Island Bound
Senior Member
- Joined
- Nov 30, 2014
- Messages
- 113
- Location
- USA
- Vessel Name
- Semper Fi
- Vessel Make
- 2005 Great Harbour N37
Now that Great Harbour Trawlers have their own forum, I thought it would be appropriate to re-post this. It was originally posted two years ago under the the "Great Harbour N37 Young America at our dock yesterday" thread. It has been updated and lightly edited for accuracy and clarification.
[FONT="]There has been a lot of interest on this forum recently in Great Harbour Trawlers and I thought I might provide, with some help from the Great Harbour Trawler Association (GHTA) archives, a little bit of build history. To date there has been a total of 57 of these stout little ships built, spanning 1996 to 2016. These 57 boats can be broken down into two size groups and four different models.
The original concept vessel was a 37’ model designated a GH37. Christened Hemisphere Dancer, she was completed in 1996 and was given hull #10 in the trawler series. The first GH47, a ten foot longer version of the GH37, was built in 2000 and assigned hull #21.
In 2002, the first flush deck N37 was completed (hull #25) using the same hull mold as the GH37. This vessel was the first of three Great Harbour N37s to be christened Semper Fi and she was used as a demo boat for Mirage Manufacturing, the parent company of Great Harbor Trawlers. The last model to be introduced by Mirage was the N47.[FONT="] It was[/FONT] similar in layout to the N37 but built on the GH47 hull, which added ten more feet of waterline and featured larger staterooms, a lower level dinette and an extra head. The first N47 model was launched in 2007 (hull #46) and is considered by many to be their favorite Great Harbour Trawler model. The below note was added by Eric Kraft (Kraftee) after my original post two years ago and I am including it here for the additional insight it provides:[/FONT]
To add just a little: Not only were the early GH37s and N37s built in the same hull mold - but all of the GH47s and N47s were built in this same mold! There was a pair of ten-foot inserts that were bolted into the mold to make it 47' long. This mold was eventually made into a permanent 47' mold and a new 37' mold was made off of the 12th N37 hull (#44), "Meermin".
[FONT="]Of the 57 trawlers built, 55 of them are still plying the coastal and near shore island waterways as they were designed to do. The only total hull loss has been the last GH37 built (hull #53), which was tragically destroyed in an arson fire that resulted in the death of the owner. Last fall Esmeralda, the fifth N37 model built (hull #31) was severely damaged during Hurricane Matthew and sold as salvage. She is back in the Mirage yard in Gainesville, FL and it is reported that she will be rebuilt.
For those of you keeping score here is the build breakdown over the past twenty years:
20 GH37 Models
22 N37 Models
9 GH47 Models
6 N47 Models
Until recently, the last trawler built was Island Swan (hull #65), an N37 model completed in 2010. In late 2014, Mirage started building a new N37, which was splashed last spring and assigned hull #67 in the Great Harbour Trawler sequence. That disconnect in hull numbers came about because hull #66 has been reassigned to Spoonbill (previously hull #64), an N47 model Mirage charter boat built just prior to Island Swan in 2009. Spoonbill was sold in April of 2014 and certified and re-documented with the USCG as Almost Heaven, a 2014 model year new build. She was given a new Hull Identification Number (HIN) [/FONT][FONT="]reflecting hull #66 and a March of 2014 certification or completion date. [/FONT]
[FONT="]There has been a lot of interest on this forum recently in Great Harbour Trawlers and I thought I might provide, with some help from the Great Harbour Trawler Association (GHTA) archives, a little bit of build history. To date there has been a total of 57 of these stout little ships built, spanning 1996 to 2016. These 57 boats can be broken down into two size groups and four different models.
The original concept vessel was a 37’ model designated a GH37. Christened Hemisphere Dancer, she was completed in 1996 and was given hull #10 in the trawler series. The first GH47, a ten foot longer version of the GH37, was built in 2000 and assigned hull #21.
In 2002, the first flush deck N37 was completed (hull #25) using the same hull mold as the GH37. This vessel was the first of three Great Harbour N37s to be christened Semper Fi and she was used as a demo boat for Mirage Manufacturing, the parent company of Great Harbor Trawlers. The last model to be introduced by Mirage was the N47.[FONT="] It was[/FONT] similar in layout to the N37 but built on the GH47 hull, which added ten more feet of waterline and featured larger staterooms, a lower level dinette and an extra head. The first N47 model was launched in 2007 (hull #46) and is considered by many to be their favorite Great Harbour Trawler model. The below note was added by Eric Kraft (Kraftee) after my original post two years ago and I am including it here for the additional insight it provides:[/FONT]
To add just a little: Not only were the early GH37s and N37s built in the same hull mold - but all of the GH47s and N47s were built in this same mold! There was a pair of ten-foot inserts that were bolted into the mold to make it 47' long. This mold was eventually made into a permanent 47' mold and a new 37' mold was made off of the 12th N37 hull (#44), "Meermin".
[FONT="]Of the 57 trawlers built, 55 of them are still plying the coastal and near shore island waterways as they were designed to do. The only total hull loss has been the last GH37 built (hull #53), which was tragically destroyed in an arson fire that resulted in the death of the owner. Last fall Esmeralda, the fifth N37 model built (hull #31) was severely damaged during Hurricane Matthew and sold as salvage. She is back in the Mirage yard in Gainesville, FL and it is reported that she will be rebuilt.
For those of you keeping score here is the build breakdown over the past twenty years:
20 GH37 Models
22 N37 Models
9 GH47 Models
6 N47 Models
Until recently, the last trawler built was Island Swan (hull #65), an N37 model completed in 2010. In late 2014, Mirage started building a new N37, which was splashed last spring and assigned hull #67 in the Great Harbour Trawler sequence. That disconnect in hull numbers came about because hull #66 has been reassigned to Spoonbill (previously hull #64), an N47 model Mirage charter boat built just prior to Island Swan in 2009. Spoonbill was sold in April of 2014 and certified and re-documented with the USCG as Almost Heaven, a 2014 model year new build. She was given a new Hull Identification Number (HIN) [/FONT][FONT="]reflecting hull #66 and a March of 2014 certification or completion date. [/FONT]
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