A recent visit by friends, Vicky and Craig Johnsen, was highlighted by some elegant drawings that Craig had been working on for a proper power cruiser proposed to be built around a Gardner 6L3 engine he owned. This reminded me of a preliminary design I had worked on some years ago but I must have gotten distracted and had never finished it. Several months later, I dusted off the drawings, wrapped them up and I now present the new version to you here — its resemblance to Craig’s drawing is striking.

I don’t own a Gardner 6L3 (though I certainly wish I did), a 6,700 lb. chunk of sweet sounding metal with a top RPM of 1,000 and generating 150 real horses (not those little ponies so common these days with higher speed and much lighter diesel engines). These horses could swing a 50 inch propeller with ease and make for the maneuvering of the boat armed with such gear a real exhibit of skill and mastery.

But back to the Josephine 47….without owning the Gardner, the next best option is to choose a John Deere 6068 engine with horsepower of 236 medium sized ponies.  This is a reasonable option with a top RPM of 2,400 turns and it should run very smooth at something like a speed of 1,800 revs. That should give us a cruising speed of 8.5 knots over the bottom. The engine is below the pilothouse and very well insulated with Aquadrive isolation of the shaft, soft engine mounts, and lots of sound insulation.

I think the two features that I most like about this design are the extension of the same arrangement that we use on our 81 year old Salmon Troller “Josephine” — the covered afterdeck and the completely separate cabin configuration of the accommodations. With the covered deck aft, the dingy can stow above on the solid roof and canvas drop curtains can be set on the sides of the aft roof enclosing off the entire stern for use when the weather is inclement. You would be surprised at how much you use the ‘covered porch’. Even simple little tasks can be done using the aft cabin housetop as a working and cooking area. When cruising in our own boat, I often wake up early and take a single burner butane stove to the aft deck to brew up my morning coffee without bothering Soitza sleeping below. A pleasant, quiet and peaceful start to the morning is a really great way to cruise. We often don’t do breakfast until we have run for the first hour or two, taking advantage of the typical flat water of the calm summer mornings, and a nice plate of scrambled eggs, salsa, and toast and another cup of coffee seems really civilized while underway. The smell of bacon from the galley in the pilothouse is visceral in its connection with the idea of a pleasant cruise on the water.

If you choose the centerline wheel pilothouse arrangement, there are doors both to port and starboard. The off center helm option shows a different arrangement for the seating in the pilothouse and eliminates the portside door — choose the layout that suits you best.

The fo’c’sle is a separate cabin from the large aft cabin with its own head and shower units. You can condemn the guests you drag along to this cabin where they can stack like cordwood in the staggered over/under port and starboard berths.

So let’s talk briefly about how you might proceed with this design as this drawing is really just a line and lure lowered into the water in an attempt to catch one of you readers. If you find this design tickling your fancy and you would like to talk more about fleshing it out into your own dreams, please give me a call. I look forward to that conversation — it will gives me a feel for what your own ideas are for the perfect boat, enable me to share my own motives and dreams for such a boat, and we’ll both learn a lot in the process. Together, the two of us can come up with a really amazing boat and project! – Sam Devlin

The Josephine 47 is available as study plans and as a custom build from Devlin Boats.