Boats of 2025 : Two Veteran Lobstermen, Two Different Approaches

By Brian Robbins

2025 saw a mix of projects in Maine’s boatbuilding shops –new boats and older boats reborn (refurbished and/or repowered), boats targeted at fishing up in the bays, and bigger hulls built to run off outside.

Hutchinson Composites adds a 4' extension to their 42'x15' model to create the Mussel Ridge 46 hull.

Two of the fleet’s new additions were for veteran lobstermen who have put in their time on the water, paid their dues, and aren’t ready to hang up their oil pants just yet. Both had good reasons to build new boats — and the boats they had built are very different.

Cool Change: return to inshore roots

I first met lobsterman John Drouin 32 years ago when I made the long drive down to Cutler to do a story for Commercial Fisheries News on John’s 36’ Rebbie’s Girl — the first brand-new boat of his already-established fishing career.

Over the years since, John maintained a reputation as one of the “first out of the harbor” guys, with his boats increasing in size to keep up with the pace, the biggest being a Super 46 Wesmac, launched in 2015.

The inspiration for the name of John Drouin's 36-footer was the hit song by the Little River Band in 1979. (No relation to Little River Boat Shop.) All photos by B. Robbins.

The boats grew to match the workload, but John only had one body and the years took their toll. There were things that came with the territory, including back issues, a torn rotator cuff, and a torn wrist ligament. There was the unexpected: a go-round with prostate cancer, for which he sought the help of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston to beat. And there was the exhaustion, brain fog, and just generally feeling-like-hell that went unexplained for a long time ... until he was finally diagnosed with Lyme disease in late 2022.

The Lyme symptoms got to the point where John decided to sell his 46-footer. He knew he was done fishing outside, but he wasn’t necessarily done lobstering.

The combination of a new doctor with a different (and successful) approach to Lyme treatment and the yen to return to his inshore roots (“All pairs and triples ... no hassle with the big tides ... no amount of gear around you”) inspired John to have a new 36-footer built.

SW Boatworks in Lamoine supplied the Calvin Beal-designed 36’x13’9” solid fiberglass hull and molded top for John’s new Cool Change, which was finished by Little River Boat Shop in Cutler.

“It’s the perfect size for what I want to do at this point in my life,” said John. “And between their years of building boats and fishing themselves, the Little River crew knows what to do ... there’s nothing that I’d change about this boat.”

Billings Diesel & Marine — John’s longtime go-to when it comes to his engines — supplied Cool Change’s QSL9 Cummins (450 hp @ 2100 rpm) and 2:1 ZF 305 gear.

With a 28”x34” ZF prop (Nautilus Marine) on a 2” driveline from R.E. Thomas Marine Hardware, the 36-footer cruises a little over 18 knots at 1800 rpm with a 13 gal/hr fuel burn. Wide-open is 24.2 knots.

Once the 2025 lobster season was underway, John was all smiles. “I’ve changed the size of my boat and changed the way that I fish,” he told me. “And I’m back to looking forward to each day on the water.”

Mallary Maria: built for comfort

Tad Miller and his faithful companion Tiller.

One of the first things I asked Tad Miller when we got together to talk about his new 46’ Mallary Maria last summer was why he decided to size up rather than size down. The 65-year-old Matinicus-based lobsterman (whose mainland home is in Tenants Harbor) had fished a 40-footer for years.

“You’re at the crossroads where a lot of people would be thinking about ramping things down,” I said to Tad. He smiled and nodded.

“Actually, I was probably at those crossroads a few years back,” he said, laughing. “And I missed the turn.”

Tad admits his knees are paying the price for a lifetime of hard work on the water. He had surgery on one in January of 2025 (he was fishing again by March) and it still bothers him; the other he hadn’t decided about.

“The idea of a bigger, heavier boat that was more comfortable was what appealed to me,” Tad told me. “That and the pogies.”

Ah, yes – pogies: the saving grace bait-wise of the inshore lobster fishery these days.

After years of re-rigging things to go seining with his old boat, Tad’s Mallary Maria can be made ready for pogey fishing pretty quickly. In fact, the only reason he went with an open stern on the 46-footer was for seining.

“As far as lobstering goes, I’m not fishing trawls ... I don’t need an open stern," Tad said.

Hutchinson Composite’s Mussel Ridge 46 hull measures 46’x15’ – close to a 3:1 length:width ratio, which appealed to Tad. “That was the rule of thumb for lobster boat hulls years ago. I was hoping to see some efficiency from that,” he said.

Tad had nothing but praise for finishers Clark Island Boat Works. “Everybody knows Clark Island’s reputation,” he said of the St. George finish shop. “The whole crew is extremely capable, and they can do just about everything in-house, from metal fabrication to wiring.”

Tad’s choice of power for his 46-footer was a 1000-horse C16 FPT from Mid-Coast Diesel Performance, matched to a ZF 500 2.19:1 gear. The FPT’s wallop is carried aft to a cupped 34”x40” 4-bladed prop (Nautilus Marine) via a 3” driveline from R.E. Thomas Marine Hardware.

The hull/engine combo handles a load well. The day before our get-together, Tad had loaded Mallary Maria with 51 full barrels on deck. He experimented with throttle settings on the way home. “I brought her back to about 1650-1700 rpm. We were doing 10 knots and burning 20 gallons of fuel an hour.”

When she’s in lobstering trim, Mallary Maria tops out at 26 knots, with a 20-knot cruise at 1900 rpm and a 24 gal/hr fuel burn. Even without a deck load of pogies, the 46-footer weighed 38,000 pounds on launch day, which translates to that comfy ride Tad Miller was looking for.