Browsing: lobster boats

On Watch with Peter Janssen
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Rogue Wave Sinks Maine Lobster Boat

It was just after noon, but Billy Bob Faulkingham was calling it a day. The weather was turning in the Gulf of Maine, the remnants of Hurricane Lee were just a day away, so Faulkingham and Alex Polk, his sternman, started hauling traps on Faulkingham’s 40-foot lobster boat named 51. They were off the south end of Turtle Island, on the far side of Mount Desert Island, and they were going to head home to Winter Harbor, just a few miles away. Faulkingham knew those waters well. He’s 44, and he’s been a working lobsterman there all his life (although…

Boat Reviews
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Gagliotta’s Lobster 35 Heading for U.S.

Cantieri Gagliotta just introduced its Lobster 35, a luxury day boat, at the Cannes Yachting Festival. It’s due to be shown in the U.S. at the Fort Lauderdale show at the end of October. Gagliotta’s Lobster 35 is just the latest iteration of the worldwide trend to produce contemporary versions of Maine’s iconic lobster boats. The Gagliotta 35 has the look of a lobster yacht, but you’d be hard pressed to find a Maine lobsterman pulling many traps on one. Gagliotta started making boats in Naples in the 1950s. Since then, it’s produced a series of race boats, fishing boats,…

Boat Reviews
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Solaris Launches New 48 Lobster Flybridge at Dusseldorf

Solaris Power, based in Forli, Italy, is introducing its new 48 Lobster Flybridge, with more than a nod to traditional Maine-built lobster boats, at the Düsseldorf boat show, from January 18 to 26. Solaris previously had introduced a 55-foot lobster boat and a 48-foot open, which now has morphed into the flybridge version. Norberto Ferretti is one of the three founders of Solaris and he’s been a fan of lobster boats for many years, even when he was running the powerful Ferretti Group. “Among the many boats that I  have conceived over the years,” he said, “I was especially smitten…

Cruising Life
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New Portraits of Women Running Maine Lobster Boats

Here’s something worth looking at – and thinking about: A new exhibit of portraits of women who run Maine lobster boats. It’s called “Lobstering Women of Maine,” and it’s at the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport. As described in MaineBoats.com, the exhibit features paintings by Tobey White of Belfast, whose husband is a part-time lobsterman. It’s not a surprise that women make up a very small percentage of the Maine lobster fishing fleet. Indeed, only 215 of the 4,500 licenses for lobster fishing in the state are held by women. But another 305 women are students or apprentices in the…

Cruising Life
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New, Fast, Heavy-Duty Lobster Boat Launched in Western Australia

They call this a lobster boat in Australia, but it doesn’t bring to mind the typical Down East version of a traditional lobster boat – a Calvin Beal, for example, or a Lowell Brothers, a Wilbur. A Jarvis Newman? Don’t think so. The new 85-foot Holdfast from Dongara Marina in Western Australia is billed as the largest high-speed lobster boat in Oz, and at a cruising speed of 18.5 knots and a top speed of 23.5 knots that may well be true. What seems beyond doubt is that it’s big and it’s designed to catch a lot of lobsters and get…

Boat Reviews
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Ellis 40 Bowrider Express: A New Approach for a Traditional Down East Boat

You usually don’t think of “lobster boat” and “bowrider” in the same sentence. But now Ellis Boat, which has been building lobster boats (and “lobster yachts”) in Southwest Harbor, Maine, since 1947, has put the two together in its new 40-foot Ellis Bowrider Express. And despite the new seating in the bow, the boat remains true to its heritage. “It’s a fantastic vessel,” says Shane Ellis, the grandson of the company’s founder. “It has a traditional bottom, but with a custom seat on top. We’re a custom builder. We built this for a client who wanted a seat for the…

Boat Reviews
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Doug Zurn’s New Williams 38

At first thought, this doesn’t seem like a logical partnership: Doug Zurn, who’s designed the sleek, fast MJM 50Z; the sleek, fast Shelter Island Runabout 38, and the sleek, fast 57-foot Vendetta for Billy Joel, has joined forces with John (Jock) Williams, who designs and builds the most traditional of all Maine lobster boats, originally for commercial fishermen and now for well-heeled owners who appreciate the “lobster yacht” aesthetic. But come together they did, with the new Williams 38 as the result – a classic-looking lobster boat above the waterline, with a state-of-the-art hull design below. The visible part of…