Photo above by Jonathan Cooper
Our editors sifted through the hundreds of awe-inspiring photos submitted by our readers and contributors in the past year depicting the best of the trawler lifestyle. This collection has been specially curated for your viewing pleasure as we look back on another year spent covering the great life afloat.
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Reclaimed lines in a variety of materials, lengths and sizes emanate thrift-store charm as they dangle from the ceiling at Poulsbo, Washington’s Longship Marine.
A replica of Pilar, the Wheeler 38 fishing boat made famous by Ernest Hemingway, comes back to life in a shed at Brooklin Boat Yard in Maine. She’ll arrive with a few modern twists, courtesy of naval architecture and engineering by Bill Prince Yacht Design, Inc.
“Somewhere down the list of reasons we purchased our 1976 Pacific Trawler 37 in 1982 was her name. We can’t take credit for it, but we are sailors and she is very much a sailor’s powerboat. We shot this photo at anchor in Carriden Bay, just west of Sullivan Bay in the Broughton Islands. While it isn’t exactly Iron Wind’s best angle, with her ample transom on full display and no sign of her beautiful sheer, she wears her name proudly, and the scenery is hard to beat.”
Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival | Port Townsend, Washington
A day in the life of the Palmer family, living aboard their Nordhavn 55, Mermaid Monster.
Early dawn at Sucia Island, San Juan Islands, Washington
A cruiser’s personal drone captures the rugged beauty of a weather-worn pier in Grace Bay, Providenciales, Turks and Caicos.
Perched atop the cliffs where the Strait of Juan de Fuca meets Haro Straits at the southernmost tip of San Juan Island, Cattle Point Light’s lantern was replaced with a lens in the late ’50s when the light became automated.
Tucked away in one of Sam Devlin’s three sheds on his 9-acre property, the 26-foot TugZilla began as a new build but ended as a refit-turned-tug concept, which Devlin completed as a solo project in his barn. She’s built to proper working tugboat specifications, but small enough to not warrant the legal certification required for operators of larger tugs.
“There aren’t many wooden workboats like this, and there aren’t any with this level of history,” says marine archaeologist Saxon Bisbee of America’s oldest wooden tugboat, the Arthur Foss. Among the multitude of timeworn trinkets aboard the Foss is this antique Stromberg Carlson sound-powered telephone station, which no doubt played a colorful role in the tug’s storied history.
Marine archaeologist Saxon Bisbee is leading the charge to restore the historic wooden tugboat, Arthur Foss. Here, he takes a break on the deck with an afternoon of tugboat painting before him.
The Rideau Canal connects Ottawa, Ontario, to Lake Ontario along the Great Loop. The 125-mile waterway dates back to the 1800s and has 45 locks. They’re filled more with recreational boaters than commercial ones nowadays.
As countless cruising families have found, bringing the kids on board, even as toddlers, makes for exceptional family experiences.
The remnants of a bowhead whale, these fascinating jawbones lend perspective to the massive size of the rare, majestic mammals. They sit along the Arctic Ocean shoreline, a stark reminder to visiting voyagers of the great struggle for survival in this region of extremes.
The king spoke on a ship’s wheel indicates to the helmsman the position of the rudder relative to the keel. When the spoke is at 12 o’clock, the rudder is centered fore and aft. The king spoke can be delineated in many ways, including tape, grooves carved in the spoke, a brass cap or, as in this photo, a decorative Turk’s head knot.
Explorer yacht Marcato takes one over the bow en route to the wilds of Patagonia.
En route to Key West, Florida, aboard a custom Glen-L design he built, a Passagemaker reader snapped this spectacular view of the Richard V. Woods Memorial Bridge, in Beaufort County, South Carolina. The bridge was featured in the film Forrest Gump as a stand-in for one that spans the Mississippi River.
Michael Gale found freedom aboard his Seahorse 52 “Liberty II,” the first Seahorse 52 to circumnavigate the globe.
“It’s as green as you’ve ever seen. All mountains, but green. Lush, lush green. It just seems fake.” —Capt. Jason Halvorsen, on his expedition to Patagonia aboard M/V Marcato
Patagonia’s nickname is “The End of the World,” and rightfully so.
Capt. Jason Halvorsen of M/Y Marcato says his crew’s favorite memories of exploring Patagonia include being able to get aboard icebergs right after they broke off from glaciers.
Carysfort Reef Light, located 6 nautical miles off Key Largo, Florida, has kept its post for 168 years. The 100-foot iron screwpile structure was completed in 1852 under the direction of Lt. George Meade, who later gained fame as the general who won the Civil War battle of Gettysburg. The lighthouse was decommissioned in 2015.
Rescue dogs Zoey (left) and M.E. (right) of the Krogen Express 52 Daystar enjoy a dinghy ride to shore in the Abacos region of the Bahamas.
Rodger Grayson and Ali Dedman’s oceangoing trawler, Betty Mc. The couple brought the converted fishboat from their home in Australia through the central Pacific, Japan and the Aleutians, and then continued around the Pacific Rim to Costa Rica before returning to the Pacific Northwest. We first met them at the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival in Washington state.
“Standing on the deck of Sikuliaq, hair whipping in my face and eyes stinging in the driving wind, I felt the awe-inspiring beauty of this place. As a cruiser, I will be drawn to return for many years to come.”
—Becca Guillote
Wildflowers abound as the former Canadian Coast Guard hydrological research vessel Wave, here in yacht trim, explores Tay Bay on Bylot Island in Nunavut Territory.
In a cozy Colorado shed, Eric Paulson admires Splinters, his Grand Banks 42 Classic, as a work in progress. Today, he enjoys cruising Splinters around the San Diego area with his wife, Kim, as they plan a Mexico-to-Alaska voyage in the coming years.
A couple of orcas put on a show to the delight of these North Pacific 45 owners last summer in Port Orchard Passage, between Bainbridge Island and the Kitsap Peninsula. The owners obeyed strict distancing rules, but the whales had other plans.
Anchored out of ICW traffic off Fenwick Island, South Carolina, Freedom shows off her fabulous wineglass transom. Built in 1926, she has lines and interior décor that strongly recall the earlier Edwardian period. She was restored by McMillen Yachts Inc. in the early 2000s.
