A Sportfishing Revelation Part 1

EAST COAST, USA

If one word could be used to describe east coast sports fishermen and the designers and builders of their boats, that word would be SMUG. Isn’t that a great word? SMUG! It sounds exactly like what it is.

The owners and creators of east coast sports fishermen have good reason to be smug -- they have what are simply the best sports fishing boats in the world. Since the end of World War II, east coast sports fishing boats have evolved from converted family cruisers fitted with bamboo outriggers, one man pipe-podium flying bridges and fighting chairs mounted on the aft deck behind the cockpit (see Humphrey Bogart’s boat in “To Have and Have Not) to highly specialized pocket battlewagons -- fishing machines designed specifically to seek out, raise and catch fish. If Rambo was a boat, he would be a sports fisherman. A tournament sports fisherman rigged for battle is truly an awesome sight. They are low and beamy with huge cockpits. They are fitted with the utmost in state-of-the-art electronics, multiple spreader outriggers, triple tier towers, trick fighting chairs and bait preparation areas that look like the bar at the Waldorf. They have huge power for their size to attain great speeds for darting out to the fishing grounds in order to have their lines wet before anyone else. 

Cockpits have been so highly refined that they are completely smooth -- devoid of protuberances such as hinges, cleats and fittings that could inadvertently snag a fishing line causing the loss of a record fish (by the way, the ones that are lost are always record fish). Great pains are taken to achieve the “winning edge”. Over the years, many unique methods have been tried to attract fish such as: garbage disposal depositing chum directly through the bottom, chrome plated propeller tips, underwater mirrors, underwater strobe lights, and underwater piped music (What kind of music do you play for a fish? Handel’s Water Music? Splish Splash?). Sometimes, decoy fish are painted on the boat’s bottom. 

Raising fish has become a mystic art. There are proponents for wooden boats, solid fiberglass boats, cored fiberglass boats, aluminum boats and rubber boats. The advocates for each claim that their material produces just the right harmonic vibration that attracts fish. It’s not unusual for an avid fisherman to spend $50,000 for electronics, $20,000 for rods and reels and another $80,000 to equip their vessels with the latest in outriggers, towers, etc., etc. All of this is on top of the cost of the boat. A fully rigged sports fisherman on the prowl looks kind of like a floating porcupine. It is bristling with antennas, outriggers, gin poles, towers and fishing rods. Hell, the boats themselves look smug. If you really want to catch big fish, this is the kind of machine you need… or do you?

Leave it to the Italians to innovate. A few years ago they came up with a new type of pasta looking something like a Nautilus shell split in half which was designed -- no styled by a firm called Ital Design to be aesthetically pleasing and to trap sauce in its many crevices and chambers. During the Genoa Boat Show this year, I strolled down to the waterfront to catch some sea air. The weather was warm and the stuffy boat show buildings smelled like a combination of B.O., diesel fuel, bottom paint, fiberglass resin and mortadella. 

There, along a high stone seawall was the “in the water” portion of the boat show consisting mainly of sailboats. Now you all know how I feel about sailboats (powerboats with tall masts and funny cabins – See Feb 85 article) so I wasn’t particularly interested in this part of the show. Then it happened. POW!  I was suddenly confronted with a vision that stopped me in my tracks. There, backed into the wharf was, so help me, a SAILBOAT SPORTSFISHERMAN! 

Yes, a sailboat sports fisherman complete with a fighting chair on the aft deck, a gin pole, heavy duty rods and reels in cockpit holders and a neat semi-circular hinged rail that surrounded the fighting chair which was mounted on a small poop deck. I was stunned! There, suspended from the rigging, was a huge mounted Marlin head. I pointed and laughed nervously, trying to retain my east coast fish boat designer smugness. 

My reactions were as follows: (1) “this is a joke -- a cartoon boat rigged specifically for the boat show by a demented Italian  with a twisted sense of humor” (it wasn’t); (2) “the fighting chair was deposited on the sailboat’s transom after it collided with a real sports fisherman” (it wasn’t); (3) “the Marlin displayed was caught by a real sports fisherman and simply used on the sailboat for effect” (it wasn’t); and (4) “COULD JOHN RYBOVITCH HAVE BEEN WRONG ALL THESE YEARS?” (maybe). Completely dismayed, I stood there in a cold sweat imagining my entire sports fishing boat design business going down the tubes as people switched from power sports fisherman to sail sports fisherman. I could think of only one thing: “If a puff boat can catch fish, do we need all the gizmos, geegaws and gadgets? Have we been going in the wrong direction design wise?” My smugness was fast disappearing. I staggered back to the boat hall uttering to myself: “A sailing sports fisherman… a sailing sports fisherman for gosh sakes.”

Yacht designer David Martin deserves to be smug. He is a prolific designer of east coast sports fishermen, including the Oceans, Egg Harbors and Pacemakers. David Martin may be credited for upping the ante, speed wise, for production sports fishermen. Only a few years ago 24 knots was fast. Martin’s Ocean 55 toped 30. It was akin to Roger Bannister breaking the four-minute mile. People thought 30 knots was unattainable in a big production boat until someone did it. Today, production sports fishermen are pushing through the 35-knot barrier. Well, I’m reading this boating trade magazine one day after returning from the Genoa Boat Show, casually flipping pages, totally bored with what conglomerate was acquiring what company in the boating business. There in the upper right-hand corner of one page were profile and arrangement drawings for a little 27’ cat boat. 

Now this isn’t the kind of boat that usually catches my eye which is normally drawn to swoopy, droopy, aggressive power boat profiles. But there was something weird about this cat boat.  I bolted up from my chair! There, arrayed around the stern in covering board rod holders were four fishing rods and mounted just forward of them were two outriggers! Furthermore, a fighting chair was located in a small fishing cockpit aft of the main cockpit!! The boat was called “Surprise” and it certainly was.  After seeing what I saw in Genoa, needless to say, this was a great setback. I cried out “SAY IT ISN’T SO DAVID! Tell me your pen slipped or that a deranged client kidnapped you and forced you to draw it or that you were having a real bad day. Anything, but don’t tell me that David Martin -- one of my few heroes in this world – is not turning to puff fisherman!” Another sail sports fisherman was almost too much to take from one of the world’s leading sports fishing designers.

Sad, dejected and definitely un-smug, I slumped back down in my chair. This would take much thinking and sorting out. Was puff fishing the beginning of a new trend? Has what we’ve been doing with fishing boats all these years simply been overkill? After turning all this over in my mind for a few years -- like soggy clothes in a dryer, I had my answer. It was so obvious really but, then, most revelations are.

(Reprinted with permission of Regina Fexas.)

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