When I received the May issue of WorkBoat, I immediately leafed through the magazine until I found the story about a new catamaran I wrote about (see "Lone Star," page 32).
The story concerns the Captain Murchison, a new patrol boat for Texas game wardens. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend checking it out because it’s a very cool boat. It was designed by Teknicraft in New Zealand and built by All American Marine in Bellingham, Wash. I don’t know how many boats the two companies have collaborated on, but it’s a lot. Most of the boats have been cats, many with the designer’s hydrofoil system for added speed and efficiency, but some have also been monohulls, like the Enhydra, an electric-hybrid tour boat for San Francisco’s Red and White Fleet.
I find it ironic that a company called All American is so closely allied with a company in New Zealand, but the name goes back to the boatbuilder’s founding in 1987 by Pat Pitsch, who was designing and building small gillnetters for Alaska. After Matt Mullett came in to provide more business acumen, the partnership with Teknicraft took off and is still working well for both parties. Pitsch moved on to form another boatbuilding company called Strongback Metal Boats. He has since retired, but Strongback lives on, as does All American, of course.
In scrolling through the May issue, I also noticed several other new cats featured in other stories, including a wind power support vessel and passenger boat built in Alaska.
For another look at the Captain Murchison, check out this video (https://youtu.be/QRqO1buE7XI ) of the new boat approaching port in Texas. It’s a bit long (with a souped-up Enya soundtrack) and it doesn’t include any footage of the boat’s RIB being deployed or recovered by its unique cradle system, but the video does show the boat and its “sickle” bows skimming along gracefully as crewmembers watch from the deck outside the pilothouse.
