Commodores Boats Transforms Alaskan Crabber into a Powerhouse
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Commodores Boats in Richmond, British Columbia, has been repairing boats for over 30 years, and the yard has seen some interesting projects. Last year, the crew sponsoned two boats, the Golovin Bay and the Sea Lady, at close to the same time using two different systems. According to Jake Spiller, the son of owner Bo Spiller, Commodores does most of its own design work and did so with the Golovin Bay, but they tried something new with the Sea Lady. “We used a designer who scanned the hull and created CAD files, and we sent those out to be cut. We like to try new things and hopefully improve our customers’ experience.”
On the Golovin Bay, an aluminum crabber/longliner owned by Don Stiles in Nome, Alaska, the crew at Commodores did things the way they have on many previous sponson jobs, “Brendan Burgess ran that project. It was almost like building a new boat,” says 23-year-old Spiller. “We widened it by four feet on each side and stretched it out from thirty-eight feet to fifty. There’s not much of the original left.”
Don Stiles fishes red king crab in Alaska’s Norton Sound, and when working the waters around the waters of Little Diomedes Island, he is often just a few miles from Russia. “I fish the open access king crab fishery in Norton Sound,” says Stiles. “We’re allowed 40 traps and boats up to 50 feet.” It’s a race, Stiles notes, and he wanted the capacity to do better in it. “I’d been thinking for a few years about lengthening my boat, and then I saw one that Commodores had done, and I liked it. So, I called them up and they said they could do it, and the price was reasonable.” Stiles pulled the trigger, and the Golovin Bay arrived in Richmond in October 2022.
read more at nationalfisherman.com.
