A recreational trawler starts with its hull shape—full displacement, of course—and exterior lines inspired by working craft. Add comfortable accommodations, robust ground tackle, the ability to easily launch and retrieve a tender and robust list of redundant systems at the ready so that one’s bucket-list voyage can remain on track.
It was the ethos that Robert Beebe defined in Voyaging Under Power, which created the blueprint for independent, world-cruising vessels and provided our magazine with its namesake.
However, the definition of a “passagemaker,” has been expanding for some time to include hull shapes that run efficiently at displacement speeds and have some giddy-up.
Many see this as the best of both worlds, as they’re still enjoying the all the things that a trawler offers—self-sufficiency and economy with modern conveniences and comfort—with the attributes of a vessel that accommodates the cruising lifestyle.
Do these fast trawlers fit the bill as a true passagemaker? I don’t know if we came to any concrete conclusions, but we do have a spirited debate on what defines today’s passagemakers.
