Distinctive Finishes in Haines, Alaska, is completing work on the 34’ x 11’ Dab Chick, a 53-year-old crabber and gillnetter, whose owner is looking for more options. When the Dab Chick leaves Distinctive Finishes it will be set up for longlining, trolling, gillnetting and crabbing.
“People can’t just make it on their salmon and crab fishery,” says Distinctive Finishes’ John Schumacher.
Ongoing work on the Dab Chick, originally built by Snowball Boats, includes gel coating the fish hold, moving the engine forward into the cabin, and building new hatch covers. Schumacher will be doing much of this work himself, since his assistant is off fishing.
In August, Schumacher said a new Nidacore flush deck and hatch coamings were completed. The hold capacity was increased by about 3,000 lbs.
“Before it was maybe 3,000 lbs., now maybe 6,000 lbs., maybe 7,000 lbs.,” said Schumacher. Much of the new hold space was gained by moving the Cummins 5.5-liter engine five feet forward into the cabin. That “took out a huge amount of space,” and then the deck was raised “by one foot to 18 inches. They wanted a big fish hold for large halibut.”
Schumacher put in a trawl pit for power-trolling salmon and stuff at the back of the deck. "That’s kind of unusual,” he added. The trawl pit will have a hatch cover, in keeping with having a flush deck. A benefit of the trawl pit when longlining halibut is it “makes it a lot easier pulling halibut in over the back” because “when you get heavy fish it’s kind of nice to be at waist level.”
Below the deck are five fish holds: four will hold about 1,000 lbs. each, and there’s a larger hold for halibut. “That’s an easy 3,000 lbs., if not more,” said Schumacher.
Remaining work on the wheelhouse includes installing insulation to keep the noise down and building a day bunk.
The Dab Chick should be launched by early October. Then arriving at Distinctive Finishes will be a 60-foot aluminum tender that needs its fish holds reworked, and a 20-ton refrigerated seawater (RSW) system installed.
The tender will be followed by a 39-foot Hansen: “I have to totally gut the whole boat and rebuild new fish holds and the cabin,” says Schumacher. That work order will be the same for the next boat, a 39-foot Delta. Both boats fish for crab and salmon.
