F/V Pinnacle Delivered by Tri-Star Marine

Friday, August 27, 1999

Jensen Maritime Consultants, Inc. (JMC), recently completed the design for new 140 x 38 ft. F/V Pinnacle. The Seattle naval architecture firm designed the new vessel for Walt Casto of Snohomish, Wash. Tri-Star Marine, Seattle, delivered the vessel to the owner in February 1999. In late 1997, Walt Casto met with HMC to discuss the prospects of building a new vessel. The original Pinnacle, built at Homeport Marine Services, Moss Point, Miss. in 1991, was to be sold to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game as a fisheries patrol vessel. Casto wanted to replace the existing vessel with a JMC design of similar capacity and length. A previous 114 ft. JMC design was used as a basis and significantly expanded and modified to fit the design parameters. Pinnacle is a traditional Pacific Northwest "power scow" type design, with pilot house and accommodations aft, and working deck and foc'sle forward. A bowthruster and hydraulic machinery space is forward, with a dry hold directly aft for gear storage. The dry hold and the engine room are connected by a tunnel, which splits the crab tanks directly at centerline. The vessel is twin screw, with main engines forward and a traditional strut arrangement for the propeller shafts. Airfoil-shaped spade rudders are aft with steering machinery in the lazarette. The spade rudders have small rubber shoes and pintles to prevent fishing gear from fouling on the bottom of the rudders. The foc'sle deck is used for the anchor handling winch and mooring. A large (84 x 38 ft.) working deck is aft of the foc'sle for pot storage. The starboard deck crane, with integral pot hauler davit, is used for pot handling while retrieving and setting the gear, and the port crane is for use when storing the crab pots aboard the vessel. The main deck accommodations consist of a workshop to starboard, a locker room with adjacent washroom and galley and mess to port with large dry, chilled and frozen stores capacity. Argonaut Marine, Seattle, performed the numerical control (NC) lofting for Tri-Star in support of steel and aluminum fabrication. Seaport Steel in Seattle supplied the structural materials and plate cutting. All hull construction is mild steel, including the superstructure, pilot house and freestanding masts and rigging. Pinnacle is fitted with a molded type bulbous bow, which helps reduce pitching motions in heavy head seas. Bottom and side plating is .375 in. plate, with flat bar longitudinal framing and .3125 in. flanged plate web frames and non-tight bulkheads, with a .5 in plate ice belt installed from the eight ft. waterline to the main deck. The bulwarks, foc'sle and aft house are .3125 in. plate with flat bar longitudinal framing and .25 in. flanged plate web frames. Pinnacle's accommodations provide comfortable quarters for as many as 15 crew, although most of the time, the vessel will be operated with a crew of seven. The accommodations are outfitted with white paneling and teak trim, expertly installed by Paul Pipes. The exterior hull is dark blue with gray and white trim. The pilot house and mast are white with dark blue trim. Pinnacle, skippered by Walt Casto's son Mark, departed Tri-Star's facility for the opilio crab fishery in the Bering Sea.