46' Converted Salmon Troller (1947) - TOMTE

In the dim recesses of time I was a commercial fisherman working off the north west coast of British Columbia. I was young and the learning curve was steep. Two lessons from that time that stuck with me were first, if I never killed another fish I would most probably die happy. Secondly, that when I retired, the absolute best way to enjoy the coast was in a converted west coast troller.
These boats are seaworthy, inexpensive to run, can be maintained by the owner, and are cheap to buy. I loved the boats and I loved the coast so when I finally retired after far too many years bashing around the oceans of the world in small vessels I talked my wife into sharing ownership of a retired troller.
It will surprise no one who knows me that after searching for a troller and buying Tomte we discovered that she wasn’t a fish boat at all. Or put another way, she had in fact been a fish boat but she was originally built as a logging camp tender, then converted to salmon troller, then converted to prawn boat.
In 2013 when we found her she was well on her way to a final career as soil. She had already suffered a quick and dirty conversion to recreational boat which we were assured by the previous owner (who had an unfortunate speech impediment) was carried out by a wonderful …well we never really figured out whether it was a finish carpenter or a Finnish carpenter. One or the other apparently.
At the first haul out I decided the boat was going in the dumpster. No we hadn’t had a survey done and we knew she was in tough shape but given the price I would have been happy to salvage the Gardner diesel and twin disc clutch. She was that inexpensive to buy..
I had carried out a major rebuild before in my life ( the well known Bristol Channel Pilot Cutter Carlotta was discovered by me rotting happily in a Cornish river, rebuilt and sailed to the west coat of Canada where I owned her for 35 years). I wanted nothing to do with another major rebuild.
Our friend Chad Gheseger, who is a wonderful shipwright, talked me out of the dumpster idea and assured me he would have her fixed up in no time. 4 years later we have a pretty nice boat ( and Chad has two children at a Swiss finishing school). Not an uncommon situation.
We tried to do a ‘sympathetic’ conversion. That is, as much as possible we kept to the original profile of a husky work boat rather than just plopping a big box on the aft deck. One of the unfortunate side effects of this devotion to the aesthetics is that when tied to a dock people on the dock can see into our sleeping cabin but we can’t see out.
We used Tomte during the summers and worked on her winters and I’ve managed to show my wife Christy and occasionally my daughter, Haida Qwaii, southeast Alaska, and summer after summer is spent exploring this beautiful coast in this most perfect but rudimentary old work boat.