily I quickly found a buyer for the short shaft Honda which, of course, after applying Sod's Law, did not fit the new boat. A day later the boat was trailered out of South London, up to its permanent mooring on the Thames, launched, christened 'The Hooker' and was ready to go fishing.
The Crestliner utility dinghy at 14 feet 6 inches long and maximum beam of 6 feet 2 is a typical American general purpose boat conforming to safety standards set by the US Coastguard that requires positive buoyancy to be built in at the factory and making it unsinkable whilst carrying, in this case, a load of 550lbs. But that requires a lot of buoyancy material, all of which was built into the seating, therefore nearly half of the internal space was given over to hefty tank seats to accommodate about 6 people, and moving from the stern to the bows over the seats required the agility and technique of an Olympic steeplechaser. With one or two passengers aboard, moving around became positively dangerous. Something had to be done to provide more space at the expense of some of the seating, and besides, I was still thinking about the boats in the BassProShops catalogue. So why not strip out the boat interior and rebuild it as a custom lure fishing boat? A few calculations and rough costings later and the decision was made. A 'proper' lure fishing boat was to be the 2002 close season project.
May 2002
The boat was out of the water and sitting on its trailer in the road outside my home, a truce having been declared with my neighbours. I had spent the previous month searching the net for ideas from other project boat builders and the bass boat sites and I now had a firm idea of what features I wanted to include in the design and what could be shoehorned into the space available. I had drawn up some rough designs and a specification and made up a shopping list and during the following weeks, courtesy of B&Q, Maplins Electronics, Cabelas and BassProShops, the house and garden began to look like a chandlery store.
Looking forward past the electronics to the control panel. The underfloor buoyancy can be seen between the floor stringers
|
I had already decided that whatever else I did, one of the bench seats had to go, the one stuck in the middle of the boat that nobody ever sat on and was always in the way. In doing so I knew that I was also removing some of the hull cross bracing, but the inclusion of front and rear casting decks, floor braces and rod boxes along both sides would more than make up for the loss of some of the original hull bracing. Fortunately the bench seat was welded only across the bottom seam, a little careful work with an angle grinder and a short while later the seat and frame were out of the boat along with a pile of buoyancy foam. It's a bit daunting to cut a large irreplaceable chunk out of an expensive boat and it was the point of no return, but now the whole centre section of the boat was opened up I could see the possibilities.
The two most impressive things about a real bass boat are firstly the uncluttered space created by the level floors and casting decks and secondly the amount of stowage that can be created underneath, a bit like a double-decker boat and that was what I wanted, since I'm clumsy by nature and if there is something lying loose in a boat I'll find it, usually with my feet. This time there would be a place for everything and everything in it's place.
Just enough buoyancy foam was removed from within the remaining tank seats to accommodate the electronics and an aerated 10 gallon livebait well. By leaving the front and rear seats in place I had a ready-made platform on which to fit the two casting decks and it also meant that I would not be interfering too much with the integrity of the design and the built-in hull bracing. The buoyancy foam removed from inside the seats was reshaped and using spray foam to fill the voids, fitted under the floor between the stringers where it provides not just buoyancy but also soundproofing. The flush hatches were fitted with stainless steel piano hinges and sit-on aluminium angle frame screwed and glued to the sides of the hatch openings.
All hatches and lockers have flush fitting locking latches and are strong enough to stand on and, like the rest of the interior, are covered with lightweight external grade carpet. There are lockers long enough to accommodate 6 one-piece 8 foot rods and a pair of two-piece oars, folded landing net, pike tube, safety equipment and tools, vented fuel tank, and the deep storage locker in the bows holds the boat cover, ropes, mud weights, an outsize anchor and other bits and pieces. First Aid kit and fire extinguisher are fitted inside the forward hatch lid and are easily accessed in an emergency.
The switches at bottom left control the different circuits. The two echo sounders are set to 'look' down and one to 'look' sideways in the water
|
The boat is equipped with two very comfortable revolving high back seats on adjustable pedestals with a choice of three different fixing points on the boat. When the two seats are in the two forward positions there is seating space for a third person on the rear deck. There is also:
-
A livebait well fitted with a circulation pump, aerator and timer switch to save battery drain
-
Permanent vented storage for two batteries with space for a third if needed
-
Two built-in battery chargers that can be connected to shore power via a waterproof consumer unit fitted with an RCD (which will trip the electrics in case of water ingress or overload)
-
A 12 volt fridge
-
A bow mounted trolling motor with electronic foot controls or optional wireless remote control
-
Garmin 240 and 100 fishfinders fore and aft with temperature and speed probes, one transducer looking straight down and one fitted to the trolling motor scanning sideways and made multi-directional by turning the trolling motor shaft
-
Four rod holders and an automatic bilge pump
The boat is on a permanent Thames mooring alongside access to 240 volts shore power, so at the end of a fishing session I plug the shore power lead into a waterproof plug in the boat deck and go home. The three stage automatic battery chargers permanently fitted in waterproof boxes on the boat top up the power overnight, the MCBs and the RCD in the consumer unit take care of safety and I have no batteries to carry backwards and forwards from home to boat to recharge, the one job on the boat I always hated doing.
The finished boat
|
The Hooker is now back in the water and behaves like a different boat. The extra weight of the decking and equipment has given the boat a more solid and stable feel and the shift of balance achieved by moving the fishing position, batteries and stowage forward has removed the tendency for the boat to run 'nose up'. The clutter around the seats and on the deck has gone, and having a comfortable perch from which to fish means no more backache and stiff legs at the end of a fishing session. The ability to lock the storage space means that basic equipment can be left onboard between trips. Also the carpet and under-floor foam makes this an extremely quiet boat to move around in, good for sneaking up on things.
Power is now provided by an 8hp four stroke Honda. The initial choice of a four hp engine was fine for a small open boat used only on the Thames and the Norfolk Broads, but in practice, with the extra structural weight that the boat now carries and on the odd occasion that there are three anglers in the boat, I need the extra power to get up the tail of weirpools, or to get me home comfortably in a blow. The cost of the whole project after trading in the original 4hp engine was £3,400, a little over budget, but well worth the effort considering the cost of a similar factory built boat.
There may soon be a more detailed version of this article on the LAS website at www.lureanglers.co.uk specifically for those who may be contemplating a similar project and require more information about the materials used and the way that the boat was constructed and which I would hope to be able to update from time to time. In the meantime, if you are interested in any aspect of the construction please ask, I'll do what I can to help.
Since I started work on the project the availability of ready-built lure boats has improved. A number of Dutch fishing and boating retailers are importing these boats, particularly the Lund and Alumacraft range, and US boat builders are now more prepared to take seriously enquiries from abroad. However they are still expensive, but I have noticed that in the last year UK companies like CP Boats and Seastrike have expanded their ranges to include basic versions of US style lure boats and that can only be a good thing since I suspect in a few years these types of boats will be commonplace in Europe.
Bob Watson
