Thanks Don, I’ll check them out. BTW, did they happen to have the mesh in green?
Search for: “A Guide to Oregon’s Commercial Fishing Vessels”
This may be helpful to you. I can’t provide a link as when I click on the sight it automatically downloads.
Bubba Gump Shrimp…
Looks good, Don.
Love that Shell Welder! I build mine a number of years ago. I was looking at it recently and decided I did not weather it enough. I plan to clean up the model and redo the weathering (unless I find another kit of it somewhere soon).
They had it in a number of colors- forget which ones. However, all the colors were highly saturated. The pictures I have found so far seem to show nets a dirty brownish red. I will check your reference.
There are a lot of green photos out there:
But, I see what you mean about the red:
Big problem!.. First major one of the build. There is a winch that mounts on the deck. It goes between the mast and a big hatch- call it the main hatch. But there is not room for it. There are mounting pads on the deck. But it will not fit there. If it is installed as shown on the plans, the controls of the winch interfere with that hatch. If I turn it around, it interferes with the mast. Even if I were to chop into things and mount it as shown on plans, the crew could never open that hatch! There is just not room between mast and hatch where the pads are. If I did mount it elsewhere on deck, those mounting pads would still be there on the deck. Not sure what to do. Only fix I can think of is to remake the hatch, making it shorter, and modify the deck- a major fix since deck is already glued into hull 
Well, the other option would seem to be to crunch the mast forward against the back of the cabin.
Looking at your original posts, there’s a hole for that, and a hole to the right of it. Do they have anything to do with each other.
Hi,
I had to look up some other build to see what you mean, but from the looks of it I guess that either what you suggest (shortening the hatch) or what GMorrison suggests (trying to move the mast) would seem to make th emost sense.
I guess a 3rd optiojn could maybe be to try and make a smaller winch though that may be difficult.
Pat
Another idea, I see in an RC boat forum, is to set the winch up a bit on blocks so that it overhangs the hatch but clears it.
Don,
You piqued my interest, so, I went to look at my kit even though I haven’t gotten so far as assembling the winch controls.
I think the question one is going to have to ask is, Is the hatch supposed to hinge open or it supposed to just lift off? The only thing I know about shrimp boats is that they float, so, I don’t know the correct answer.
I did some test fitting with the winch parts. From what I see, the winch stand sits up a bit, enough that if the hatch is supposed to just lift off, there will be no problem doing that.
The problem looks to be if the hatch is supposed to hinge up. Clearance is tight, but, the bullet shaped controls could be filed down to make room without getting to the handles. The big problem is the winch pulley, it sticks way out. I can’t think of a way around that one right now and it is too late at night to puzzle over it.
Hi Don
I looked at my unbuilt one .You are right , But if you move the mast tothe rear bulkhead of the deckhouse The Winch should fit okay . I don’t remember any problems with mine .I will dry fit these parts and see if I can be any help . T.B.
I think the hatch cover gets removed in a couple of pieces and stowed out of the way. I can see no reason to hinge it.
I realize that with the deck installed, this is hard.
Could you cut out the hatch coaming and a section of deck the width of that and a couple of feet long aft of it, them flip the whole thing around? All the cuts would hopefully be hidden under the winch.
Here are a couple of photos to explain my previous post.
Winch stand with hatch in place.
Winch stand with hatch ajar.
You can easily see that there is plenty of room to allow the hatch to be installed and removed.
Again, the question remains is the hatch supposed to hinge? If so, there is not enough clearance to rotate past the winch pulley (part #50). The bullet shape of parts #49 could be filed down flat to allow clearance past them.
I have decided to merely make a base to raise the winch a bit so it will fit. Not realizing the tight fit, I had mounted the spools so that some of the handles point downward a bit, causing interference with the hatch. I’ll have to raise the winch by about a scale 15 inches.
I think thats a good idea, also because what’s there is wimpy. I’ve looked at a bunch of seiners over the years. Those big net handling winches usually sit on pretty good sized timbers.
Well, I was curious what a giggle Image search might turn up.
This seems to support the hatch being several panels that lift out of framing.
This is much more modern, and shows individual covers
Not much else out there in image search.
Thanks. That confirms that raising the winch a bit will be an okay solution.
Don;
Before you do that .Look at the first pictures Carefully .Those are the Trawl-Boards or Net Spreaders . The hatch is sitting on the deck with a box on top of it . Remember , I am working from Memory here . The Trawl Boards helped spread the net open and keep it that way for catching those fast squirmy little critters !
When the trawl was lifted inboard the Bottom of the suspended net was opened , Allowing the Shrimp to fall into th hold below .Then re-cinched and dropped over again .
There are four sets of boards along the sides.
So, one pair is clearly the trawl boards (aka “otters”).
I have to onwder if the others go over the hatch lips to better guide the catch in.
Or not.
Mostly that photo caught my eye for being an example of the hatch being three parts all laid into one opening.
Zooming in, I cannot tell what that is on the hatch closest to the mast & winch. It may be two boxes of the same size just sitting there.
It’s definitely an older photo, just from the rigging details, and back before they much had to worry about sortign the catch into legal and bycatch. Or before the fashion of the big stern A frame took over.
Not so many years ago, here where I live, they’d probably be cases of Whiskey on their way onshore to the Lodge at Pebble Beach.