When designing your hull you need to understand that with each decision comes a trade off. Do you want a better riding boat or more interior space? Do you want speed or do you want fuel efficiency? More but smaller staterooms and heads or fewer but larger? It is all a trade off but the beauty of building custom is that for the most part it is your choice. Each builder has some aspects of their boats that there are no compromises - for Ritchie Howell it is the ride. All he hulls are designed with one thing in mind, to be the best riding boat in its class. Ritchie Howell uses Applied Concepts when designing all his boats and combining their technical expertise with Ritchie Howell hands on experience provides a boat second to none.

Cold-Molding

Though there are different approaches to cold-molded construction the basic application starts with a wooden-framed jig - thus the term mold is a misnomer. The hull, house and bridge are all built on separate jigs and the hull is built upside down.

Three layers of marine grade okume plywood varying in thickness are stacked one on top of the other in alternating directions. Each layer is glue and screwed together

The hull is then flipped and internal bulkheads are added. The engine room begins to take shape, exhausts are mounted, foward floors are installed.

One other aspect of a Ritchie Howell where there is not compromise is the finish of the engine. Significant time is spent fairing out and finishing the engine so that it is a nice as most exterior hulls on the water. Of course a nice looking engine room needs even nicer engines and now is the time to install your engine package and generator.

Once the engines are it is time to secure the molded house and brdige.

From the moment you decide to go custom you have to start thinking about you interior. Shortly into the build process the bulkhead walls will go up and then the rooms will begin to take shape. Whether you go with standard showers or custom they will be installed first as the rest of the cabin below will fall in place around them.

For any true fisherman - this is the place to be. It is where all the action takes place. It is yours to design from start to finish. Do you want to go with mezzanine seating, a huge fishbox, livewells, day boxes, cockpit controls and so on. Make it the cockpit you've always dreamed of so when you are 100 miles offshore trolling the edge everything is where you want it to be.