Boat of the Month

The analysis showed non-compliance was as high as almost 90 percent in mandatory speed zones, and noncooperation was as high as almost 85 percent in voluntary areas.

Among other fi ndings, the group reported seasonal management areas with the worst compliance on mandatory speed limits were: • Wilmington, N.C., to Brunswick, Ga., with almost 90 percent non-compliance. • The port of New York and New Jersey, almost 80 percent not complying. • Right whale calving and nursery grounds off Georgia and Florida, where more than 70 percent of vessel transits exceeded the limit. • The entrance to the Chesapeake Bay, almost 65 percent non-compliance, and the entrance to Delaware Bay, with more than 55 percent of vessels over the limit. — Kirk Moore

Maine salmon farm gets permit from Army Corps

Norwegian company’s land-based complex would be rst in Northeast

Nordic Aquafarms has obtained a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit that was the last offi cial permitting obstacle to its planned construction of a recirculating aquaculture system farm to grow Atlantic salmon in Belfast, Maine.

The Fredrikstad, Norway-based company announced the acquisition of the permit and said it is “now ready to move into the fi nal stages of engineering and construction planning” for the facility. The company was granted a state permit for the project by the Maine Board of Environmental Protection in November 2020.

Boat of the Month

Gotta Luv It

Big Pine Key, Fla. / Stone crab, lobster

Ben Zdan

B

en Zdan’s purpose-built lobster and stone crab boat was built in 1973 in Marathon, Fla., way before its current skipper was born.

Zdan, 31, acquired it ve years ago from a fellow commercial sherman who was getting out of the business and kept its name because he felt it would be bad luck to change it.

Zdan performed such painstaking renovations on the berglass 48-footer that it could pass for new. New deck, gunwales, wheelhouse, hydraulic systems, AC-cooled cabin, and two-yearold diesel engine.

He shes 6,000 stone crab traps and 2,500 lobster traps from summer through spring in waters deep and shallow from the Atlantic to the Gulf of Mexico west to the remote Dry Tortugas, enabled by a tunnel hull that drafts only three feet.

Zdan began his career as a charter boat captain, running a 52-foot Viking sport sher for a Middle Keys couple who decided to get into commercial trapping and then made him a partner. Zdan has a free hand in running the business.

“I’ve been shing down here my whole life,” Zdan said. “Lobster and stone crab, that’s all I do.” — Sue Cocking

Boat Specifi cations

BUILDER: Gary Rentz YEAR BUILT: 1973 FISHERIES: Lobster, stone crab HULL CONSTRUCTION: Fiberglass LENGTH: 48 feet BEAM: 14 feet DRAFT: 3 feet CREW CAPACITY: 4 TONNAGE: 34 gross tons MAIN PROPULSION: Caterpillar, 1,000 hp GEARBOX: ZF 2:1 transmission GENERATOR: Phason 8-kW PROPELLER: Nibral 36" x 36" SHAFT: Stainless 2 3/4" DECK CAPACITY: 800 stone crab traps; 300 lobster traps FRESHWATER CAPACITY: 100 gallons FUEL CAPACITY: 1,000 gallons CRUISING SPEED: 18 knots FUEL CONSUMPTION: 24 gallons per hour (cruising speed) ELECTRONICS: Garmin 212 GPS; Nobeltec XO computer (sea oor mapping); Simrad ES70 depth nder; two Icom VHF radios; Furuno Navnet radar; two Cruisair AC units

“It has been a long and comprehensive process, and we would like to thank all the hardworking permitting authorities that have been involved,” Nordic Aquafarms President Erik Heim said. “They have dotted every I and crossed every T — the permits are robust. We are now the fi rst fully permitted larger RAS project in Maine, and the most centrally located one.”

The company fi rst announced its plans to build a facility in Belfast in January 2018 and has since been