The Swiss Army Knife of Trawlers
2001 Rosborough RF-246 Custom Wheelhouse - $45,000
Most boats are floating prisons. You buy a trawler in the Chesapeake, and suddenly, you are “a Chesapeake boater.” To get to Maine takes two weeks of burning diesel; to get to the Keys takes a month. Your geography is dictated by your hull speed.
The Rosborough RF-246 is the jailbreak key.
Born in Nova Scotia and originally designed for the Canadian Coast Guard and fisheries patrol, this vessel is a cult legend for one specific reason: It is a proper, sea-going little ship that fits on a trailer. With an 8’6” beam, it is street legal without a permit. This means you can cruise the Penobscot Bay in August, haul the boat out, drive 24 hours south, and be cruising the Abacos in September.
It doesn’t look like the plastic “pocket cruisers” you see at boat shows. It looks like a shrunken tugboat. It has a vertical pilothouse, heavy sliding doors, and a bow high enough to punch through a North Atlantic chop. It wasn’t designed to look pretty at the dock; it was designed to keep Canadian patrol officers dry while working in nasty weather.
