Lady Nell – Washington State crab boat sponson
Lady Nell is a Washington state steel crab boat out of Westport. A steel hull built in 1988 56′ in length. Boat has been brought in to add sponsons. adding 5′ to port and 5′ to star and an overall 10′ to the beam.
You should be proud, you all did an awesome job, the boat looks great.
It,s square. The boat had nice lines, if it is to be that wide it needed another 20 to 22 feet in length. Even with the bulbous bow the point of entry is so wide it will need 4 to 5 hundred hp up grade to reach 10 knots. If it was not desired to be longer a 2′ sponson each side would have been adequate IMHO.
I think that some swath, or even flat bottomed pontoon types of sponsons would have helped in carrying much of the buoyancy burden, and also significantly increasing stability, as well as by helping the newly widened vessel, by lifting the vessel to ride just a little higher in the water, (but not lifted up so far that it would be all the way out of the water, like a swath, catamaran, or pontoon).
I would love to see a follow up article on this vessel, and it’s buoyancy, and handling characteristics, etc.
Also, … I wish that these boat sponsoning articles would show at least the basic before and after hull specs.