FISH BOAT!

Steincamp’s Fish Boat Review:

I got a chance to go fishing twice this past week, but didn’t catch a thing, well except a new affection for gaff rigged sailing classics.  Donnie Brennan was in town helping a customer win sailboat races and was kind enough to drop off Diversified Marines latest classic creation, a brand new, sparkling fiberglass Fish boat.  I won’t even pretend to romanticize about being some GYA old timer and reminisce about sailing and bailing a wooden Fish boat with my daddy. As, I had only seen pictures of Fish boat until I walked down the dock last week.

For those that don’t think I am qualified to do a boat review, here are some of my credentials. I spent my early child hood in Annapolis, Maryland and attended at least one boat show every year with my old man from age five to about 15 (this alone should do it, but I got more).  A lot of people don’t know this about me, so I’ll share it; I‘m the guy that did all the design concept work for the Melges 24. From age about age 10, I sketched and doodled that bad boy on every notebook and legal pad, during every lecture, business meeting and seminar I ever attended (remember I have self diagnosed A.D.D).  Then one day I see pictures of the damn thing in Sailing World Magazine.  I said to myself, “Damn, these Reichel/Pugh guys and Buddy Melges must of found one of my old notebooks and stole my design”.  Actually they didn’t steel all of it, as mine had a four-foot carbon penalty pole instead of the sprit.  I think that’s how they got around my patent I had on the design.

First, I really have not had a true engrained passion for wooden boats or classics all of my life.  The only thing close to a classic that I have ever sailed on, is my buddy Pete’s Cape Cod 21. It is a gaff rigged cat boat.  I couldn’t believe how powerful the main was, how balanced the rudder and helm felt.  I thought wow, these heavy boats with shallow keels and barn door rudders, really don’t pitch, rock or hobby horse at all, this is a damn good ride.  So since that time on, I have been waiting for another chance at a classic, a modern-day-reborn-low-maintenance-fiberglass-classic that is, so here it goes…

It was Sunday, my day with the kids.  I’m still married, but I went racing all day Saturday, so my wife was going to the jewelry show at the convention center with out the kids and me on Sunday.  With my wife at the jewelry show, it was going to be an expensive day whether or not I flipped, crashed or purchased Donnie’s new Fish boat.

I walked over to NOYC’s under construction dry storage and saw this beauty.  It is gorgeous! A real deep shiny blue Fish boat.  It’s not every day some one hands you the keys to a brand new boat and says, “hey, take it sailing.. you’ll like it”.  It has really nice, clean lines.  Nothing complicated, mind you, just simple nice plain dock appeal. Minus the rig and below the waterline, it is as crisp as a Star boat in appearance.  The mast, gaff and boom are all aluminum (somehow, it really doesn’t take away from its classic appearance). The aluminum mast is also a sealed tube, which will not fill with water and help prevent turtling.  The boat is virtually unsinkable as it has four air tanks, both fore and aft not including the area under the cockpit floor that is also sealed.  This boat will still sail fully swamped. The hull and deck is Core-cell foam with bi-axel fabric using Vinylester resin. The only flashes of wood are the teak rub rail, combing and cockpit splashguard.  Enough teak to add to its beauty, but not enough to make any major maintenance  issues over time.   So, I hanked on the jib.  Threw my four and six year old kids on it, pulled on the two lines that I thought would lift the main up and went sailing.  I later found out that those two lines were called the throat halyard and peak halyard.  My kids were all giggles, they loved it, we even towed the Barbie Bass Boat, as that’s what we always do when we go sailing.

The wind was out of the East at about 7-10 knots.  I cruised on a reach, right out of the dry storage area.  As we approached the end of the pier, we would have a beat out to the mouth of the harbor.  I trimmed in the main and showed my girls how to get the jib in tight.  This is the first boat that they have ever sailed on where they could actually help trim the jib.  We were going along at a pretty good clip when I realized it was time to tack or do some piling banging.  So I tacked, rather poorly I might add, not the boats fault, mostly mine.  It’s a pretty good duck, to get your head under a Fish boats boom, but why not, booms should be low anyway, why waist the sail area.  I didn’t ease the main sheet through the tack and my four year old didn’t get the jib in quite fast enough, so the keel, rudder and main all stalled.  As we started to slide, I thought uhhohh, Donnie is going to kill me if I scratch this baby on a piling.  So I eased the main and she pulled out of the stall perfectly.  Our next tack was much improved, I ducked the boom and cracked the main sheet off about six inches, and my six year old whaled on the jib so that it came in a little faster.  The boat, rudder, keel or main didn’t stall this time, it maintained its speed all the way through the tack.  This boat has some weight to it, the feel and glide as it goes through a tack is pretty slick, much different than I am accustomed to for boats of this size.  I think it may have something to do with all that main sail area so high.

As we continued out the harbor, we tacked way more than we had to,  I stayed in the middle of the channel as I wanted to make sure that I didn’t put it up on the rocks in front of the Big House.  I guess that is everyone’s worst nightmare these days.  Putting your boat on the rocks, having some one get a photo of it, and it being plastered all over the internet.  Yeah, that in hoisting your chute up sideways!

We get out the harbor into some solid breeze and the boat just came alive.  I cracked off the main, help ease the jib and the boat just zipped right along.  My two girls and I are all on the high side now.  I realize the throat and peak halyard could go up another 3 inches so, I give them a tug and we pick up a little more speed.  As I give the main a good look over, I notice how long the boom is, it reaches a good three feet past the stern of the boat.  Fish boat designer Rathbone Debuys, had a good design idea here, as I always wished my own boom was a little longer, especially on the J/30’s and J/22’s that I sail on.  The mainsail was huge, and very powerful, yet the helm was still balanced.  I can see how the gaff rig evolved into a full-length top batten over time.  By the way, they don’t make those top battens long enough, as this thing is hauling butt and the kids are having a blast.  We went upwind, downwind  and every reaching angle possible.  The boat truly exceeded my expectations on every angle of sail, especially wing and wing.  We put out the whisker pole to go down wind and rocked it to windward opti-style and it felt wonderful.  It seemed to definitely like the hotter polar angles in the lulls though and gybing was a piece of cake.

The breeze lightened up a bit, so my six year old even took a turn driving.  All this sailing, and we started to develop a thirst, and wouldn’t you know, right under the deck is a sunk in storage spot for a 30-gallon Igloo cooler.  This one just happened to have some Coronas and Cokes iced down from the previous joy riders.  Now here is my only complaint. For those who have not seen the redo of the Tartan Tens, they come with drink holders molded in the deck..  In deck-molded drink holders is the only thing this boat is missing.  Everything else is here, boat is totally Harkenized from top to bottom.  The deck and gear layout is visionary with smooth running Spectra and Dacron line running everywhere its needed (halyards are tucked away in mast and exit from under deck…very slick).  As we reached in, we hit some powerboat slop at the mouth of the harbor, the tricked out boom vang arrangement stabilized the main perfectly and the teak cockpit splash guard, sent all the water to the low side out of the boat.  So there was no need for any bailing on this trip.  As Martha, would say, a “Plastic Classic is a good thing”.

If I was in the market for a onedesign classic, this would definitely be the boat.  I could see this easily becoming the Harbor 20 of the Gulf Coast, as it once was.  I liked every bit of this boat, the simplicity and power of the sail plan especially.  It glided and tracked very smoothly, I let go of the helm on several occasions to make trim adjustments and was in no hurry to get back to it, as the boat steered itself with that long full keel.  You might say to yourself, that you can’t afford a boat like this, but you can’t afford not to buy a chance at owning a boat like this!  The Fish Class is raffling off a BRAND NEW FISHBOAT, for a $100 a ticket.  The drawing will be held at Mobile Yacht Club during the GYA opening regatta May 4th & 5th 2003.The boat will be brand new and ready for pick up by new owner at Buccaneer Yacht Club on June 30th.  This boat will have the new in deck-molded-drink holders if desired.  For tickets, please send check to Fish Class Association, P.O Box 50796, Mobile, Al 36605.  To purchase this boat or for additional sales information you may contact Donnie Brennan @ (251) 473-7080 or brennan149[at]comcast[dot]net .