January 9, 1997
JMC File No. 96105

Subject: F/V Seadawn Fisheries Takes Delivery of F/V SEADAWN, with New Pilot House and Interior to a Design by Jensen Maritime Consultants

Jensen Maritime Consultants, Inc. (JMC) has recently completed the design for the replacement of the pilot house and all interior accommodations for the F/V SEADAWN, a 124′ x 40′ stern trawler. The Seattle naval architecture firm designed the modifications to the vessel for F/V Seadawn Fisheries of Newport, Oregon. Duwamish Shipyard, Seattle, Washington delivered the vessel to the Owners on January 3, 1997.

In August 1996, Fred Yeck, President of F/V Seadawn Fisheries, worked with Jensen Maritime Consultants to develop a design and specifications for a new stepped aluminum pilot house and interior accommodations. Duwamish Shipyard was chosen from Northwest shipyards who submitted bids in response to a solicitation by Jensen Maritime and F/V Seadawn Fisheries.

A contract for construction was signed in September. The SEADAWN arrived at the shipyard November 1, 1996 and was redelivered January 3 of this year from Duwamish Shipyard’s Seattle facility. Prefabrication of the new aluminum pilot house structure was accomplished before the vessel arrived at the shipyard.

The addition of the new pilot house completes a major transformation of the vessel that began in 1993 when the vessel was lengthened, sponsoned and repowered. The SEADAWN was built in 1974 in Tacoma by Martinolich Shipbuilding as a 110′ x 29′ crabber. In 1986 F/V Seadawn Fisheries purchased the vessel. The SEADAWN then entered the joint venture trawl fisheries in Alaska and Oregon.

When the joint venture trawl fisheries faded out, the SEADAWN secured markets to deliver pollock and cod to shoreside processing plants in Dutch Harbor, Alaska. At that point, the need for a larger vessel became evident to provide increased vessel stability, capacity and catch rates in the Bering Sea fisheries.

In 1992 F/V Seadawn Fisheries worked with Jensen Maritime Consultants to develop a design for transforming the SEADAWN into a 124′ x 40′ trawler by the addition of 6.5′ sponsons on each side and a 14′ midbody. The construction for that project was accomplished at the old Union Bay Shipbuilding yard in Seattle in 1993. But the original single level pilot house remained, largely out of proportion with the new hull dimensions and with limited visibility for trawling and crabbing.

A decision to make the SEADAWN’s transformation complete was made in August when Fred Yeck worked with Jensen Maritime Consultants to develop the new pilot house design. The new house has much better visibility, stronger scantlings to withstand heavy weather conditions encountered in the Bering Sea, and much larger size to better accommodate the trawling electronics and controls, and two staterooms.

Now that the transformation is complete, the SEADAWN looks great! It is one of the few sponsoned fishing boats in the Alaskan and west coast fisheries that has a pilot house that complements the proportions of the rest of the vessel.