By Daniel Mintz
California’s marine law enforcers carry out their missions in a challenging environment, and a new patrol vessel—the Barracuda—is designed to meet that challenge effectively and efficiently.
Launched last summer and starting operation Sept. 18, the 74-foot long, 27.5-foot wide Barracuda is built to make a demanding job as safe and productive as possible.
The catamaran is the result of a collaboration between the Bellingham, Wash.-based All American Marine (AAM) shipyard and New Zealand-based Teknicraft Design.
This year marks a quarter century of the North American builder-designer partnership. Daniel Zech, AAM’s business development manager, describes it as symbiotic.
“Our relationship with Teknicraft over 25 years means that Nic De Waal, the managing director there, knows exactly what our construction techniques are,” he said. “So he can design vessels to what we do and vice-versa.”
The result is a versatile, fuel-efficient vessel tailored for patrol work.
One of the Barracuda’s key design features is what AAM calls its “dynamic hydrofoil system,” which together with the hull design reduces wave resistance and enhances stability.
As the vessel comes up to speed, the hydrofoil lifts its bow out of the water and “by doing that, the foil is minimizing the wetted surface area of the hull, thereby reducing drag and increasing fuel efficiency,” Zech said.
The catamaran hull has inner and outer chines that help ‘peel away’ oncoming waves as the foil creates vertical lift.
“When it comes down to it, the foil is just like an aircraft wing except instead of air it’s water flowing over it to generate lift,” Zech said.
He added that “riding on top of the waves rather than plowing through them” reduces repetitive bouncing and increases crew comfort and safety.
Another key design feature is Teknicraft’s Rigid Hulled Inflatable Boat (RHIB) system. Stationed between the aft hulls, it allows launching and docking of a standalone skiff. Zech describes the system as a “force multiplier that allows the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) to do multiple things at the same time.”
The Barracuda’s width contributes to stability and allows plenty of deck space for storing seized illegal traps, carrying dive tanks and accommodating up to 10 crew members.
The Barracuda isn’t the first patrol boat of its class crafted by AAM. The 80-foot P/B Captain Murchison, also designed by Teknicraft, has been at work for the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife since 2020. Zech describes it as “the brainchild” of the CDFW vessel.
With the Barracuda, the CDFW will have five patrol boats; an older vessel, the P/B Steelhead, will go to auction.
California’s Biodiversity Enhancement Fund covers the new vessel’s $5.4 million cost, having been approved when the state had “a more enhanced budget year,” CDFW Patrol Lt. Brian Bailie said.
Bailie captained the Steelhead for 19 years and is now helming the Barracuda. One of his first post-construction tasks was to define the new vessel’s identity with a list of names voted on by his supervisory staff.
The names were all of predatory fish, as mandated by state law for patrol boats; the Barracuda won out. It refers to a species known for its striking appearance and one whose range aligns with the Barracuda’s patrol area—the entirety of the central California coast to 250 miles offshore.
Given the variety of patrol operations, including protection of marine resources and enforcement of fisheries regulations, the Barracuda is built for versatility.
“The patrols are set up to be offshore for multiple days at a time in different areas of the state doing different activities related to certain fisheries—sometimes we’re dealing with net fisheries, sometimes we’re dealing with trap fisheries, sometimes we’re dealing with longline fisheries,” Bailie explained.
“So we need boats and people capable to be offshore and to be able to handle all the ever-changing situations that we get into on a given day,” he added.
All of the CDFW’s patrol boats have RHIBs and skiffs, which are used to contact near-shore recreational and commercial fishing vessels.
“We can do it in a much safer manner—it’s hard to talk to someone on a 20-foot boat when your boat’s 75-foot,” Bailie said. “We need a smaller boat to reach out and communicate with people and to have better investigations.”
The Barracuda’s skiff is 19-feet long and equipped with a Mercury 115 outboard motor.
“Having that skiff is a force multiplier for us because the skiff can go one way and the patrol boat can go the other way and if I have enough staff running these long range vessels, we can cover way more ground in a shorter amount of time,” he said.
The older catamarans in the CDFW’s fleet use A-frame systems where it takes “multiple steps” to launch and dock skiffs. Bailie describes the new design as “a big game-changer,” as the skiff can be launched while the patrol boat is moving and “the (risk) factor is pretty much minimal if not zero.”
With three patrol staffers in the skiff, “You just unstrap the boat, the cradle gets lowered hydraulically into the water, and the boat just backs off and you’re on your way,” he said.
Skiff retrieval—which is a logistical “nightmare” on the A-frame systems—is as smooth as launching with the new design, Bailie continued. Onboard gear includes twin CAT C-18 800 horsepower diesel engines, giving the boat a top speed of 27 knots.
The vessel’s 2,000-gallon fuel capacity allows for extended range and operation time. A Teledyne FLIR M346C thermal imaging video system is considered key to the CDFW’s night patrols.
The high-resolution night vision unit is especially useful in search-and-rescue operations.
“It almost like you have to have them, because they can pick up things in complete darkness and complete fog—which we have a lot of at night, especially along the coast,” Bailie said.
Thermal imaging video also helps with navigation.
“During, say, the Dungeness crab season, there’s thousands of buoys in the water and we don’t want to run anybody’s gear over,” Bailie remarked. “You can see buoys on the FLIR in pitch darkness and it can link to the navigation system’s radar to track an object so you always know where it is in relation to where you’re going.”
The vessel’s gear also includes a state-of-the-art suite of Furuno communications, navigation and transducer equipment.
All the vessel’s staff members are trained for emergency responses and the boat has plenty of gear for them, including oxygen tanks, trauma kits and “all the necessary lifesaving equipment to extract people.”
The vessel has a C-Hero man overboard rescue kit, which Bailie described as “basically a big fishing net but it’s for a human,” with a body sling and lifting straps.
Interviewed the day after the Barracuda began its first patrol out of the Half Moon Bay area, Bailie said the vessel’s crew is quickly becoming familiar with the new systems and “it turned out to be a very good first patrol.” It’s the start of what likely will be many years of Barracuda patrols.
Zech noted that the CDFW’s first catamaran is still active and was designed by Teknicraft in 1999.
“It’s a testament to both Teknicraft design and how well this current vessel will serve them for decades to come,” he said.