Lobster fisherman Danny Backman built a 43' lobster boat in Winter Harbor, Maine, and launched it this summer. Danny is mostly a lobsterman, but he also built a 38' wooden lobster boat for himself in 1983 and has fished out of it since. Backman’s route to getting a new lobster boat is in the long tradition of fishermen, not only of Maine, but in the tradition of fishermen throughout history. He put together a plan, located and collected the wood he needed for the various parts, set up a shop or barn to build in, and went ahead as time and cash flow allowed. Danny was not just wingin’ it on this project. As mentioned, he had built a lobster boat 25 years earlier, but he has done wood boat repairs, and his grandfather was also a highly regarded boat builder. Otto Backman designed and built lobster boats in Winter Harbor beginning in 1943. Otto’s boats were well designed, precision built, highly regarded, and had the advantage of Otto also being a skilled metal and engine mechanic. In fact, the lines for both of Danny’s boats were taken off Otto’s boats. Danny’s son Fred was building a boat for himself at about the same time as his father in a separate shop next to Danny’s. Fred built a 46' fiberglass Novi lobster boat. They launched their boats about a month apart from the same landing in Winter Harbor. (See Launches at back of paper) Danny built his boat over a period of about five years and launched 25 years and a day after having launched the last lobster boat he built for himself.
Hauling 800 traps doesn’t leave a lot of time for extra projects, especially efforts like offshore lobster boat building. Back in the day, the owner builder was likely building the standard 28' wooden lobster boat of that time. There is more involved than the difference of 15 feet of length in going from a 28' to a 43' boat. The scale of the parts, the volume of material, the number of cuts, the total surface area that has to be dealt with in detail, the number and size of fasteners are all bumped way up. The building started with the widening of Otto’s molds. Danny then laid the 8'' wide keel in the shop he had built near his house to build his 38' boat. The 8'' x 8'' pieces were cut, shaped, and put together. A hole was drilled vertically through the stack of keel timbers, 4 feet deep in places, so a threaded rod could be driven, and used to tighten them together. With the keel assembled and on its side a drum type floor sander was used to smooth the sides. Then it was time to chisel out all the timber pockets along the keel. These would accept the ends of the timbers, which the planking would later be screwed to. The timber stock was 1-3/4'' x 2-1/2''. Ripped on a band saw to within a foot of the end, the result was two 1-3/8'' x 2 1/4'' pieces together that responded better to steaming. The floor beams, deck beams and clamps are spruce. At various steps along the way the keel, deck beams, carlins, sharprisers, and any place fresh water was likely to get in, were saturated with cuprinol. In fact those parts soaked up 15 gallons of cuprinol.
Planking: The method of planking was a composite of plank on frame and strip planking. Plank on frame uses planks shaped for each row, screwed to the frame, and later caulked with cotton driven between the planks. Strip planking is uniform size planks, glued and nailed to each other. Danny’s 1-3/8'' x 2-1/4'' white cedar planks are the same width from the keel to sheerline, as in a strip planked hull. But Backman combined these two methods. He planed the 16' long planks to fit flush against one another as in plank on frame. With the plank below screwed in place to the oak timbers bent into place, the next plank went on with a strand of cotton caulking between the two. Monel staples kept the caulking in place until the next plank was set in place, clamped, and 16d galvanized nails driven vertically through the 2-1/4'' width and into the plank below. Then with stainless steel screws, it was fastened to the timbers. The process was repeated all the way up the hull. Where the 16d nails were driven was indicated with a penciled line on the outside of the plank. This was done to avoid hitting the nail head below with the next row of nails.
Equipment: The 43' x 15' x 5'6'' boat is powered by an 892 Detroit NA engine – 385 HP @2100 RPM – with a on a 2-1/2 : 1 Allison gear. It turns a 30 x 33 prop, on a 2-1/2'' stainless steel shaft from Rose’s Marine. The metal fabrication was done a Nautilus Marine and Kennedy Marine. “The boat is not loaded with the stuff, just the stuff I need,” said Danny. That stuff includes 420 gallons of fuel in two tanks, radar, plotter, color sounder, GPS, hydro slave steering and hauler, and two VHF. Danny kept equipment to the basics. But one thing is noticeably missing on his boat, something that comes with most new boats today, there is no mortgage, no bank note, no monthly payment. The boat was launched paid for. It’s also a bonus to the satisfaction of having finished a monumental building project. It took longer than his last boat, but said Danny, “It doesn’t matter, the best thing is, no payments.” |
