Margaret Pearl is a timber fishing vessel built in Tasmania in 1958 from locally sourced hardwood.

She measures 17 m on the deck x 5 m beam with a draft of 2.5 m.

Her working life started in Stanley where she fished for crays under the ownership of Cyril “Dodger” Long until about 1977. Dodger was a well-known cray fisherman in the area and has his name on one of the points along the coast of north-western Tasmania.

She was then purchased by Keith Ford who fished Tasmanian waters based in Queenscliff. Keith visited the boat which was almost completely restored before his death in 2020

There were three other owners in Tasmania all mainly in the cray fishery before she was sold to Portland in 2004.

There, she was converted for shark fishing, and lay idle following the owner’s death in 2010.

Jim Woods purchased her in poor condition in 2015 and steamed her to Queenscliff where a five and half year restoration project followed.

She has been built to work as a domestic commercial vessel and undertakes charter work around Port Phillip and perhaps further afield as well as extended family cruising.