Shrimp boats get exported; Va. wooden seine skiffs built. (South).

Russell Steiner of Steiner Shipyard in Bayou La Batre, Ala., says low shrimp prices and an active decade or so of boat-building for local U.S. fishermen has depressed the domestic market for new shrimp boats.

Steiner Shipyard, however, is building shrimp boats for foreign fishermen. Currently, the yard is building a shrimp trawler for Compagnie Francais de Peche Nouvelle of Cayenne, French Guiana. This is the 27th shrimp boat Steiner Shipyard has built for the firm.

The steel shrimper is one of the yard's stock designs and measures 75' x 22' x 11'. This is smaller than shrimpers built for U.S. fishermen working the Gulf of Mexico, whose boats are often over 100 feet. Part of the reason for the smaller size for boats going to South America is that companies "pay a lot of attention to how many boats they can tie up to a dock. So they don't want a big boat," says Andy Overstreet, vice president and engineering manager at Steiner Shipyard.

The 75-footer is powered by a 425-hp Cummins Marine KTA19-M diesel that is hooked up to a Twin Disc marine gear with a 6:1 ratio. The prop is a 61-inch, 4-bladed Rice wheel. With this power combination, the trawler has a cruising speed of 9.5 knots.

The shrimper's electrical power comes from a Caterpillar 3304 85-kW generator. On deck is a pair of trawl winches built by the McElroy/Catchot Winch Co.

The catch will be frozen on trays in a 2,800-cubic-foot freezer hold. There are accommodations for four crewmen and a captain.

When the shrimper is launched, she will have been built to Bureau Veritas loadline standards. As a result, the hull will have much heavier scantlings than on a comparably sized U.S. shrimper. For instance, a boat built for a domestic fisherman might have angle frames measuring 3" x 4" x 1/4", whereas this boat's frames measure 10" x 3" x 5/16".