Specifications include, but are not limited to: The Lake Powell project is in need of a new boat that can handle all sampling conducted at Lake Powell including: plankton tows, horizontal ichthyoplankton tows, gill netting, mid water trawls, and hydro-acoustics surveys. Sampling is conducted lake wide with trips taking 3-5 days to complete and covering up to 400 miles. Due to the remote nature of the lake and lack of road and ramp access to upper sections, traveling via boat and sleeping on shore or on the boat in inclement weather is logistically necessary. For this reason, the boat will need to be able to handle frequent beaching, and accommodate loading and unloading gear from the bow easily. Water conditions on the lake can be rough at times from considerable boat traffic and heavy winds necessitating a hull design that can ride well and handle these conditions. To accommodate these sampling strategies, we need a 24-28-foot hull with a large cabin that can be used to work and sleep in. The cabin needs to be walk-through and large enough for a worktable and bench(s) and floor space/benches to sleep on when needed. Power needs to be twin outboard engines that are efficient while being able to cruise at 35-40 MPH. The boat needs fore and aft workspace for pulling nets with ample lighting for working at night. We carry camping and sampling gear so storage options are needed either below deck, in the cabin, on the roof of the cabin, or most likely a combination of both. To accommodate trawling, we need to set up a winch and cable support for deploying and retrieving the net. This will require some custom work to figure out the best winch setup and pulley supports.
