26ft Sportfisherman Design

I wrote last week about the aluminium adventure boat that is being built in Gibsons, British Columbia. Here is another design on which I am currently working, very different in all respects.

This one is for Kevin Agee, who also commissioned and built the prototype of the Inlet Runner 16 garvey powerboat. The previous design was for inshore fishing to catch bait for more serious business on his bigger boat out on the bay. He recently sold that bigger boat and commissioned me to draw the replacement, a 26ft centre-console sportfisherman with Carolina-style hull, with heavily-flared bow and break in the sheer.

Kevin started building the new boat a few weeks ago, while I am still drawing it. My task is to stay ahead of his build progress with my design work.

Profile view of the Sportfisherman 26

This is a fisherman's fishing boat but it does give a nod to the ladies. Michelle (Kevin's wife and my daughter) specified that his next boat must have a toilet. So this boat has a small cabin under the covered foredeck, with toilet and seats for two people to shelter from bad weather if needed.

I haven't designed the centre console yet, so this post is to introduce the project and to show the hull and concept. Over the next 18 months or so I will write about the progress and show details of the boat and construction, from start through to launch.

Flared bow of the Carolina-style sportfisherman

The Carolina-style hull makes for a very pretty boat. There are many variations, from moderate flair through to extreme. All around the world, popular boat shapes have developed in answer to the particular sea conditions that pertain to their own locations, sometimes with different regions developing somewhat different boats from those developed in other places with similar conditions.

Underbody of the new design

These boats developed due to the short and steep breaking wave conditions encountered in and offshore from the Carolinas. This includes the wind against current and swell against current situations that are found in Oregon Inlet and the other inlets through which the Carolina Sounds and the Atlantic Ocean exchange water at impressive speeds twice daily. Cape Hatteras is a few miles north of  Hatteras Inlet and has justifiably earned its reputation of being a dangerous place for the unwary. Projecting out into the Atlantic Ocean, it is the closest point that the north-bound Gulf Stream runs past the USA, creating large short and sharp breaking seas in NE wind conditions. Every year I visit Cape Hatteras for a few days with my buddies of the Iguana Surf Club, to take advantage of the biggest and best surf on the US East Coast. The close proximity of the continental shelf to Cape Hatteras is the reason why the Gulf Stream is so close and the swells are so large.

Back to the boat. The flared bow gradually transitions to a conventional hull section at the break in the sheer, then reverses to become a moderate tumblehome stern. The moderate-V underbody has 15 degree dihedral at the stern, with chine flat and planing strakes.

Bow flare gradually transitions through to a tumblehome stern.

Aside from the raised foredeck and centre console, it has a wet deck with open spaces for working the fish. The motor/s are mounted on a bracket that is integral to the structural girder system of the hull, not bolted to the outside. It has a full radiused transom, safer against the dangers of boarding seas than a cut-down transom with outboard motor well, if caught stern-to while working a catch.

The stern bracket has space for a single or pair of outboards. Kevin has still to decide what to use on his boat but aims to have total 300hp. Fuel supply is from an under-deck tank below the centre console.

Construction is all wood, fibreglassed on the outside and also all hull surfaces below the wet deck. The hull bottom is plywood and the sides are strip cedar using bead-and-cove strips. These are applied over laminated keel, stem and chine step, plywood girders and frames that slot together egg-crate fashion and laminated plywood transom.

Watch this space for more about this boat. Until then, for more info on our many designs, go to our main website or our mobile website.