Provincetown Lobsterboat Gets a Drop-Down Tailgate

Nauset Marine recently installed an aluminum transom tailgate on a customer’s 36-foot lobsterboat, Susan Lynn. The boat, a Calvin Beal design built two years ago by Sargent’s Custom Boats in Milbridge, Maine, was in the Nauset shop for about a month while crews completed the modification and performed other significant upgrades. The new tailgate will allow the Provincetown-based lobsterman to set more traps more easily than ever before.

“There’s so much gear out there these days, lobstermen are going to have to shift to ten-pot trawls before too long,” explains Nauset Marine owner and master builder David Deschamps. “This owner decided to get out in front of it and make this change.”

The modification involved removing the existing transom, installing a stainless receiver, and fabricating the new tailgate, which is secured with a pair of easy-to-use locks. “He wanted something neat, something that lays flat like a pickup tailgate so that he can set his traps right from it,” Deschamps explains. While the open transom allows for easier setting of traps, lobstermen appreciate the peace of mind that comes from knowing the gate can be closed when navigating rough waters.

In addition to the new tailgate, Deschamps and his crew replaced all the chafing gear, added trim tabs, reinstalled the QSC Cummins Diesel, created better roof-top storage, and added three feet to the aluminum trap rack on the boat’s port side.

To see more projects underway at Nauset Marine, click here.