Bay Weld Boats has launched a new custom vessel, an aluminum limit seiner that an April 11 press release called “one of its most ambitious builds to date.” The product of six months of design and 18 months of construction, the vessel — built for a commercial fishing family based out of Girdwood — is now fully outfitted and in the water, ready to join Alaska’s fishing fleet.
The 58-foot seiner, equipped with “state of the art” systems and twin jet propulsion, was designed to have a shallow draft even when loaded with salmon, making it an optimal vessel for fishing the technical zones in Prince William Sound, according to the release.
Bay Weld owner Eric Engebretsen, in an April 29 interview with Homer News, called the seiner build “a bit of a lifelong journey.”
“I grew up commercial fishing on smaller seiners — as did Brad Conley, who’s the designer of the boat — so working on this project together has been a dream for us for a long time,” he said.
Not only is the build a first for Bay Weld, he said, as a shallow-draft limit seiner, it’s the first of its kind in Alaska. An article published on the Bay Weld vessel by National Fisherman magazine in May 2024 noted that seiners are typically heavy, deep draft, steel-made and delivered from the Lower 48.
“It’s a lot of firsts for us,” Engebretsen said.
Now that they have one limit seiner build under their belts, Bay Weld anticipates more interest in similar projects.
“The commercial fishing fleet in Alaska — in particular the seine boat fleet — is really an aged set of equipment that’s due for some reinvestment, some capitalization, so we expect that there’ll be more interest in boats in this category, for sure,” Engebretsen said.
He added that the new boat represented an advancement in technology and competitiveness.
“This is a very modern approach to building a seiner, so I think this boat is going to have a very competitive advantage, and that’s going to affect the fleet, and then it’ll drive others to be equally competitive,” he said.
Learn more about Bay Welding at bayweldboats.com/.
A new limit seiner fabricated by Bay Weld Boats cruises through the water after its launch in April 2025. Photo courtesy of Matt Lowber
