Trawlers and Trawlering: A Review

I’ve been told by many people that Trawlers and Trawlering (sometimes known as T&T) is a great forum and that it has some of the best discussions about trawlering on the web. However, I’m a bit skeptical of the site… Not because of its lack of content, but because of the mechanics and setup of the site.

In case you don’t know, Trawlers and Trawlering is one of the largest forum for trawlers on the internet. The archives go back to 1970 (I’m not sure if that’s a typo… anybody know for sure?) and then pick up again in 1998. However, according to the about page:

The [Trawlers and Trawlering] list was founded in 1997 by Georgs Kolesnikovs as a commercial-free forum for the personal use of private individuals, whether they be owners of motor vessels or wannabes.

If you’re not familiar with Trawlers and Trawlering, the site uses a mailing list setup over a traditional web forum. This is the source of my main complaint about the site. I think that T&T should use a more modern discussion forum approach – making it easier to follow threads.

Four main mailing lists:

• T&T List – claims to be the biggest and best trawler forum on the web
• Great Loop List – obviously, about the Great Loop
• Passagemaking Under Power – Offshore trawlering
• Trawler Buy-Sell-Trade – a marketplace of sorts

I will post comments on both sides of the fence about T&T as I am able to find them. I will update this as I get more research.

In addition to Trawlers and Trawlering, other forums to check out for trawlers:

• Trawler Forum – a fairly small forum by trawler/boat standards. About 1,800 members when this review was originally published. A quiet forum, although that’s not necessarily bad. There’s good, high quality, light-hearted trawler discussions on here. I like it.
• Cruisers Forum – a larger boating and cruising forum with about 51,000 members. Lots of content related to sailing, powerboats, and trawlering.
• Trawler Crawler – the smallest trawler forum that I’ve seen. Very slow. 610 members. Could use some TLC from the moderators but there may be some good trawlering content here.