ABSTRACT
There are a number of factors which effect the design of a particular fishing vessel (Mills, 1992) the most obvious being the positioning of the fishing gear on the deck. For example, side trawling requires the wheelhouse to be placed aft of amidships, while stern trawling necessitates the wheelhouse being placed amidships or forward. The engines (propulsion, winch and tank emptying) are usually placed under the wheelhouse to maximise storage tank area for the catch. It is possible to construct different designs on the same hull (Fyson, 1985) but this invariably means that only the hull ‘skin’ remains unchanged.
