H&H Marine is building an Osmond 42 with a 17' 6" beam that’s going to the San Francisco area. Originally it was to be completed at the end of 2020, but that’s been pushed back to this coming spring or early summer. It’s the 11th commercial fishing boat H&H Marine of Steuben, Maine, will have sent to the West Coast.
“It will do multiple fisheries,” including crabbing and longlining, says H&H Marine’s Bruce Grindal.
The 42-footer is mostly composite construction, though the deck is plywood and fiberglass with 4" x 4" pressure-treated deck beams. She is being set up for overnight fishing, so there will be four bunks in the fo’c’sle, along with an enclosed head and shower. The wheelhouse is to be finished off with a small galley, a settee and a table. Besides the normal wheelhouse steering station, a second steering station is going on the wheelhouse’s rear bulkhead.
A 750-hp John Deere and a 9-kw Northern Lights generator are going in the engine compartment. The 42-footer should be loaded on a trailer in late spring or early summer and trucked to the West Coast.
In early February, H&H Marine began working on an Osmond 46' x 17' 6" lobster boat for a fisherman on Maine’s Mount Desert Island. Beneath a split wheelhouse will be a 1,000-hp Cat with a wet exhaust, and beneath the deck two live wells for storing lobsters.
An Osmond 32' x 11' 3" is just about completed but won’t be leaving for Montauk, on the eastern shore of New York’s Long Island, until spring. Once there, she’ll be commercial fishing and running 6-pack charters, says Grindal, who describes her as “a lobster boat style but with a full cabin.”
An Osmond 40' x 14' 10" tuna boat going to Gloucester, Mass., is another spring delivery. A 675-hp Volvo will power the 40-footer and a 6-kw Northern Lights generator will run the air conditioner when needed, or the heating system. Like the San Francisco-bound 42-footer, this one is being outfitted with four bunks, an enclosed head and shower, and a settee in the wheelhouse, along with a galley. A tuna tank and bait tanks are being installed beneath the deck.
Taylored Boats in Addison, Maine, whose lineup of boats is based on the Willis Beal-designed RP molds that now carry the Willis Beal name, is building a 44' x 17' 6" lobster boat for a Trescott, Maine, fisherman. She’ll have lobster tanks below deck and an open stern. The 800-hp Scania that’s to be bolted to the engine beds should get her up to 22 knots, says Taylored Boats’ Peter Taylor, “though she might be a little quicker. But I’ll err on the side of caution.” The 44-footer is scheduled to be completed in October or November.
Taylored Boats delivered another Willis Beal 44 this past October to a lobsterman in Jonesport. That one also has an 800-hp Scania and should pack 24 crates of lobsters below deck.
An addition to Taylored Boats’ lineup of Willis Beal-designed hulls is the Willis Beal 50, which started out as a 42 that was then lengthened in the middle by 7 feet and given an additional 5 feet of beam, pushing it out to 19' 6". The only 50 built so far is the Paradigm, which was completed at the beginning of 2020 for a Jonesport lobsterman. She was built with all composite construction. The Paradigm is an overnight boat with four bunks up forward and a refrigerator. For power a 900-hp Scania is bolted to the engine beds. Fishermen have shown an interest in building another Willis Beal 50, but, so far, no one has ponied up the money.
