Today, the most popular Louisiana-built, wooden-hull shrimp trawler, in the 40-foot or longer class, is a large flat-bottomed skiff. These skiffs have high bows, sharp entries, and considerable forward sheer for making weigh in offshore seas. Widely flaring bows and broad flat hulls add to their stability. Their forward cabins and high bows are reminiscent of the south Atlantic trawlers (local French, floridiane) brought from Florida, beginning in 1937, when the deep-water brown shrimp industry was first developing in Louisiana. But, whereas the old floridianes typically had deep, modeled (soft-chine) hulls, the hulls of the modern trawling skiffs are hard-chined and often more shallow in draft. Powerful, stable, and versatile, the modern trawlers are capable of pulling large multiple trawls in deep offshore waters, but they also can shrimp inshore shallows with a variety of rigs. The trawler pictured in this image is rigged with butterfly wing nets used for shrimping inshore tidal waters.

-- C. Ray Brassieur,
University of Louisiana at Lafayette

South Louisiana

Cajun