It's funny - cat boats are either a love or hate relationship...(much like their furry feline counterparts!).
I spent a LOT of time over my life fishing and messing about in boats with pro lobster fishers.
THEY are the skippers I admire - they go to work rain hail or shine in almost all weather - if the Lobster boats stay home - you better KNOW it's gonna blow so hard it'll blow the dog off it's chain and act smart and do likewise.
Now a LOT of my opinions on boats are obviously 'biased' bye what these guys think, say and do in as far as having their own boats built etc.
Their useage is different to most rec boats - the boats are built stronger heavier etc deliberately and as a result they handle different to an equivalent length rec boat in many cases.
Now - even among the pro lobster boat guys - theres two camps, those that love cats and those that hate em - it's NO DIFFERENT to any rec boating forum board.
The Lobster fleet at various times - load (read stack 4 rows high) upwards of 100 ballasted traps, floats and ropes, each weighing ~ 120 pounds, on deck and transport them sometimes lengthy distances in crappy seas - to whereever the lobsters are being caught -(from the deeps to shallows or out to Islands for 3 months etc etc...
You stick 12,000 pounds of additional weight on a boat especially all of it down the azz end, and start stacking em 3 or 4 rows high into the bargain and it alters the handling characteristics of ANY boat markedly. Obviously - they are DESIGNED to be capable of doing this...within their stability profiles GZ curves etc - but all the same - these guys quickly find out which boats do what best.
At the end of the day their bottom line and comfort at work all add up to how profitable they are and how much they enjoy (or hate) their job.
Generally speaking the Cats don't handle this aspect of the work as well as the mono's (they dont carry weight as well as a mono, in fact some drag their sorry azz like a dog with worms) )
BUT not every day is sifting gear either - many days are just motoring out empty - lifting emptying rebaiting and re setting and head home with a few baskets of Lobsyers - so - in the long run - Cats do that aspect of the job very well indeed.
So you see - like rec boaters - even the pro's bicker over whats best...Cat or Mono (or tri), and few of them agree with each other - but hell - even they fish different to each other.
Some guys who lift & set 100 traps a day will lift only 25 at a time, empty rebait & stack them then set them in a line - and do that 4 times, so a boat designed to be able to shift 100 traps may on;ly actually do it 4 or 5 times during the 8 months open season - once to get the gear wet at the beginning - once tomove the gear past the 25NM Island line for the 3 months island season - once to bring it back inside the 25Nm line at the end of the 3 month island season and once to bring it all back home at the end of the season!.
Sooo.... do they design the boat to be best operating vessel for those specific 4 days work or for the other 236 days of the 8 months season where it will only evert have 255 of it's rated load and then for only say 4 hours of that given day all up!.
Yet anther guy I know fishes only 69 traps, with a smaller boat in the 40 - 50 ft class & 1 deckhand on 20% share of the catch rather than the 60+ footers, who tend to fish 100 traps + and employ 2 deckhands on 10% share of the catch ea.
Now the guy actually NETS more $ than MOST of the big boats with more traps.
Why?
Because he fishes ONE trap at a time - thats ALL the boat EVER has aboard at any one time (unless shifting gear for those other 4 days I mentioned earlier).
So he fishes ONE trap - lift empty rebait drive around in scircles looking for a hole in the coral reef indicatiove of a den with lobsters in it - and drop the trap right into their front door!
The big boats can't and don't do this.. they look for deep reef on the sounder that looks productive and strip mine it..with a lot of traps, whereas this guy looks into shallower water by eye and drops ONE trap at a time, with high precision right into their porch so to speak.
Sooo.. he fishes less traps - but makes more $ because is catch rate is higher - his operating costs are lower, and his deckhand gets 20% of the catch - and never has to stack as much as ONE heavey trap (except 4 days a year when shifting gear). The deckhands "wage" based on catch share is usually about $80K Aus a year!
Now a deckhand whos one of two deckhands on a bigboat with 100 traps on only 10% of the catch - sure he has MORE traps...(100 to share in) BUT his share is half because theres TWO deckhands AND overall - the guy with 100 traps only catches about the same as the guy with 69....
It aol comes back to what you want to do with a boat, some are twin keels with big props - some are jet boats some are cats some are conventional propulsuion cats some are jet propulsion cats and some are even tri's with surface piercing props...
These guys ALL fish from the same location (port) or the same islands, and they ALL have their own preferred way to work a boat, and theyALl have their OWn idea of what makes a perfect boat.
This is why I laugh when I see folks here arguing about which is the best or ideal boat - I mean hell some of these gustyare 4th generation pro Lobster Fishers, and when at the endof the day you see all the pro boats swinging on their moorings - it looks just like any other marine - where everyones boat is different - no two are exactly the same - theres always that individual touch that reflects the skippers ideas on what makes a great boat, and lets face it these pro lobster guys build a new boat about every 5 years or so on average. (Tax reasons - if they don;t re invest into a new boat the profits all go to the taxman - no one likes making a Million a year and gioving half to the taxman - far beter to build a nice new (different faster bigger shallower drafting longer wider etc) boat!
So if they fish 40 or 50 years they will likely get to work on say 5 or 6 boats (starting out as a deckhand) and own 5 or six boats themselves...as a skipper.
With all that accumulated experience ALl their boats are different to each other...
What does that say about which boat is best?
What i can say - is that SOME don't last in the industry - ity's a HARD industry if you let it be - witgh such high disposable incomes the incidence of grug taking is high, rates of alcoholism are high, and some skippers are more successful fishers than others.
No one "boat type" represents those that dont last the time - it's evenly spread...some last a season or two - some last 10 years and some are 4th generation..
There is no definitive "which boat is best" answer, everyones ideas, needs, experience etc is different.
Cats fully laden can be dogs, Monos unladen can roll & bob like a b!tch, tris can bow slap in a quartering headsea...Jet mono boats can fall over easey etc etc...
I've seen a lot and consider myself still learning.....
I try and learn watching the millionaire lobster boys building and utilising their boats - a lot of the lessons are applicable to recreational nd charter vessels etc...
At the end of the day - I'd like to join em for a full time life on the sea (I think)......but it's a big boys game and only the big boys get to play, Lobster licenses sell at Aus $50 - $60,000 per trap! (Multiply that bye 100 + traps), then theres the cost of the boat at another Million - you don't roll the Lobster Dice in thios state without 5 Mill spare cash to play....and like I said - some don't last season numero uno.
There are some "speculators" in the game with 16 or so licenses each (of the 600 total licenses issued in the Fishery), who will lease a keen young skipper a boat and say 100 traps license..and while prices are up some do well and establish themselves well enough to eventually BUY their own license and boat when someone else exits...but when prices crash - like now) and theres not a lot of $ above cost to catch involved...thenm a lot of the leasees default because it costs more per day togo to work in fuel bait wages and lease fees than what they catch...
Thats the rigours of the game tho...high stakes - but obviously those who have more than one license and boat (and have skippers working for them etc do quite nicely some dont go to sea at all - theyjust run the business...arranging & overseeing the building of new boats - arranging the catch statistics - planning strategies of where and how to fish given diferent circumstances each year). They get to that position by inherriting a license alongside their own usually and so it goes.
As a kid growin up...the Lobster industry was a dirt poor industry - there was no air freight live export industry...Lobster fishers were considered "poorer class" than us - often my dad would "donate" time & expertise to help them build their traps to save a few $ coz they were on togh times.
These days they are mostly all muti millionaires, in multi million dollar fleets of vessels - the industry has come a HELL of a long way in 35 years to be the biggest (richest) single species fishery in the southern hemisphere, bigger than prawning and pearls...
At the moment post 9/11 etc prices are well down and some are doing it tough but those who have been at it long time know how to get thru...
After all that - they can't agree on boats - what chance has a rec boater got?
I love the industry...grew up round it, done some reasearch and consulting work for it, hung around and fished with heaps of em...and learned a lot.
Maybe I'll get a chance at it one day who knows - theres heaps of possibilities - charter combined with wetlining for finfish (to make fuel and maintenance costs when there are no charter bookings), who knows.
Wait n see I guess - then the problem would arise....
Which would be the "Best Boat" LOL LOL he he he...the quintessential boating question. I've got two weeks playing around on a Lobster boat or two over the next two weeks to give it some serious thought tho.... me and Flash - gone fishin - back in a couple / three weeks...
See what we think about "boats" after we get back.
We are going to be testing out this newly launched tri...
Who knows mabe it'll be better than a mono and a cat combined!!!
We will report back what we think..
Cheers!
Trouty-------36' Pro Kat 
