I N F O R M E D F I S H E R M E N • P R O F I TA B L E F I S H E R I E S • S U S TA I N A B L E F I S H Incorporating
November / 2020
NATIONALFISHERMAN.COM
COMMITTED TO
THEIR INDUSTRY
Jerry Fraser
Frank Patti Sr.
Montauk, N.Y.
Wells, Maine
Pensacola, Fla.
es Pr
TAG US! #NATIONALFISHERMAN
en t
ed
by
N 17 ov -1 em 9, be 20 r 20
Bonnie Brady
WHEN PERFORMANCE MATTERS WE DELIVER The commercial marine industry is constantly in motion, always changing. That’s why we formed FPT AfterMarket Solutions (AMS), a dedicated team of propulsion experts providing 24/7 aftermarket support and service tailored to your business. AMS is always there to help you meet your challenges head-on and succeed — and do it all seamlessly and with a human touch. Plus, AMS has access to the resources of our FPT dealer network and service points worldwide. Find out how AMS can help you keep your maritime business on the move. Call us today or learn more at fptindustrial.com
24 / 7 CARE & ASSISTANCE:
833-458-1378
C16 1000
815 HP (599 kW) @ 2300 RPM
ON DECK
National Fisherman / November 2020 / Vol. 101, No. 7
20
Jordan Cassoff
In this issue
Pirates of the Caribbean
28
22
Cover Story \ Meet our 2020 Highliners
Stretching Thalassa
Bonnie Brady, Jerry Fraser and Frank Patti Sr. sailed very different courses in life toward prominence in the U.S. commercial fishing community.
Plugging just an extra seven feet into a 30-year-old salmon seiner gives a big boost in capacity and productivity.
Features / Boats & Gear
On Deck Dock Talk
02
Editor’s Log
To fishermen who try it, ropeless gear appears hopeless.
04
Fishing Back When
06
A Letter from NMFS
06
Mail Buoy
10
Around the Coasts
18
Market Reports
41
Permit News
Around the Yards
56
Lobstermen who live for racing; rebuilding an oyster buy boat; a salmon-spiny lobster boat.
Last Set / Prince William Sound, AK
Reader Services
Product Roundup
48
Classifieds
55
Advertiser Index
Furuno
07
36
08 Wheelhouse Electronics Radar manufacturers offer both tried and true, and cutting edge.
42
46
DIY man-overboard system; repelling sharks to reduce bycatch; a new idea in oyster tumblers.
Northern Lights Eat Seafood, America! boosts U.S. industry and public health.
National Fisherman (ISSN 0027-9250), November 2020, Vol. 101, No. 7, is published monthly by Diversified Business Communications, 121 Free St., Portland, ME 04112-7438. Subscription prices: 1 year - U.S. $22.95; 2 years U.S. $43; 3 years U.S. $62. These rates apply for U.S. subscriptions only. Add $10 for Canada addresses. Outside U.S./Canada add $25 (airmail delivery). All orders must be in U.S. funds drawn on a U.S. bank. All other countries, including Canada and Mexico, please add $10 postage per year. For subscription information only, call: 1 (800) 959-5073. Periodicals postage paid at Portland, Maine, and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes only to Subscription Service Department, P.O. Box 15116, North Hollywood, CA 91615. Canada Post International Publications Mail product (Canadian Distribution) Sales Agreement No. 40028984, National Fisherman. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to Circulation Dept. or DPGM, 4960-2 Walker Rd., Windsor, ON N9A 6J3. READERS: All editorial correspondence should be mailed to: National Fisherman, Portland, ME 04112-7438.
Homer Marine
Longline captain Michael Foy is jailed and his boat seized under murky circumstances in the British Virgin Islands.
ON DECK
Editor’s Log
Finest kind Jessica Hathaway Editor in Chief jhathaway@divcom.com
ust before we flipped the calendar over to the year 2020, I hoped that like its name, this year would give us a clear vision of where we’ve been and where we want to go. This year’s unpredictable circumstances have added complexities to the uphill battles many of our independent fishermen were already facing. I still believe in the clarity that comes from surviving hardship. But I also know everyone has a breaking point. Being able to pass the baton is the only insurance for a future. Our annual Highliner awards put the spotlight on industry leaders, pioneers and advocates who have endured the inherent hardships that go hand in hand with this industry. These awards give us an opportunity to recognize the people who have picked
J
up the baton knowing there’s no fi nish line. The 2020 class of Highliners exemplifies dexterity, tenacity and endurance. Though the troughs may feel dangerously deep, their bows keep fi nding the crest of the next wave, and it is my honor to call attention to the work they’ve done. This year’s Highliners represent U.S. fi shing communities on the East and Gulf coasts — Bonnie Brady of Montauk, N.Y.; Jerry Fraser of Wells, Maine; and Frank Patti Sr., of Pensacola, Fla. Read the full profi les of these industry leaders starting on page 28. As I was searching through our bound volumes of NF archives for the Fishing Back When page, I came across a commentary on fi sh sticks from then-NF
On the cover Congratulations to our 2020 Highliners, hailing from the East and Gulf coasts — Bonnie Brady of Montauk, N.Y.; Jerry Fraser of Wells, Maine; and Frank Patti Sr. of Pensacola, Fla.
Editor Dave Getchell. Apparently, a 1970 Consumer Reports publication followed up a scathing 1961 report on the quality of U.S.-produced fi sh sticks. The 1970 report “wasn’t much improved,” according to Getchell. “What is needed is a federal fi sh inspection law with guts, a concerted effort by everyone from the fi sherman through the grocer to give fi sh the loving care it needs and an industry-wide willingness to work together.” The U.S. fi shing and seafood industries have come far since 1970. But what Getchell may not have foreseen is that when you raise the bar for U.S. products, you open the door for cheap replacements. We also need standards for imports that come close to the baseline for our domestic industry and consumer outreach to ensure a strong market for quality seafood. Our North Pacific Bureau Chief Charlie Ess covers the rebound of fi sh sticks in the pandemic marketplace in a market report on page 19. There is some good news to be found these days. The classics always come back around.
In partnership with Pacific Marine Expo The largest commercial marine trade show on the West Coast, serving commercial mariners from Alaska to California. www.pacificmarineexpo.com
PUBLISHER: Bob Callahan EDITORIAL DIRECTOR: Jeremiah Karpowicz EDITOR IN CHIEF: Jessica Hathaway ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Kirk Moore BOATS & GEAR EDITOR: Paul Molyneaux PRODUCTS EDITOR: Brian Hagenbuch ART DIRECTOR: Doug Stewart NORTH PACIFIC BUREAU CHIEF: Charlie Ess FIELD EDITORS: Larry Chowning, Michael Crowley CORRESPONDENTS: Samuel Hill, John DeSantis, Maureen Donald, Dayna Harpster, Sierra Golden, John Lee, Caroline Losneck, Nick Rahaim ADVERTISING COORDINATOR: Wendy Jalbert / wjalbert@divcom.com / Tel. (207) 842-5616 NATIONAL SALES MANAGER: Susan Chesney / schesney@divcom.com / Tel. (206) 463-4819 CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING: (800) 842-5603 classifieds@divcom.com SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION (818) 487-2013 or (800) 959-5073 GENERAL INFORMATION (207) 842-5608 Producer of Pacific Marine Expo and the International WorkBoat Show Theodore Wirth, President & CEO | Mary Larkin, President, Diversified Communications USA Diversified Communications | 121 Free St., Portland, ME 04112 (207) 842-5500 • Fax (207) 842-5503 • www.divcom.com
2 National Fisherman \ November 2020
© 2020 Diversified Business Communications If you prefer not to receive such mailings, please send a copy of your mailing label to: National Fisherman’s Mailing Preference Service, 121 Free St., Portland, ME 04112. PRINTED IN U.S.A.
www.nationalfisherman.com
CXO300 – The world’s first 300 HP diesel outboard
25% LESS FUEL 480 ft. lb. TORQUE 3x LONGER LIFE
Contact us for a Demo Ride DISTRIBUTOR FOR THE WESTERN USA AND BRITISH COLUMBIA
NOW AVAILABLE Call us for Details
®
BOATSWAIN’S LOCKER • 866-905-2676 931 W. 18th Street Costa Mesa, CA 92627 • w w w . boat sw ai n sl ocker . com M ar i n e Pow er S peci al i st s S i n ce 1 9 3 9
ON DECK
Fishing Back When November By Jessica Hathaway
1970 — Richard “Chuddy” Alley lands the first bluefin tuna of the 1970 season on the F/V Suzanne in Islesford, Maine. Ralph Tate and Ricky Alley help Chuddy horse the harpooned the 738-pounder onto the deck.
1 9 7 0
1 9 9 0
2 0 1 0
The striking painting of a New England dragger drawn for NF by artist John T. Lutes of Charlestown, R.I., seems timely for this issue, which devotes a sizable number of its pages to Fish Expo ’70.
“Two months ago, if you had asked me what was wrong with groundfish management, I would have said lack of compliance and poor management,” says Frank Mirarchi, president of the Massachusetts Inshore Draggermen’s Association, out of Scituate. “Now I believe there are logical deficiencies in the plan that make it impossible to protect the fish.”
We celebrate 50 years under our national title, incorporating the title of Atlantic Fisherman and Maine Coast Fisherman, which launched as a magazine in 1946 after starting as a Maine paper’s weekly column in 1921.
Georgia’s new shrimp conservation law restricts trawling along the barrier islands and within the three-mile limit from January until June 1. All sounds are closed until Sept. 1, and fishing is allowed only between sunrise and sunset. Consumer Reports follows up on a scathing 1961 review of fish sticks with little improvement noted. 4 National Fisherman \ November 2020
Formal petitions are filed seeking protection for declining salmon stocks of the Snake and Columbia rivers.
Mike Brown, a.k.a. Perc Sane, writes that about 50 years ago, he “submitted a letter to the editor of Maine Coast Fisherman and signed it Cap’n Perc Sane. Shortly thereafter, Maine Coast Fisherman became National Fisherman, and Cap’n Perc Sane became a monthly column.”
The $600 million Gulf of Mexico shrimp industry and the $12 million snapper fishery are pitted against each other.
Michael Crowley notes that his decades of writing for NF started with an impulse purchase of a Camden schooner.
www.nationalfisherman.com
AN ALASKAN ICON GETS A NEW LOOK
INTRODUCING THE LIMITED EDITION: ALASKA PACK.
We’re celebrating the long history of Alaskans who live, work, and play in the “Alaskan Sneaker” by introducing two new, Limited Edition 15” Legacy Boots featuring the Alaskan Flag on the rubber.
XTRATUF.COM
Honeywell International, Inc. © 2020
ON DECK
Mail Buoy
Long trips, second chances ’m headed offshore, running the Anthony G out of San Diego in search of tuna with three more days steaming and four days behind us. When I got to the new boat, there was the newest copy of National Fisherman magazine in the wheelhouse, as there has been on many great boats worked throughout my career. I did something I haven’t done in a couple years, I opened and read. It brought back many good memories of my youth, and how much NF influenced my early career and how much the publication once meant to me. I never would have been an Alaskan crabber if not for an article in NF. I was reading in July of 1994, and there was an article on Dutch Harbor. I was with my girlfriend at the time, Melissa Heath, and thought out loud while reading, “Wow, I would love to check out that Bering Sea crab!” She says, “I know somebody that owns two boats.” I thought she was full of it until I received a call from Capt. Jim Koch of the Mary J the next day asking me if I wanted to be a crabber. Then in October 1995, before going
I
back to Alaska, there was an ad I noticed in back of NF, “Offshore Lobster Help wanted.” It is something I always wanted to do and gave a call. Phone was answered by a nice lady saying, “Vinalhaven Lobster Company.” I told her why I was calling, and she put me on hold. Then Bob Brown came on the phone, and we hit it off. He said he was on the Atlantic Lobster Coalition with Eddie Fig in the ’60s, and we talked for over an hour. It was great to connect and talk with somebody as passionate about fishing as I was. He ended the call with, “I have some chick running the boat that only wants to drag and swordfish. I want to get back into lobster and crab. Would you be interested in taking the Hannah Bowden?” I talked with Eddie, and the fact that I was only 21 years old decided it was not the direction I wanted to go in at that time and went back to Alaska crabbing. Those and many other great memories have triggered while reading on the way out this trip (please bring back Cap’n Perc Sane!). As a longtime reader and supporter of
A letter from NMFS
Your input on aquaculture areas By Chris Oliver
n my July column, I wrote about the president’s Executive Order on Promoting American Seafood Competitiveness and Economic Growth. NOAA Fisheries has acted quickly to implement the executive order and recently announced the selection of the regions that will host the first two Aquaculture Opportunity Areas. Federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico and off Southern California were selected for this science-based evaluation and the future
I
6 National Fisherman \ November 2020
National Fisherman for over 40 years, I would hope you’d understand how mad I was when I saw the letter from the chairman supporting the National Monument. An area that I fished on all levels — dragging, lobstering and longlining was potentially being shut down, and here was a magazine that I and fellow fishermen who work those areas supported pushing the National Monument agenda. It was a deep shot that stung beyond words. I realize everyone makes mistakes, or misjudges at one point or another, and our world is better with National Fisherman in it. So I am going to give you another shot and put that behind me. If you put yourself in my position, I’d hope you’d understand how shocking that was to us, and maybe use more discretion in the future.
Rich Figueiredo Marshfield, Mass.
What’s on your mind? Send letters to jhathaway@ divcom.com. Submissions may be edited for length, clarity and style.
development of the first two AOAs.These AOAs will be small, defined geographic areas that contain more than one site suitable for sustainable commercial aquaculture. It is expected that each of the first two AOAs may accommodate approximately three to five commercial aquaculture operations, but this will vary, depending on the specifics of the location. In the coming months NOAA will use in-depth spatial mapping approaches, scientific review, and stakeholder input (including outreach, requests for information, and listening sessions) to shape the creation of these opportunity areas. Stakeholder input is essential to identifying AOAs that are socially, environmentally, and economically sustainable. I encourage everyone to learn more about NOAA’s aquaculture efforts on our website. Chris Oliver is the director of the National Marine Fisheries Service. Oliver oversees the federal agency responsible for recreational and commercial fisheries.
www.nationalfisherman.com
ON DECK
Dock Talk By Ben Platt and Kristan Porter
s so-called “ropeless” fishing gear the silver bullet for the perceived problem of marine mammal interactions in California’s crab fisheries? Several profit-driven environmental groups, including Oceana, would like the public and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to believe these baseless claims. These groups are ramping up efforts to force California’s historic and economically most important fishery — it creates hundreds of millions of dollars annually for working families — to adopt expensive, impractical, and unworkable new fishing gear, which would force most fishermen out of business. The problem is that neither the science, nor any other reliable data, support their claims. “Ropeless” gear is not a silver bullet — in fact, it’s actually dangerous — and ironically, it still has ropes. Francine Kershaw, staff scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, has misleadingly asserted that “off the West Coast, the number of deaths of humpback whales caused by entanglements are now high enough for the population to slip into decline.” But the truth is there have only been four mortalities attributed to California commercial Dungeness crab gear since 2013, and none during last two seasons. The minimal mammal interaction with crab gear has a negligible impact on the health of these species. However, strikes by large ships likely cause 50-150 whale deaths a year off the West Coast, according to John Calambokidis of the Cascadia Research Collective. In fact, based on preliminary data presented by the collective at a public meeting in November 2019, humpback whale populations off the coasts of California and Oregon have grown by about 80 percent since 2013, and estimated at 220 percent since 1998. Meanwhile, Ms. Kershaw, perhaps blinded by the millions of dollars being thrown at her by non-fishing special interests, has also attacked lobster fishermen on the East Coast
I
To subscribe, call 1-800-959-5073
by falsely saying, “entanglements are driving the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale to extinction.” Maine’s lobster fishery has never had a documented serious injury or mortality for any right whale, and no entanglement since 2002, which makes this a non-problem. But the lack of interactions with lobster gear hasn’t stopped for-profit environmental groups from pushing “ropeless” gear on the East Coast lobster fishery. One of the problems is that it’s a misleading term used to make it seem harmless. The gear they are pushing all have buoy lines packed on top of the trap with an acoustic release trigger that in theory allows the buoy to go to the surface when activated. In practice, this adds to the problem of lost gear with ropes and buoys attached. It’s much more dangerous to marine life because it litters the ocean unnecessarily with lost lines and other equipment. How do we know this? Fishermen have tested the pop-up “ropeless” gear in the East Coast lobster and West Coast Dungeness crab fisheries. The release mechanisms failed 20 percent of the time and had to be abandoned. Currently, fishing traps cost $160 to $225 each. Pop-up “ropeless” gear will cost as much as $2,500 per trap. That means for a 500-trap operation to adapt an existing gear allotment to 100 percent pop-up gear would cost between $360,000 to $1.25 million. All this money would be thrown at gear that is unmanageably slow and prone to be lost at sea. It would make profit impossible. And importantly, it would make marine mammal interactions with lost gear more frequent, not less. That being said, the commercial fishing industry is committed to our long-standing and successful work to reduce interactions between fishing gear and all marine
Oceana
Is ropeless hopeless?
Unlike the acoustic release systems that flake line into a container, Fiobuoy spools the line.
mammals. That is why California Coast Crab Association and Maine Lobstermen’s Association have been working on alternative gear proposals that are better, more practical, affordable, and most importantly based on the best available science. For many years, the commercial fleets on both coasts have been making modifications to their gear and to some fishing seasons to mitigate the risk to marine mammals. These common-sense measures have resulted in huge reductions in interactions. “Ropeless” gear and other new rules constitute a solution in search of a problem. Testing of this gear has revealed many operational issues for the East Coast lobster fishery — which supports thousands of small, independent fishermen. The technology is faulty, and furthermore, the economics of converting and maintaining this type of system are unsustainable. And it’s the same in California. There are more than 570 permitted vessels, according to NOAA, with nearly 2,000 crew and tens of thousands of shoreside jobs supported by the fishery in unloading, processing, distributing, food service and retail. This fishery creates hundreds of millions of dollars annually for working families. In sum, if the CDFW doesn’t ignore the political pressure from profit-driven environmental groups, the continuation of California’s crab fishery — and the thousands of families who depend on it — and indeed the future of the entire West Coast commercial fishing industry, will be in serious jeopardy.
Ben Platt is a lifelong crab fisherman and president of the California Coast Crab Association. Kristan Porter is a lobster fisherman and president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association.
November 2020 \ National Fisherman 7
ON DECK
Northern Lights
•
VIEWS FROM ALASKA
Eat Seafood, America! By Andrea Albersheim
at Seafood, America!” is the driving message of an effort aimed at helping Americans stay healthy during this covid-19 public health crisis as well as boosting the U.S. seafood economy, supporting the 2 million American workers in the seafood industry. This rapid-response initiative launched in early April has been successful in encouraging consumers to eat more fi sh and shellfi sh. Of consumers surveyed in June and July, those who reported seeing the Eat Seafood, America! messaging were three times more likely to have increased their seafood consumption in the last two months. Supported by the newly formed Seafood4Health Action Coalition of more than 46 organizations (full list is available at eatseafoodamerica.com), convened by Seafood Nutrition Partnership, this unified consumer outreach campaign works to help Americans build habits to eat more sustainable seafood. In the fi rst four months, the integrated consumer outreach campaign earned nearly 300 million potential impressions.
How can seafood help Americans? We all need to do our part to stay healthy and take pressure off our healthcare system. Higher intakes of specific nutrients appear to boost the immune system, and fi sh and shellfi sh are rich in many of these important nutrients. “There is strong scientific evidence that eating a balanced diet with seafood rich in micronutrients and omega-3s reduces risks of chronic diseases, boosts immunity, and reduces infl ammation in the body,” said Dr. Tom Brenna, chairman of the SNP Scientific & Nutrition Advisory Council and professor at University of Texas-Austin. We encourage Americans to eat seafood and buy seafood to support their personal health and for the economic health of 8 National Fisherman \ November 2020
ASMI
E
The Seafood Nutrition Program supports U.S. fishing jobs and better health.
the men and women working in our U.S. seafood economy. The U.S. fi sheries and seafood communities have been hit hard by the pandemic, as it has dramatically disrupted everyone along the supply chain, from fi shermen and seafood farmers to fi sh processors to the restaurants that cook delicious seafood for the consumers. We need to act quickly to protect our seafood industry from the economic challenges caused by covid-19 and make sure healthy seafood is available for Americans now and after we come out of this crisis. “Our message to America is that by eating seafood, you are supporting your health and helping to save jobs,” said SNP President Linda Cornish. “The coronavirus poses a significant threat to the future of an industry that employs approximately 2 million people in the U.S. That’s why we’re asking everyone in America to support the seafood community by buying seafood and eating seafood each week.” Over the past few months, retail seafood sales have increased significantly year-overyear according to IRI — with seafood sales the strongest category at retail — and with new consumers trying seafood at home, it is important to support them with new recipes and tips to make sure those continued purchases result in delicious meals. The targeted messaging motivated consumers to strengthen seafood consumption habits in a positive direction, with consumers surveyed in June and July reporting: • 12 percent plan to add seafood to their meals soon;
22 percent learning to cook seafood more at home; • 23 percent eaten more seafood in last two months. During this time, as consumers focus on health and supporting their local communities, the campaign is reinforcing the importance of well-managed fi sheries as a priority for people who love fi sh. The surveys found that 36 percent of consumers seeking sustainable seafood look specifically for U.S. seafood. “We are thrilled to see the Eat Seafood, America! campaign has helped to encourage consumers to eat sustainable seafood and understand the importance of fi sheries management as they began to bring seafood into their kitchens during covid-19,” said Teresa Ish, program officer for Ocean Initiative at the Walton Family Foundation. “Our hope is that this campaign continues to serve as a catalyst for everyone in the seafood sector to work together in a unified voice to generate consumer demand for seafood and offer a way to protect and strengthen the sustainable seafood supply chain we have worked so hard to foster.”
National Seafood Month With National Seafood Month on our plates, we offer supporters and the fi shing industry a communications toolkit. With relevant and engaging messaging, it focuses on education and simple approaches to increasing seafood consumption. The overarching message is: Eat Seafood, America! to make your life healthier, to make meals simpler, and to support fi shing communities. This would not have been possible without the joint collaborative efforts of the Seafood4Health Action Coalition. Funding support for the initial phase of the campaign was made possible by the Walton Family Foundation, National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, NOAA Fisheries, and the Chilean Salmon Marketing Council. Andrea Albersheim is director of Communication for the Seafood Nutrition Partnership, leading public education and partnership outreach.
www.nationalfisherman.com
BRI DWYER PHOTO
Presented by
This November 17-19th, in conjunction with National Fisherman, Pacific Marine Expo will transform into Expo Online – a digital experience that will allow commercial mariners to come together virtually. The online event will feature three days of free streaming educational content and special events, discussions in the National Fisherman Forum, and a comprehensive supplier guide in lieu of an exhibit floor. Just like the annual show, let Expo Online help you start 2021 with your best foot forward.
NOVember 17-19, 2020 Produced by:
For more information about Expo Online, go to pacificmarineexpo.com
AROUND THE COASTS
AROUND THE COASTS
Coast Guard/PO3 Paige Hause
NEWS FOR THE NATION’S FISHERMEN
The wrecked shrimp boat Lady Annabelle lies near Lake Charles, La., after Hurricane Laura.
Gulf / South Atlantic
“Our house is about a half-mile out in the marsh, and we have a slab where my house used to be.” —Leo Dyson, Cameron, La., fisherman
Hurricane Laura devastates Louisiana, Texas fishermen ‘Nothing left’ for some fishing families after 17-foot surge and 150-mph winds
F
ishermen are trying to recover from the devastation suffered at the hands of Hurricane Laura, which made landfall Aug. 27 as a Category 4 storm at the shoreline of Cameron Parish, La. Some moved 25 to 30 miles north of the coast, but the action bought them little immunity. At least six Cameron shrimp boats were reported sunk at their emergency tie-ups. The storm and mini-storms and tornadoes it spawned led to trees and power lines being snapped like so many toothpicks.
10 National Fisherman \ November 2020
“We have nothing left,” said Judy Dyson of Cameron, who with her husband Leo had been direct-marketing shrimp, along with many others in the area. As a result of the storm and its effects, federal officials are loosening up on electronic trip ticket requirements, not requiring federally licensed seafood dealers to fi le their monthly trip ticket reports, although asking that they be completed as soon as possible. Paper documents will be accepted in lieu of much electronic information. The reprieve from
computer-aided reporting was to last at least through early October. Chalin Delaune said his new processing headquarters was in Laura’s direct path, but was spared the worst, “still standing with what looks like minimal damage.” Lee Dyson, Judy’s husband, is still nowhere near sure of the actual damage, and traveling to assess it has been extremely difficult. “We lost our oyster boat and shrimp boat,” Leo Dyson said. “Our house is about a half-mile out in the marsh, and we have a slab where my house used to be.” In Port Arthur, Texas, three shrimp fi shermen who were sheltering in the Bida Vinh game room died from carbon monoxide poisoning as a generator ran inside the building, and three others were hospitalized, KHOU 11 reported. Louisiana officials reported seven carbon monoxide deaths in the storm’s aftermath, amid intense heat and humidity stressing storm-stricken neighborhoods. — John DeSantis and Kirk Moore
Seafood exec pleads to crab meat mislabeling ‘Bad decision’ using containers
A
fter pleading guilty to federal charges that his seafood company knowingly mislabeled foreign crabmeat as a U.S. product, Jeffrey Styron spoke out about the inaccuracies of the charges. “I made a mistake, and I’ve admitted it,” says Styron. “I’m not making excuses, but the situation does need clarification.” The charges filed against Styron, treasurer of the corporate board of officers for Garland Fulcher, state that he substituted foreign crabmeat for domestic as early as Jan. 1, 2014, and continued through Dec. 31, 2017. According to Styron, that is simply “not true.” “This was a one-time mistake, not a long-term venture as suggested by federal authorities,” Styron says. “I should pay the price for what I did, but not for what didn’t happen.” Styron clarifies that the “timeline and the scope of the offense claimed by federal officials is far from accurate. We found www.nationalfisherman.com
AROUND THE COASTS
ourselves unable to fulfill orders for domestic crabmeat over a six-week period in 2014, and unfortunately, I made a bad decision.” According to Styron, during this sixweek period over Christmas, there was “a hot demand” for the product, and he ran out of the containers used for imported crabmeat. To meet that demand, he admits to substituting crabmeat from Mexico, Indonesia and Venezuela for domestic product. “I ran out of the containers we use for
imported crabmeat and used containers marked as “Product of the USA.” If I had the correct containers, this never would have happened,” says Styron. The mislabeled crabmeat, Styron adds, was “not found in any state other than South Carolina.” In a Sept. 3 press release issued by the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, Styron pleaded guilty to one count of substituting foreign crabmeat for domestic blue crab and, as
part of the plea, admitted to falsely labeling crabmeat with a retail market value of at least $250,000, which was sold primarily to small seafood retailers and restaurants. The North Carolina company engaged in the business of purchasing, processing, packaging, transporting and selling seafood and seafood products, including crabmeat from blue crab harvested on the U.S. East Coast since the 1970s. Styron is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 7. — Maureen Donald
Boat of the Month F/V Karen Garibaldi, Ore. / Prawns, tuna, crab, pink shrimp Having only been
ing fishing gig to set out on his own and take over the
on the boat for about
F/V Karen, his late father’s 75-year-old, 58-foot wooden
three months, Van-
dragger, everyone told him he was crazy.
decoevering is just
“I had a lot of people telling me, ‘You’re crazy for leaving’ or
getting started, but
‘You’ll never get a job this good again,’” said Vandecoevering.
is optimistic about
“But I had some key people in my life support me, and that’s all
learning the direct-
I needed.”
marketing game and
His father, David, faced similar criticism when he bought the
potentially
launch-
boat in the early 2000s. The engine had been previously de-
ing his own sea-
stroyed, and the boat had been sitting for a long time — the bow
food business in the
was white but looked green from the algae that had a chance to
future.
find a home there. But he was determined to buy it on the cheap and turn it into a shrimp boat, no matter what anyone thought. Vandecoevering was admittedly suspicious of his father’s choice in a project boat, but that all turned around one day on the water.
Cody Vandecoevering
W
hen Cody Vandecoevering decided to leave a well-pay-
In the midst of figuring out a new boat and business, Vandecoevering is also coming to terms with the death of his father. But he might not be approaching this new venture entirely on his own. This past summer the boat was already prepped for shrimp, and Vandecoevering thought he’d give it a go. When loading the
“We were all out one day shrimping, and he came by me with
boat up for the first time, he was in the wheelhouse when he heard
his table loaded with shrimp and a big ole smile on his face,” said
a noise that sounded like someone taking bolts off the shrimp
Vandecoevering. “And as he went by, I couldn’t help but think that,
gear. Other folks told him it might be his dad, ready to go out
wow, he really did it.”
shrimping.
When his father passed away last spring, Vandecoevering knew he wanted to go to the Karen.
“Never could figure out what that noise could’ve been,” said Vandecoevering, “I don’t know what the whole story brings when
“There’s obviously a bit of work I can do to her, but I can say
people do leave this world… but someone people believe there
I’m falling more and more in love with her every day,” said Vande-
are people always looking down on you. I guess I just feel safer
coevering. “My mom was either going to have to sell the boat, or I
out there a lot of the time thinking about it like that.”
was going to have to jump on and make it work.”
—Samuel Hill
Boat Specifications HOME PORT: Garibaldi, Ore. OWNER: Denise Vandecoevering BUILDER: Coos Bay Boat Shop, Coos Bay, Ore. YEAR BUILT: 1945 LENGTH: 58 feet WIDTH: 16 feet FISHERIES: Prawn, tuna, crab, pink shrimp HULL CONSTRUCTION: Port Orford cedar MAIN PROPULSION: 855-hp Cummins
To subscribe, call 1-800-959-5073
November 2020 \ National Fisherman 11
AROUND THE COASTS
Nation / World
“Many nations have not played by the rules for a long time, and President Trump is the first president to stand up to them.” — Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue
Susan Chambers
USDA to pay $530 million to fishermen hit by trade wars Agency uses economic modeling to calculate likely losses from foreign tariffs
T
he U.S. Department of Agriculture will provide $530 million in relief payments for fishermen taking a hit from retaliatory foreign trade tariffs during 2019, using economic modeling to calculate how much trade wars have cost the industry. “The Seafood Trade Relief Program ensures fishermen and other U.S. producers will not stand alone in facing unjustified retaliatory tariffs while President Trump continues working to solidify better and stronger trade deals around the globe,” Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said in announcing the program.
Promised by Trump after a June 5 roundtable meeting with Maine fishermen, the program comes out of a June 24 presidential memorandum directing the same tariff relief for marine fisheries as for farming. USDA experts use economic modeling to calculate how much tariffs reduced the value of each species, and how much per pound fishermen should be reimbursed. For example, lobster exports were hit hard by Chinese and European Union tariffs, and the economic modeling USDA uses to calculate ranks them in the top payment rates, $0.50 per pound. The Northwest
Boats tied up at Seattle’s Fishermen’s Terminal.
geoduck fishery took a hit of $0.76 per pound, according to the modeling. But fishermen can apply for reimbursement on a host of species, from Atlantic mackerel to turbot. Applicants can expect to be compensated based on the estimated loss. To take another example, the loss rate of Pacific cod per pound is $0.14. So,
W I N C H E S
We take the heat, so you don’t have to. Cool. Because you need it. We deliver cool based on your reality. So no matter where you operate, hot days and heavy loads will never slow you down.
SPECIA
GRIDCOOLER® Keel Cooler
WEKA Boxcooler®
Tranter® Heat Exchangers
fernstrum.com | 1.906.863.5553 | sales@fernstrum.com ISO 9001:2015 © 2019 R.W. Fernstrum & Company. All rights reserved. FERNSTRUM® and GRIDCOOLER® are registered trademarks of R.W. Fernstrum & Company. All other trademarks cited are the property of their respective owners.
12 National Fisherman \ November 2020
USTRY HING IND RINE & FIS A M E H T HES FOR LTY WINC
BLOOM MANUFACTURING, INC. Custom Engineered Solutions Since 1910 Independence, IA 50644, USA | bloommfg.com P: 319-827-1139 | 800-394-1139 | F: 319-827-1140
www.nationalfisherman.com
AROUND THE COASTS
a commercial fisherman submitting an application for 2019 cod landings at 375,000 pounds could calculate a payment by multiplying 375,000 by $0.14 for a total of $52,500. Right behind lobster are Dungeness, king, snow and Southern tanner crabs, at $0.47 per pound calculated losses. Some high-volume, low-value species can qualify their fishermen for less, but still substantial aid. Squid, a sector highly dependent on export, is calculated to be worth $0.20 per pound in relief payment. The Seafood Trade Relief Program covers “marine species that are harvested by commercial fishermen who hold a valid federal or state license or permit to catch seafood, and such marine species are brought to shore and sold or transferred to another party that must be a legally permitted or licensed seafood dealer or processed at sea and sold by the same legally permitted entity that harvested or processed the product,” according to the USDA notice in the Federal Register. “Any seafood that is not sold to a permitted dealer or by a permitted dealer if the catch is processed at sea is ineligible for payment.” There is a $250,000 cap on relief payments, and fishermen must still be in business at the time of application. Fishermen can sign up for relief through the STRP from Sept. 14 to Dec. 14 and should apply through their local USDA Service Center.To find them, visit the website www.farmers.govservice-center-locator. The application can be found at www.farmers. gov/seafood. — Jessica Hathaway and Kirk Moore
setback to the offshore oil industry’s hope of obtaining leases in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and more distant prospects for exploring off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia. The turnaround comes as the Trump campaign and Republicans look at poll numbers and improving prospects for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Opposition to offshore oil development has long been a bipartisan issue in Florida, after the Deepwater Horizon blowout and
spill damaged Gulf of Mexico fisheries and Panhandle beaches. Administration officials have backpedaled before on opening the eastern gulf to oil leasing. In January 2018 then-Gov. Rick Scott insisted waters near Florida be exempted from the Department of Interior’s leasing plans, and then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke complied — again in a move seen as improving Republican election prospects. — Kirk Moore
Snapshot Who we are Drew Sadler / Hoboken, N.C. / Blue crabs, flounder, sea trout here was never any doubt
T
trout and mullet.
Drew Sadler would fish for
His skill and tenacity paid off, and
a living. Now 30 years old,
soon he purchased a 21-foot Carolina
he always knew he would work on the
Skiff that he still fishes. While making
water, like five generations before him.
a good living on the water, Sadler’s
“I grew up on the water, starting out fishing with my dad,” he says. “I never thought of
greatest concern these days is the increase of regulations that threaten the industry. “We’ve
doing anything else.”
really
The Sadler family has
long
Hoboken, well-known
had good
lived
in
of
N.C.,
a
Sadler. “That’s a good
the Pamlico Sound. Known for generations of fishermen,
says
thing, considering the
fishing
community situated on
crabbing,”
two years
cutbacks to the flounder and trout fisheries.” “If I’m fortunate, I’ll fish the rest
the Sadlers have fished these waters for
of my life,” says Sadler . “But I can’t
oysters, crabs and a variety of finfish.
say I see a future for the industry, not
Drew fondly remembers his grandfather
the way the regulations keep coming
still fishing at age 80.
and the recreational organizations keep
It was a foregone conclusion that Sadler would follow the tradition.
trying to put us out of business.” Sadler and his wife, Courtney, have
As early as 7th grade, Sadler would
two children, Jackson, 8, and Scarlett,
fish summers and weekends with his
4. While it would seem natural for
Trump turns against plan To drill off Florida, S.C.
dad, learning all he could about the
Jackson to continue the Sadler family
industry.
tradition of fishing for a living, he simply
Reversal tied to voting in swing states
learning; it was all natural,” Sadler says.
“I can’t see a future for Jackson as
resident Trump said he will extend a 2012 moratorium on oil drilling off Florida and the Southeast coast, reversing the administration’s previous intention to open more of the continental shelf to exploration. At a Sept. 8 campaign event in Jupiter, Fla., Trump said he would sign a presidential order extending the moratorium, which presently would expire in June 2022. It’s a
“By the time I was 16 years old, I could
a fisherman,” says Sadler. “I’m sorry he
work the boat on my own.”
won’t carry on the family tradition, but
P
To subscribe, call 1-800-959-5073
“I didn’t realize how much I was
doesn’t see that for his son.
A short two years later, he purchased
there’s no way I would encourage him
his own gear, including a 16-foot
given the restrictions and increasing
Privateer, which he fished for the next
opposition to our industry.
five years. With a focus on crabbing,
“I hate to say it, even think it, but I’m
Sadler routinely switched to gillnetting
afraid our family’s fishing heritage will
when markets opened up for flounder,
end with me.”
—Maureen Donald
November 2020 \ National Fisherman 13
AROUND THE COASTS
Alaska / Pacific
“The project could have substantial environmental impacts within the unique Bristol Bay watershed and lacks adequate compensatory mitigation.” —U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Corey Arnold
Water permit delay gives Bristol Bay advocates hope Pebble Mine partners have until late November to submit mitigation proposals
I
n a surprise about-face, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers told the Pebble Partnership its mining project is not permissible under section 404 of the Clean Water Act as currently proposed and gave the developers 90 days to submit a mitigation plan. As it stands “the project could have substantial environmental impacts within the unique Bristol Bay watershed and lacks adequate compensatory mitigation,” Corps officials said Aug. 24. “It is impossible for Pebble to mitigate the devastation this mine will have on our Native cultures, our way of life that has
been sustained for thousands of years by the pristine lands and waters of the Bristol Bay watershed,” said Alannah Hurley, executive director of the United Tribes of Bristol Bay. “Pebble should not move forward in this process and should not be built.” The letter to the Pebble Partnership adds that the Army Corps determined the adverse impacts “to aquatic resources and… significant degradation to those aquatic resources” would be the result of “discharges at the mine site.” These concerns have long been voiced by local fi sheries advocates, Alaska residents
Cape May, N.J. Jack Davis and Eric DeShields are scalloping with smiles on the F/V Elise G with Capt. Mike Cox on the Atlantic Open Bottom in July 2020.
This is your life. Submit your Crew Shot nationalfisherman.com/submit-crew-shots
14 National Fisherman \ November 2020
Krystal TenKley has been setnetting in Alaska for most of her life.
and the region’s Tribal representatives. Until early August, the tide seemed to be running out on the mine’s critics — until Donald Trump Jr., a hunting and fi shing enthusiast, tweeted support for Bristol Bay’s wild salmon habitat. Other sportsmen with conservative political connections chimed in, like Bass Pro Shops founder Johnny Morris, who appeared on pundit Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show Aug. 14 and talked about how fi sheries and tourism support some 14,000 jobs in the region. “Today’s decision by the Army Corps not to green light Pebble’s permit and instead require a mitigation plan for this project was refreshing and positive news to our fi shermen and a huge step in the right direction,” said Commercial Fishermen for Bristol Bay Director Katherine Carscallen. The Pebble Partnership has 90 days to submit a compensatory mitigation plan, at which time it will be reviewed by the Army Corps Alaska District to “determine if the amount and type of compensatory mitigation offered is sufficient to off set the identified unavoidable adverse impacts to aquatic resources and overcome significant degradation at the mine site,” the letter states. “Bristol Bay’s commercial fi shermen applaud the Army Corps and Alaska Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan for making a commitment to safeguard the world’s largest wild salmon run. Alaska’s senators have repeatedly made it clear that the project would need to pass a very high bar to advance through permitting, without trading one resource for another,” said Andy www.nationalfisherman.com
AROUND THE COASTS
Wink, executive director of the Bristol Bay Seafood Development Association. “This determination highlights the extensive damage the Pebble Mine would have on salmon habitat.” “Alaskans have agreed for years that trading 14,000 American fi shing jobs in favor of a foreign-owned mine is unacceptable,” said Robin Samuelsen, a veteran Bristol Bay fi sherman in Dillingham, Alaska. “Today the Army Corps made it clear they agree, and now we just need Alaska’s leadership to stand with Alaskans and support fi nal and permanent Clean Water Act protections for Bristol Bay.” — Jessica Hathaway
NMFS allowing sea lion removals to save salmon 716 to be taken from Columbia River
H
undreds of sea lions may be removed from a Columbia River management
zone over the next five years to reduce the animals’ impact on salmon and steelhead populations, under a new federal authorization granted to Northwest states and tribes. In 2018 Congress amended the Marine Mammal Protection Act to allow removal of sea lions from a stretch of the Columbia River, between the I-205 bridge on Portland’s east side and McNary Dam. The change also allowed for removing sea lions from Columbia River tributaries below the McNary Dam that are spawning habitat for threatened or endangered salmon and steelhead runs. The authorization from the NMFS West Coast Regional office enables sea lion removal to be used where the animals are preying on those fish. “Unless a zoo or aquarium is interested in taking the sea lions that are removed, they are humanely euthanized,” according to NMFS officials. The cull is another turnaround for Pacific sea lions, almost eliminated during
an era of bounties and market hunting. Since the Marine Mammal Protection Act was passed in 1972, the California sea lion population has rebounded to more than 250,000, and the eastern stock of Stellar sea lions has grown to more than 70,000 animals over the past decade, according to NMFS. With that population growth, their appetite for salmon and steelhead has been a mounting issue for two decades. Sea lions hunt adult salmon and steelhead as they migrate upriver from the ocean to Bonneville Dam, Willamette Falls, and other tributaries to the Columbia River. It’s at a crucial point in the salmon life cycle, after the adults have survived in the ocean, but just before they return to their home rivers to spawn. Biologists estimate the sea lions eat more than 10,000 salmon and steelhead in some years. Specifically, the authorization allows for removing up to 540 California sea lions and 176 Steller sea lions over the next five years. — Kirk Moore
DURAMAX MARINE TECHNOLOGY ®
Engineered To Work As Hard As You Do. DryMax® Maintenance Free Shaft Seal System
The Original Johnson® Cutless® Sleeve and Flange Bearings
DuraBlue® Composite Rudder Bushings, Thrust Washers & Wear Plates
Custom Engineered Heat Exchange Systems
Duramax Marine® is an ISO 9001:2015 Certified Company
Quality Products Made in America To subscribe, call 1-800-959-5073
www.DuramaxMarine.com November 2020 \ National Fisherman 15
AROUND THE COASTS
Atlantic
“The good news is that all stakeholders in the lobster fishery, including conservation
Helped grow tilefish, longline fleets
—Judge James E. Boasberg
NMFS gets four more months for new right whale plan Federal judge turns down proposed southern New England lobster gear closure
U.S. District Court
federal judge granted NMFS a May 31, 2021, deadline to produce a new biological opinion on the Northeast lobster fishery and northern right whale, following up on his earlier ruling that the agency had violated the Endangered Species Act with a 2014 opinion. U.S. District Court Judge James E. Boasberg also decided against ordering an immediate halt to the use of vertical lines for lobster gear in an area traversed by right whales south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket — a Southern New England Restricted Area, about the size of Connecticut, proposed by plaintiffs including the Center for Biological Diversity and Conservation Law Foundation. In a 31-page opinion, the District of Columbia judge recognized the difficulties NMFS faces in resolving the right whale issues. But he included a stern warning to the agency to make progress. “Although the Court therefore finds the May 31, 2021, deadline acceptable, it will look with considerable disfavor on any future requests by NMFS for even more time to
Environmental groups had sought a court order to close the red crosshatched area on chart to offshore lobster gear.
16 National Fisherman \ November 2020
complete the new rule and BiOp (biological opinion),” Boasberg wrote. “Delay, it seems, has been a primary strategy for many TRP (take reduction plan) stakeholders, and NMFS effectively tolerated such tactics despite previously representing to the Court that it expected to have a proposed rule and draft BiOp complete more than a year ago.” “The good news is that all stakeholders in the lobster fishery, including conservation groups, are not starting from square one,” Boasberg noted, outlining longtime efforts to reduce lobster gear interactions with northern Atlantic right whales, now numbering only around 400 animals. The environmental groups won their essential point when Boasberg ruled April 9 that NMFS’ 2014 biological opinion stating that the American lobster fishery “may adversely affect, but is not likely to jeopardize, the continued existence of North Atlantic right whales” failed a critical responsibility. The judge ruled then against NMFS and in favor of the plaintiffs’ argument, noting that the agency failed to include an “incidental take statement.” That failure, the judge declared, rendered the biological opinion illegal under the Endangered Species Act. In deciding against imposing a southern New England gear closure, Boasberg in his memorandum discusses a range of potential effects brought up by all parties to the lawsuit, including the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association and other industry advocates who joined to help NMFS defend its actions. The judge mentioned the danger of unintended consequences cited by industry advocates — including a warning that closing such a large area would lead to more gear being concentrated in other areas, potentially leading to more entanglements. — Kirk Moore
C
aptain Louis Puskas Jr., a fisherman who brought tilefish back to market after a century’s absence and helped establish the modern U.S. longline fishery, passed away Sept. 2 at his home in Barnegat Light, N.J. Puskas, a 1988 NF Highliner, figured in propelling the tiny port at the northern tip of Long Beach Island into industry prominence. He lobbied Congress hard to establish and pass the original Fishery Conservation and Management Act with its 200-mile fishing limit in 1976, and in 1981 helped organize the American Captain Lou Puskas Tuna Action rediscovered East Coast tilefish. Committee. In the 1960s heavy fishing by foreign distant-water fleets drove down U.S. cod catches and inspired demands for a new 200-mile limit — and indirectly led to Puskas rediscovering the tilefish resource. In December 1971 Puskas and fellow Barnegat Light fisherman Nelson ‘Hammer’ Beideman prospected along the edge of the Hudson Canyon. They returned with 3,000 pounds of tilefish, landing the novel catch at Lighthouse Marina. Other fishermen picked up the cue, and within a few years advertised Barnegat Light as “the tilefish capital of the world,” returning the fishery to a prominence it once held in the 1880s. Puskas and captain John Larson developed the Viking Village dock as a base for longliners and scallop fishermen. In awarding him the Highliner recognition in 1988, National Fisherman’s editors wrote how Puskas “anticipated the need for local fishermen to expand their horizons and worked hard to improve conditions and markets.” — Kirk Moore www.nationalfisherman.com
Viking Village
groups, are not starting from square one.”
A
Barnegat Light legend Lou Puskas passes at 89
WE’VE LAUNCHED
Our team is excited to announce the launch of a fully redesigned nationalfisherman.com. The site has been rebuilt from the ground up with the needs of our commercial fishing audience in mind at every step of the way, and we cannot wait for you to check it out. If you have signed up for Fish e-News, follow us on social, or subscribe to the digital edition of National Fisherman magazine, you already know we are committed to making our digital dispatches lively, current and customized. The new site allows you to search for content by species, by region or navigate directly to the breaking news that is important to you. The redesign emphasizes the visual, improves readability and is designed with your mobility in mind. Commercial fishermen are on the go, and now NF fits right in your pocket. The NF crew has been facilitating industry conversations for more than 70 years. The new nationalfisherman.com takes it to the next level with the NF Forum. Moderated by our editors as well as some industry leaders, you can use this space to ask questions, get feedback on gear, or just be social. We hope you take a moment to visit the new site and let us know what you think. We built it just for you.
Experience the new nationalfisherman.com
MARKET REPORTS
AT L A N T I C
G U L F / S O . AT L A N T I C
Shrimp
Oysters
Supply steady and quality reaches a high for retailers still selling
Too much Mississippi River water and Florida drought pinch supplies
n Maine and New England, northern shrimp (Pandalus borealis) used to be a regional and seasonal staple. But for seven consecutive years, the fishery has been shuttered. The last year there was a commercial season was in 2013, and at that time, dealers paid fishermen an average of $1.81 a pound. Dustin Leaning, a fishery management plan coordinator for the Atlantic States, says “the Gulf of Maine stock remains depleted, and as of yet, has not shown a positive response to the commercial fishing moratorium. Reducing fishing mortality has historically been fishery managers’ most effective tool in rebuilding a stock that has reached low levels of biomass.” The moratorium on fishing in Maine is in place until 2021. “They’re resilient,” says Maggie Hunter, Maine’s head shrimp biologist. “They’ve recovered from collapses before (early 1950s, late 1970s), but we’ve never documented one in the Gulf of Maine lasting this long before.” A 2019 Gulf of Maine survey by the Northern Shrimp Technical Committee revealed indices of abundance, biomass and spawning stock biomass at new time-series lows. Warming waters, like those in the Gulf of Maine, are also detrimental to shrimp populations. A Maine-New Hampshire inshore survey, along with spring and summer shrimp surveys, were all canceled this year because of covid-19 concerns. “Maine conducted a small project this past winter, to see whether an acoustic survey method could be an effective tool to monitor shrimp populations during a fishery, if one were ever reopened. But the results were mixed, and the full report won’t be available until late this fall,” says Hunter. Marshall Alexander, a 74-year-old fisherman from Maine, used to fish Pandalus borealis. “We used to make half our year’s pay with shrimp,” says Alexander. Although he feels there are shrimp around to be caught, Alexander says he is not sure if he will see the fishery resume in his lifetime. Spencer Fuller, of large exporter and distributor Cozy Harbor Seafood in Portland, Maine, says there was a time when his company bought 70-75 percent of all shrimp landed in Maine. Now they rely on frozen shrimp landed in Canada, Iceland, and Norway. “The question is whether Maine will ever have access commercially.” — Caroline Losneck
here is no denying that the covid-19 pandemic has slowed consumption of Gulf of Mexico region oysters, as is the case with many other seafood species. But environmental concerns appear first in the minds of oystermen, who have seen prices drop from 2019 highs related to widespread effects from Mississippi River flooding, when landings were at half the historical volume. “Prices are steady, but the supply is not really there,” said Toby Voisin of Wilson’s Oysters in Houma, La. “They’re running from $45 to $65 per sack, or $9 to $13 per pound. I had 25 or 40 boats out at one time, and now I am down to eight.” Willie Daisy of Daisy’s Oysters in Dularge, La., reports similar prices, noting that in the summer months the oysters he harvests are normally thinner and less attractive to the market. Salinity is a big issue for the oystermen. The influx of flood-related fresh water in 2019 was the culprit in a mass of oyster losses, with some beds experiencing a 100 percent failure. Coastal restoration projects that introduce fresh water to high-salinity areas remain a concern, with oystermen keeping close track of government plans. In Alabama, hopes are high for better times following the end of a mandated 2018-19 closure, and reports from Mississippi are consistent with those from Louisiana. The same cannot be said for harvesters of the prized Apalachicola oysters of the Florida panhandle. The Florida Wildlife and Conservation Commission issued an order in August halting all wild oyster harvesting in the region. Unlike the oystermen in the western gulf, affected negatively by too much freshwater, those working Florida’s panhandle waters were plagued by drought, which crippled an industry known for its sweet-tasting, unique product. Plunging fortunes over a decade or more have seen many oystermen leave the area or enter different professions. “Our bay has collapsed,” said longtime oysterman Shannon Hartsfield. “I am hoping decent river flows can swap it around sooner… I am hoping we can come back to where a hundred families could make a living in the bay again.” — John DeSantis
I
18 National Fisherman \ November 2020
T
www.nationalfisherman.com
MARKET REPORTS
PA C I F I C
ALASKA
Dungeness
Pollock
Despite shutdowns, Oregon fleet fares well; live market prices spike
Season surges as fish sticks rule the covid marketplace
regon crabbers had landed 20.07 million pounds of Dungeness as of August. Ex-vessel price negotiations and meat fill issues delayed the opening of the season until Dec. 31. And like other fisheries, the arrival of covid-19 put the stops on product flow to preferred markets. As for the resource, the good times continue to roll for the crabbers. Based on average ex-vessel prices of $3.64 per pound, this year’s revenues crunch out to $73.06 million. According to data from PacFIN, the Oregon fleet averaged $3.58 per pound for revenues of $66.7 million in the 2019 season. Elsewhere along the West Coast, California fleets posted landings of 8.37 million pounds for revenues of $30.09 million, and Washington’s production hit 10.93 million pounds (no ex-vessel revenue available), according to data from PacFIN. Though Oregon crabbers received an average $3.64 per pound for the entire season, some buyers drove high-end offers to $6.28 per pound in May. The spike in prices, like other years, was paid for live crab, says Scott Adams, general manager of Hallmark Fisheries, in Charleston, Ore. “There’s a huge market out there for anything alive, anything that swims or crawls,” he says. “The guys who jumped into the live market got a bit more.” Adams says China was the driving force behind the market at the beginning of the season. With the arrival of covid in March, restaurants and other end markets, worldwide, began shutting down. The effects were felt immediately along the West Coast and other strong domestic markets for Dungeness crab. “There were no restaurants. There were no buyers,” says Adams. “San Francisco. Crab shacks. Any place you could buy crab… sales stopped, period.” That meant increased cold storage holdings as processors shifted their production from fresh product to frozen soldier packs and other frozen forms. “Everyone had 1 [million] or 2 million pounds of crab lying around,” says Adams. As the months rolled on, the crab shacks and other restaurants built add-on spaces or large outdoor decks to offer social distancing and product began to flow. — Charlie Ess
laska pollock trawlers were well on track to catch their TAC for the year, and increased demand for seafood during the covid-19 pandemic threw some optimistic twists into market dynamics. The TAC for the Bering Sea had been set at 1.425 million metric tons, with another 19,000 metric tons coming out of the Aleutian Islands harvest area. While the Aleutian Islands TAC has remained unchanged in recent years, those for the Bering Sea have been nudging upward from 1.345 million metric tons in 2018 and 1.397 million metric tons of last year. The TAC for the Gulf of Alaska, meanwhile, has also risen slightly from last year’s 112,000 metric tons with 115,930 metric tons for this year, and trawlers in August continued plugging away on their C-season allotments. As of August, the four trawl sectors were scattered about the Bering Sea and mopping up quotas for the B-season, which began on June 10 and ends on Oct. 31. “Everyone is out fi shing,” says Craig Morris, CEO of Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers in Seattle. “The B-season is the larger season for surimi and other products.” When it comes to favored product forms, Alaska pollock has been enjoying the resurgence of fi sh sticks. Morris notes that with the closures of schools and students attending virtual classes and eating their lunches at home, fi sh sticks have risen sharply in demand. “They’re easy to pop into the microwave or just toss them into the oven at 425 degrees for a few minutes,” he says. Morris adds ease of preparation, good taste and a source of healthy protein rank high among factors consumers consider when purchasing foods of all kinds, and pollock has been rising to the top. “Fish sticks really checked a lot of boxes for us there,” he says. According to data Morris shared from Nielsen, frozen seafood sales exploded by nearly 51 percent for the quarter ending on May 31 this year, and fresh rose 26.3 percent, with shelf-stable seafood sales increasing by 59.4 percent. — Charlie Ess
O
To subscribe, call 1-800-959-5073
A
November 2020 \ National Fisherman 19
FEATURE: PORT PIRATES
STRANDED IN TORTOLA A longline captain is jailed, and his crew detained and isolated, as supporters urge the U.S. government to intervene By Kirk Moore
20 National Fisherman \ November 2020
so ff
F
steps in, everyone’s pretty pessimistic.” After being denied bail a second time — and appearing for a Sept. 9 court hearing, only to learn it was postponed — Foy was still awaiting a trial at press time. He and supporters are counting on some key evidence to show he was working at sea legally — from the vessel monitoring system that the Rebel Lady, like other U.S.-flag longliners, is required to carry by the National Marine Fisheries Service. “We’ve got cameras, we’ve got VMS data,” said Joe Foy, the captain’s brother in Florida who reached out to NMFS officials for help. “It doesn’t make any sense,” said Andrew Minkiewicz, a lawyer with the Washington, D.C., firm Kelley Drye & Warren who is helping the family. “He wasn’t even in their territorial sea. From what I can tell from the coordinates, he was a little over six miles out, and they only claim three (miles out).” After early news reports of the seizure, C prosecutors issued a brief statement July 17 an rd Jo portraying their version of events, contending that Foy sought entry but “permission was sought and denied by the Chief Immigration Officer as the borders of the Territory were closed as part of the territory’s response to the covid-19 pandemic.” A longtime captain who started in the Barnegat Light, N.J., longline fleet, Foy has most recently been based out of San Juan, Puerto Rico, fishing on his U.S.-flagged vessel with four longtime Indonesian crewmen. In season, their trips typically involve six to seven sets, looking to deliver highest quality iced “seven-day fish,” mostly yellowfin tuna, swordfish, and the occasional albacore and opa, says Joe Foy. By U.S. law, foreign crewmen on his boat need to clear local customs at a foreign port every 29 days before returning to Puerto Rico. Foy’s family says he had been clearing through Tortola over the past year — most recently April 27 without any problems, weeks after BVI authorities had already begun as
amily and friends of an American longline captain who was jailed and his boat seized after being led by customs officers into a British Virgin Islands port are pressing the U.S. government to help in the case. Michael Foy, 60, of Manahawkin, N.J., has been jailed in Tortola since June 11, initially charged with illegal entry in violation of the island’s covid-19 precautions, then with a charge of illegal fishing, although he had been fishing south of Puerto Rico far away from BVI waters. Foy’s family says his vessel Rebel Lady was laidto offshore June 8, waiting for clearance to enter the port of Road Town as he had done many times before. He and his crew were approached by BVI authorities and instructed to follow their boat into port. Foy was under the impression that he was getting customs clearance. Instead, to his surprise, he was taken into custody by officers at the dock, and the Rebel Lady was impounded. Initially charged with illegal entry, Foy was also charged a few days later with not arriving at an “authorized port,” and with operating an unlicensed or unregistered fishing vessel — a move that suddenly jacked up potential penalties to $511,000. Foy’s family and other fishermen have pressed the U.S. State Department for action, invoking a 1970s law called the Fishermen’s Protection Act. According to a summary of its provisions, the law requires that the federal government, “after a U.S. vessel has been seized by a foreign government, to take such steps as are necessary to protect the vessel and the health and welfare of its crew; to secure the release of such vessel and the crew; and to determine the amount of any fine, license fee, registration fee, and any other direct charge that is reimbursable.” “He’s lost his catch, so he’s got no way to pay for that,” said friend and fisherman Jim Budi of the American Sword and Tuna Harvesters trade group. “Unless the State Department
www.nationalfisherman.com
To subscribe, call 1-800-959-5073
Michael Foy has been longlining out of Puerto Rico, regularly clearing customs in Tortola.
would allow him to get out of prison to take care of his crew and vessel.” “The conditions that Mike is being kept in are deplorable,” his sister Kimberly Foy Kelly wrote in a narrative of the case. “He has rats
“He has rats and cockroaches in his cell, so you can imagine many nights he goes without much sleep. For the first two weeks he had no toothpaste/brush, soap, towel, shower, clothes.” — Kimberly Foy Kelly, Michael Foy’s sister
and cockroaches in his cell, so you can imagine many nights he goes without much sleep. For the first two weeks he had no toothpaste/ brush, soap, towel, shower, clothes and we found out he has been in the same underwear
Jordan Cassoff
its covid-19 entry precautions. Under that procedure, when Foy knows the timing of his last set, he contacts his agent Tommy Forte in Puerto Rico, who then arranges with a shipping agent in Tortola to coordinate with customs. Rebel Lady is met at the port by a local shipping agent with clearance documents for Foy and his crew, who stay on the boat after BVI customs and immigration officials stamp their passports, then head back to Puerto Rico, said Joe Foy. On this trip, Foy called Forte June 1 to tell him how the first day’s longline sets had brought in phenomenal catches of yellowfin. They began to plan on how much more time it would take to fill the fish hold. By June 4, the boat was already full of what would have been a week’s catch on a larger vessel, and Foy and Forte agreed any more fish might crash the markets in Puerto Rico and Miami, already fragile from covid-19 restrictions. Forte got in touch with his Tortola contact and customs to set up the clearance for Rebel Lady, and by June 8 Foy and his crew were waiting offshore to hear their clearance was ready. After his arrest that day, Foy learned of the additional charges at a June 11 court hearing, and the prosecutor told Foy’s local defense attorney Paul Edwards that the government wanted to force forfeiture of the boat and sale of more than 8,000 pounds of fish onboard. Foy’s family got his New Jersey congressional delegation of Sens. Robert Menendez and Cory Booker and Rep. Andy Kim, all D-NJ, to send a statement to government officials in Tortola June 30. The captain’s friends in the U.S. pelagic fisheries fleet sent testimonial letters about his experience and reputation. “Captain Foy has always been and I’m sure this time also was progressing as to the letter of the law,” longline captain Tony Geisman wrote in one letter to Tortola authorities. “I’ve always known this to be the case with him offshore fishing as well as port [entries] and exits. I’m sure there was no intent to break or circumvent BVI law. “As a captain myself I know Captain Foy’s worries and his responsibilities lie with his boat and crew. I would respectfully ask you to consider some type of house arrest for Captain Foy until the matter is resolved. This
Jordan Cassoff
FEATURE: PORT PIRATES
Foy’s vessel Rebel Lady has been defueled and placed in dry storage, and his Indonesian crew members confined to an island hotel.
for the past 36 days. His dinner consists of bread and sweet tea. “Michael’s first question when he gets a phone call is about his crew. They have been a second family to him for many years.” Then the family learned July 29 that the Rebel Lady had been hauled, put in dry storage on the hard and defueled.That’s raised suspicions among other U.S. fishermen that the boat itself is being targeted as the real prize. “Forfeiture is something they can do if he is found guilty,” said Minkiewicz. “They definitely want that boat.When the first storms of this (hurricane) season were coming, that gave them the excuse to move it.” The danger of losing his boat is another reason Foy is determined to fight the charges, he said. Meanwhile, the Indonesian crew members are confined to an island hotel. The BVI authorities “are not sure what to do with them,” said Minkiewicz. “They have not been charged with anything.” In early September, Foy’s relatives learned local authorities had stopped delivering food to the crew. Foy’s Puerto Rico agent Tommy Forte was able to arrange for food through the captain’s lawyer and shipped it on a trading vessel that departed from San Juan to Road Town, they said. But food sent to Foy from Puerto Rico is rifled through by the guards, leaving about half the remaining goods, according Foy’s supporters. Their arguments for releasing the captain have been countered by some British Virgin Islands residents, who assert any foreign fishermen would be treated harshly for violations in U.S. waters. But that’s not true, Minkiewicz says. “Much to the frustration of U.S. fishermen, they just send them on their way. It’s catch-and-release,” said Minkiewicz. “The Coast Guard is not happy about it.” The glaring example is repeated incursions into Texas waters by Mexican crews in small lanchas, poaching red snapper. They are regularly intercepted by Coast Guard and Texas state authorities, but the Department of Justice opts not to prosecute in the face of other pressing demands, said Minkiewicz. Kirk Moore is the associate editor for National Fisherman. November 2020 \ National Fisherman 21
BOATBUILDING
BOATBUILDING
Homer Marine photos
THE HOMER STRETCH
Maxed out at 58 feet, the Thalassa is now a more competitive salmon seiner, with increased RSW, fish hold, and fish-handling capacities.
After building and working on boats for 30 years in Homer, Alaska, Eric Sloth knows how to stretch a seiner By Paul Molyneaux
ric Sloth and his wife threw their belongings into their car and drove to Alaska in 1980. They found their way to Homer (as did this writer a couple of years later). “You know how it was in Homer those days,” says Sloth. “You were a deckhand in summer and a carpenter in winter. I started working with guys here, working on boats, and somebody asks you to patch a hole in a boat, and you start learning, and you end up stretching boats.” Sloth never intended to have his own business, but after 30 years as the owner of Homer Marine, also known as Eric Sloth Boat Builder, he has seen a lot of changes, and facilitated many of them. “There was a real boom building these seiners in the ’80s and ’90s. Delta, Beck, LeClercq, Hansen were all building
E
22 National Fisherman \ November 2020
small fiberglass seiners. But now, with new boats costing $1.5 million to $2.5 million, fi shermen can’t justify that, so there’s a boom on stretching boats. We just fi nished adding 5 feet to the stern of the Kailee Lynn, and are wrapping up the Thalassa.” The Thalassa, a 52-foot salmon seiner built at Hansen Marine in Seattle in 1989, is named after the primordial goddess of the sea, Thalassa, who among other things, created all the fi sh. The vessel arrived at Eric Sloth’s yard in October 2019. Now she is hitting the water as a 58-foot limit seiner with a 50 percent increase in fi sh hold capacity, an all new RSW system, a new deck layout, a new shaft, and an articulating rudder. “We added seven feet in the middle,” says Sloth. “I know, the math doesn’t add up.” How does a 52-footer get a 7-foot
www.nationalfisherman.com
BOATBUILDING
The Thalassa is Eric Sloth’s sixth extension project. The final shape is one of the best, he says, because of where he cut the boat.
stretch and end up at 58 feet? “We squared off the bow,” he says. According to Sloth, the project started with the original drawings sent by Hansen Marine. “They were paper drawings,” says Sloth. “We had to upload them into our program.” Sloth uses the Rhino CAD vessel design program with Orca, which enables him to create 3-D imagery of the entire project, and also see how a vessel will lay under certain conditions. The Thalassa was built with a 65,000-pound fi sh hold capacity, which Sloth increased to 100,000 pounds. “We designed three new fi sh holds,” he says. “He’s got a small 20,000-pound hold forward, for when things are slow and he doesn’t want to tank up the whole To subscribe, call 1-800-959-5073
Lining up a 3-inch-diameter, 28-foot shaft takes time and patience. Here Clinton Bush uses a laser beam to align the shaft angle.
November 2020 \ National Fisherman 23
BOATBUILDING
boat. Then there’s a 50,000-pound hold that kind of wraps around that, and a 25,000-pound hold behind that.” Besides designing the tanks, Sloth had to design the 18-ton refrigerated seawater system that will enable the Thalassa to land top quality product. “We got the chiller from IMS and the condenser from Cold Seas. Mark Volinski at Cold Seas customized that for us; my son worked for them.” According to Sloth, he has piped the system mostly with 4-inch, schedule-80 PVC. The main circulation pumps are electric and run off the genset, the hydraulics run off the main, a 500-hp 6140 Lugger. With the addition of 7 feet, the Thalassa needed a new shaft. From the Twin Disc MG 5111 with 2.5:1 reduction to the 36 x 28 propeller, Sloth’s team installed a single 3-inch-diameter by 28-foot Aquamet-22 shaft — no tail shaft. “It’s the biggest one they make,” says Sloth. “They shipped it
“Every stretched boat has some ugly geometry, but this hull was almost perfect. We cut her at her widest point, so that helped. We kept the sheer and sides, but sacrificed a little on the bottom.” —Eric Sloth, BOATBUILDER
The Thalassa will be able to make tighter turns with a new articulating rudder, designed by Lowell Stambaugh and built in Palmer.
from Boston, by truck and then barge.” Lining up a shaft that length took some time. Sloth reports they shot a laser line up from the shaft log to the transmission
coupling, and used that to line up one cutless bearing and one grease bearing midway between the Twin Disc and the PSS dripless stuffi ng box. They then soaped up the shaft and slid it into place. “We have a Morse taper on it,” says Sloth. “I stay away from oils and anti-seize when fitting the propeller. I want the prop to seize onto the shaft.”
MANUFACTURING QUALITY ALUMINUM & BRONZE HARDWARE TO THE BOAT BUILDING INDUSTRY SINCE 1965
WWW.FRASERBRONZE.COM 5625-48th Dr. NE Unit D Marysville, WA 98270 Toll Free: 877-264-1064 Made in USA
24 National Fisherman \ November 2020
www.nationalfisherman.com
BOATBUILDING
Sloth designed the fish corral and raised deck to provide a safer work platform and help the crew shave valuable time off handling the catch.
Sloth notes that they also use the laser on the transmission coupling to line up the two parts of the hull once it is cut in half. The original hull was built with a 1-inch solid-glass bottom and 3/4-inch sides. “We have to keep the sides and shaft angle in line,” says Sloth. “Every stretched boat has some ugly geometry, but this hull was almost perfect. We cut her at her widest point, so that helped,” says Sloth. “We kept the sheer and sides, but sacrificed a little on the bottom.” While adding a half-inch of glass over the 7-foot extension, tapered along 20 feet of the hull, Sloth built up the inside to as much as 2 inches, again, tapered into the original. “It’s like we built a new hull inside the old one,” he says. The Thalassa has heavily gusseted bulwarks and double cleats for tying alongside tenders in rough weather. The new deck is 1.5 inches thick and includes a false deck that sheds water and protects some of the piping and wiring that runs aft. “We put a big chaseway and used the same schedule 80 PVC, 4-inch and 3-inch for air, drinking water fuel lines and the autopilot for the articulating rudder, and some new wiring.” Among the new features on the Thalassa, Sloth installed an articulating rudder. “It’s the same design as the Lowell, (see NF Oct. ’19) but we got it from a guy in Palmer.” Sloth points out that the false deck helps To subscribe, call 1-800-959-5073
provide a safer work platform when the crew is handling large bags of fi sh dumped on deck. “The two goals of this project were to increase capacity and put fi sh onboard fast. If they can shave 15 minutes off
loading time every set, that adds up. We designed what we call a fi sh corral to help get fi sh down fast. So they can get one load down while they get ready to roll another 5,000-pound load aboard.” The vessel increased hold capacity, but left fuel capacity the same. “We did increase her fuel capacity five years ago,” says Sloth. She’s got two 1,000-gallon tanks in the stern. Because of the hull design, the Thalassa makes only about 8 or 10 knots, according to Sloth. “Usually with an extension we gain a knot or two. There’s more planing surface, and the boat gets up a little more.” The Thalassa will fi sh around Kodiak and Shelikof Strait, chasing reds, humpies and some dog salmon. Unlike many East Coast boats, the Thalassa tows its seine skiff rather than hauling it up a stern ramp. The seine skiff holds one end of the seine in place while the boat deploys the net in a circle around a school of salmon.
HYDRO-SLAVE SAME DAY SERVICE HAULERS AVAILABLE 8” TO 17” • ALUMINUM BACKPLATE • POLISHED STAINLESS BACKPLATE • ALL STAINLESS HARDWARE
DUAL RAM QUADRANT ASSEMBLY
POWER STEERING AVAILABLE IN 5 CLASSES • UP TO 120 FEET • STAINLESS QUADRANT ASSEMBLIES • STAINLESS HELMS ONE TON BOOM WINCH • AvAILABLE IN POWDER COATED STEEL OR STAINLESS STEEL • AvAILABLE WITH A HyDRAULIC BRAKE CALL FOR DETAILS
5.5 HP HONDA POWER UNIT • 11GPM @ 2000 PSI 2 Stage Pump • Light, Versatile and Portable • This unit will power 10” and 12” and 14” Haulers • Ideal for outboards and other small boats • Log Splitter
• 100% Stainless Steel construction • Rudder side thrust eliminated • no stress on boat timbers
OUR NEW GENERATION SUPER BLOCKS • 4” Low LIP and HI LIP • 5” Low LIP and HI LIP • 2000 lb. Capacity • Sealed tapered roller bearings • Aluminum Sheaves • Stainless Sheaves ELECTRIC CLUTCHES HIGH EFFICIENCY VANE PUMP
Call 1-800-747-7550 • Email: marinhyd@midcoast.com • Fax: 207-594-9721
MARINE HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING 17 Gordon Drive • Rockland, Maine www.midcoast.com/~marinhyd/
November 2020 \ National Fisherman 25
BOATBUILDING
“They have a Bay Weld skiff, made here in Homer. It’s a 20-foot jet skiff with a John Deere 6090. ” — Eric Sloth, BOATBUILDER
Finished in time for the 2020 season, the 58-foot Thalassa was on the water seining salmon.
“They have a Bay Weld skiff, made here in Homer,” says Sloth. “It’s a 20-foot jet skiff with a John Deere 6090. They just snug it up to the hawsehole aft.” According to Sloth, the Thalassa is his sixth vessel extension. “The fi rst one was
4 feet,” he says. “I brought an engineer in for that one. I don’t have any education or credentials for this work, just 30 years of experience. I’m very serious about the engineering, I read everything, go to the shows, and talk to people.”
Sloth credits a lot of his success to his neighbors working in the fi shing industry. “I didn’t know anything about rewiring a boat, so I called David Mogar at Specialty Electric, and he was too busy. But he told me what I needed to do and stopped in to see how things were going.” Sloth notes that after a few boats, he pretty much knew what to do. “I’m lucky to be part of a great community of skilled people,” he says. Paul Molyneaux is the Boats & Gear editor for National Fisherman and author of “The Doryman’s Refl ection.”
Quality Marine Equipment Since 1981
Winch Power. Built to Order.
THE PSS PRO FEATURES... Commercial design with unmatched durability. Reinforced silicone bellow increases pressure and temperature limits compared Learn more at to nitrile bellows. www.shaftseal.com Upgraded materials prolongs lifespan in comparison to the Type A PSS Shaft Seals.
PYI Inc. 425-355-3669 www.pyiinc.com
26 National Fisherman \ November 2020
www.nationalfisherman.com
COVER STORY: HIGHLINERS
2020 Highliners ur annual tradition of hailing leaders of the commercial fishing industry began in 1975. An NF Highliner is a career commercial fisherman who is also known for giving back to the industry, locally, nationally or globally.This year, we include in the ranks a lifetime achievement award winner for a career of service to commercial fisheries. I am honored to name the 2020 award winners, representing U.S. fishing communities on the East and Gulf coasts — Bonnie Brady of Montauk, N.Y.; Jerry Fraser of Wells, Maine; and Frank Patti Sr., of Pensacola, Fla. Though Bonnie Brady knows the deck of a dragger well enough, this Lifetime Achievement Award is a result of her years
O
of service with the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association in Montauk, and as a member of the board of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, an East Coast consortium. Former NF editor and publisher Jerry Fraser was drawn to boats and fishing long before he led the NF crew. He came up harpooning tuna, dragging groundfish and landing lobsters off the coast of Maine, a witness to a world of change on the working waterfront. And last but most certainly not least is Frank Patti Sr., a fisherman and devoted seafood ambassador, who will celebrate his 90th birthday this November. Congratulations to the Highliner class of ’20! — Jessica Hathaway
BONNIE BRADY She’s got the scoop By Jessica Hathaway
picked up the chalk,” says Bonnie Brady. “That was the end of my life.” Twenty years later, Brady, 57, recalls the meeting that changed the course of her life and put a scrappy journalist on her path as a doggedly determined advocate for fishermen and ocean habitat. “I had never really paid attention to the fishing thing,” Brady adds. She came to fishing through marriage after landing in Montauk, N.Y., an iconic Long Island fishing town. Like many community fisheries advocates, she recalls that time of her life via council proceedings: “It was around 2000, Amendment 13” to the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan. “Dave was out fishing, and he said, ‘Can you go to this meeting and find out what happens?’” Brady adds that once she got to the fishermen’s forum hosted by the Cornell Cooperative Extension, the room was awash with a range of complaints from a crowd of fishermen. She stood up, grabbed the chalk and started to ask questions. “If you were to list the top five problems, what are they? I put myself in the middle. Being a reporter, I wanted to see what the main points were. It was obvious these guys had real issues. I had never paid attention to any of that before I met Dave.” Bonnie Brady, Continued on page 30
I
28 National Fisherman \ November 2020
Courtesy Bonnie Brady
“
www.nationalfisherman.com
COVER STORY: HIGHLINERS
FRANK PATTI SR.
JERRY FRASER
Jen Finn
Patti Marine
Serving shrimp and grit
Getting back to fishing
By Kirk Moore
By Paul Molyneaux
s editor and publisher of National Fisherman, Jerry Fraser says, one principle always came to his mind amid the ceaseless debates over management, gear types, the ocean environment and the future of fi sheries. Equity. “I don’t say you shouldn’t be careful, and I don’t say fi shery management doesn’t work,” says Fraser, 67, who retired in 2019 after nearly a half-century career in fi shing and journalism. “Fishery management shouldn’t be preoccupied with making it easy. It should make it equitable,” says Fraser. “It’s a tough racket. There’s no argument that’s going to satisfy everyone.” During a stormy new era of enforced consolidation, transferable quotas and catch share systems, Fraser says he looked for the balance of preserving fi sheries and fi shing communities. “You can make a lot of economic arguments against Jerry Fraser, Continued on page 32
y daddy used to take me when I was 5 years old, for company,” says Patti, who was born to an Italian immigrant family on Nov. 12, 1930. “After I got older, Daddy sent an old black man named Derby to go with me, and I went shrimpin’ in a little boat with him.” Frank’s father, Giuseppe “Joe” Patti came from Riposte, a little fishing village in Sicily, and started working on snapper boats that would sail from Florida all the way to the shores of Campeche, Mexico. “He landed first in New York, but he was such a terror there they sent him down here to cool off,” says Patti. “He was a tough man. One time we caught a couple of baskets of white shrimp, and he left me to watch ’em while he went and got his car. There was a train there, and the conductor came over and took the shrimp. Daddy came back and asked me where the shrimp was, I said, the choo-choo man got ’em. He went over and threw that man right off the train. Got our shrimp back.” In 1957, after four years in the Navy, Patti took over Frank Patti Sr., Continued on page 34
A
“
To subscribe, call 1-800-959-5073
M
November 2020 \ National Fisherman 29
COVER STORY: HIGHLINERS
Bonnie Brady
Brady married Montauk fisherman Dave Aripotch in 1998. “He’s a trawler — fluke, scup, black sea bass, squid, whiting. He used to groundfish, but he leases his quota now,” Brady says. “He started going offshore gillnetting when he was 15. He would sneak off unbeknownst to his parents. He would take off for a couple of weeks!” Brady was born in Yonkers, N.Y. Her parents “got married and got divorced almost immediately.” She spent her early childhood in New Jersey. “I lived with my grandmother, and my mom worked in the city. My dad was a cop in Yonkers. They ran into each other on a street corner,” she says, describing the fateful day that led her parents back to each other. They remarried and had four more children. Brady, 13 years older than her siblings, left home to attend the University of South Carolina in Columbia, where she studied journalism and French. “Then I moved to D.C. in ’84. I was a broadcast major, and everyone was fired,” Brady says, remembering how terrible the era was for work in her field. She cobbled together jobs in retail, bookkeeping, waiting tables, even working in New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley’s office on Capitol Hill before heading back to New York in 1989. This time, she went “home” to Montauk, where her parents had moved after her father retired. There she joined the volunteer fire department, became an EMT and wrote for the East Hampton Star while she waited for a Peace Corps assignment, which eventually landed her in Cameroon. “I was a health worker at a bush post,” Brady says. “We were basically vaccinating kids. Malaria, malnutrition and childhood diseases were the biggest threats. And of course we were dealing with AIDS because in sub-Saharan African in the early 1990s it was a heterosexual disease.” She returned to Montauk and the Star in 1993. “I was doing that during the daytime and of course waitressing at night because you make no money working for a paper.” That’s when Brady met and married Aripotch. “We had two girls — Mairead was born in 1998; Caitlin in 1999.” 30 National Fisherman \ November 2020
Sarah Blesener
Continued from page 28
Brady and her husband, Dave Aripotch, at the dock with his 64-foot Caitlin & Mairead.
Shortly thereafter, she found herself at that first fisheries meeting. “I made the mistake of raising my hand and picking up the chalk,” Brady laughs. “That’s when I started involving myself in the group we formed in 2000, the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association.” Then she read a national story on the decline of fisheries and started digging around into the background of the people quoted in the story. “She’s doing research all the time. Bonnie likes her facts,” says Meghan Lapp, fisheries liaison for Seafreeze Ltd. and general manager for Seafreeze Shoreside. “Nobody chooses this industry because it’s an easy one.” Brady was shocked by what she discovered about the fisheries report. “Twelve out of 13 people in that story were funded either directly or indirectly by Pew, and the other guy was a chef,” Brady says. “I thought I knew what was going on. And if not, obviously the environmental groups would tell me. Why wouldn’t they tell me the truth?” Brady says. “Science is supposed to be that hallowed hall.” She learned the Pew Charitable Trusts held a 2002 marine fellows workshop in Bonaire, east of Aruba.The purpose was “to train the scientists in the ways of the media, the better to market their message,” according to a report by Nancy Gaines for the Gloucester Daily Times. “It was eye opening. I had no idea. We had a complete example of collusion and
advocacy that wasn’t reporting,” Brady says. “Things are not always as they appear. And it didn’t really matter what side you’re on, money buys influence and sometimes power. I thought if you were an environmentalist, you tell the truth. And that’s not always the case.” The shift, Brady surmises, came with a drive for more funding at the university level. “Back in the day, it was publish or perish. Now it’s bring in outside sources of money — grant money, grant funds,” Brady says. “Bonnie’s always been on the right side of these arguments — digging up the dirt that’s buried deep within it,” says Jim Lovgren, secretary of the Fishermen’s Dock Co-op and owner of the Shadowfax in Point Pleasant, N.J. I’m a reformed snob,” Brady jokes. “There are other kinds of intelligence. People think that because these guys are a little rough around the edges that inherently they’re stupid. What other profession is there where you have 30 to 40 years of experience, and basically you’re told your information doesn’t matter because it’s coming from you?” Brady remembers a time when the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries (which would become NMFS) was dedicated to documenting the stories of the sea. “People like Rachel Carson were working for NMFS and were memorializing anecdotal evidence,” Brady says. Like Carson, Brady has found fisheries to be a passion project. “Bonnie is extremely passionate about what she does,” says Lapp. “She puts her heart and soul into it.” Brady’s heart and soul soon led her to offshore wind power meetings. “The Long Island Power Authority wanted to put two 800-MW arrays of 2-MW turbines of offshore wind within state waters south of Jones Beach, right in the middle of our squid grounds. And that was my introduction,” Brady says. “The opposition at the time was mostly because people didn’t want to look at them in state waters.” Over the years, she’s learned a lot about offshore wind and joined the board of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance to help fishermen get a seat at the table. “It’s the same with wind as with anything. It’s PR versus reality,” Brady says. “These www.nationalfisherman.com
things only work at 38 percent capacity of their nameplate per year. And they work even less in the summer on the East Coast when we really need, it. They lose power over time — 4 and up to 8 percent every year.” Despite some significant questions as to the infrastructure and output of wind power arrays, Brady is more concerned about the lack of data on their lifespans, the prospects for decommissioning when they become defunct, and the cost of turning over large tracts of our ocean floor to foreign investors. “The biggest problem that we have is there is a virtual dearth of science on the long-term effects of any of these, Brady says. “These are foreign-owned energy companies in our exclusive economic zone. In ’76 we pushed them off of our shores, the fleets, and now we’re saying come on back! Take our grounds from us! All up and down the coast, in all of our fishing grounds. What happens after 10 years when these things no longer work?”
Courtesy Bonnie Brady
COVER STORY: HIGHLINERS
Brady reps the association at the Montauk Seafood Festival in October 2015.
If anyone is up to the task of holding the energy companies accountable for their projections, it’s Brady. And if anyone is up for the wild ride that is sure to come with offshore development, it’s commercial fishermen.
“The guys who are still in it now are warriors. They’re used to 15 things happening at the same time. They’re used to dealing with whatever hand they’re given,” says Brady. “They’re good at adaptation, but they need to have representation at these meetings.” That’s where people like Brady shine. “She is one of the most sincere advocates that I know,” says Greg DiDomenico, executive director of the Garden State Seafood Association in New Jersey. “Her grass roots abilities and commitment to her community is remarkable.” That commitment drives Brady to master new skills to keep standing up for fishermen. “I want to take a fisheries science math course. If you don’t understand the language, you can’t fight,” she says.“I need to know how those models work.” And her beat goes on. Jessica Hathaway is editor in chief for National Fisherman.
Maritime Fab Big Bay Roller Stern Roller Strength Like You’ve Never Seen Before!
Heavy-duty 3/8” formed aluminum side frames 16” dia. Core for increased net traction & reduced fish knock-outs
Integral ball valve for hubless freewheeling Low profile base hinges with easily accessible locks
KLASSEN DIESEL SALES LTD. Vancouver, BC, Canada Dealer inquires welcome
klassendiesel.com 1-866-940-6400 To subscribe, call 1-800-959-5073
La Conner, WA: (360) 466-3629
www.laconnermaritime.com November 2020 \ National Fisherman 31
COVER STORY: HIGHLINERS
Jerry Fraser Continued from page 29
NF Staff photos
keeping small farms,” he says. “If you make a priority of preserving this industry, we would come out in a different place.” Fraser’s own life took different turns, from a New York City kid to beginner fisherman during summers in Maine, two threads that wound together to form his adult working life. His father, C. Gerald Fraser, was a longtime New York Times reporter, and mother Geraldine was a school psychologist who also wrote freelance fiction for magazines. After they divorced, Geraldine’s writing helped maintain the family’s summers away on the Maine coast, which she saw as essential. “I had bad hay fever as a child. My mother didn’t want to keep us in the city,” said Fraser. During the summers around Ogunquit, Maine, “I gravitated to Perkins Cove,” he said. “I had this natural interest in boats.” At the tiny harbor, he and other boys “were all known as cove rats,” said Fraser. He got to know one fisherman, Red Bridges. “I started fishing with Red, and he paid me a buck a day.” Working his way up during those years, Fraser fished with Sonny McIntire — a 2016 NF Highliner, and his father, Carl. After high school, Fraser became a deckhand on Sonny’s dragger.
Most of our readers remember Fraser’s head shot from his years as editor in chief.
32 National Fisherman \ November 2020
At age 26, Fraser bought the Hard Times, a 37-foot Jonesport-style lobster boat.
“Sonny instilled in you this reverence for the ocean and fish and how you catch them,” said Fraser. “That’s how this kid from New York City got into fishing.” Fraser was accepted to Stanford University. But like many a young person who had tried fishing first, that’s where he went instead, working on lobster, tuna, gillnet boats and draggers.The industry atmosphere made a deep impression on him. “When I was fishing out of Portland, it was like a dream come true,” said Fraser. “There was a real camaraderie.” Crews working on Eastern-rig draggers coordinated with each other when fishing for whiting, he recalled. “We would have 30, 40 boats doing tows. Nobody would set until the fish went down” in their daily move through the water column, he said. In those days before cell phones, “for the most part you couldn’t be too secretive” and most captains shared information — and fish, like the time captain Carl Smith “came over and gave us a cod end” to help make up his boat’s 10,000-pound limit, Fraser recalled. At age 26, he bought the Hard Times, a 37-foot Jonesport-style lobster boat that he gradually re-rigged for nets and learned how to fish better. In those years with a bigger fleet around, a younger fisherman could feel safer knowing there would be help if his old boat had trouble. Fraser was also absorbing the deeper beliefs and understandings that keep people in commercial fishing:
“These guys have a passion for what they do and the intrinsic value of catching fish and feeding people.” The writing impulse was still there, too. In his mid-30s Fraser started writing a column for the York County Coast Star weekly newspaper in Kennebunk, but resisted offers to work as a reporter. He finally gave it a try, found it fascinating, and went on to a series of newspaper jobs that took him to Florida Today in the early 1990s and then the Boston Globe from 1993 to 1997. Writing and editing copy at the Globe was another dream job, except for commuting five days a week from Maine to Boston: “After four winters of that, it got to be a real drag.”
Fraser on a 2004 trip to Newfoundland, one of many writing trips he made in his tenure at NF.
www.nationalfisherman.com
COVER STORY: HIGHLINERS
and working with fi shermen, scientists, writers and photographers around the U.S. coasts, Fraser marveled at the diversity of fi shing and how critical it was to have deep contacts. “You can’t know everything about all the fi sheries, so you depend on your correspondents and the fi shermen. That made it very difficult, especially in the beginning,” he said. “We are the national magFT_CommMoorageAd2019_V1_Print.pdf azine covering the industry. That’s what
made me feel I really had to do a good job. We had to get it right the fi rst time.” That the fi shing industry is fighting through the covid-19 crisis and still feeding the public proves its worth just like small family farms, Fraser says. “We’re a free people, and we should have some things we like.” Kirk Moore is associate editor of National 1Fisherman. 3/1/19
10:24 AM
Fraser was the longtime host of Pacific Marine Expo’s Fisherman of the Year contest.
In spring 1997 Fraser saw an advertisement in the Maine Sunday Telegram newspaper seeking a senior editor for National Fisherman. A couple of months later, he got the job. He took over as editor in chief and associate publisher in 1999. Over the next decade the New England groundfi sh fleet was steered by NMFS toward the catch-share system, a new iteration of quota ownership that had struggled through its East Coast introduction with the surf clam and ocean quahog fi shery in the 1990s. Fraser remains a skeptic. “We don’t know where the bottom is,” he says of New England fi shermen’s future. As editor of NF, Fraser engaged public debate among the industry and NMFS administrator William Hogarth. “He believed the solution was catch shares. I didn’t and still don’t,” said Fraser. “But I’m not sure I had a better decision,” he added. “Now they’re kind of locked in, by dint of catch history.” Amid mounting political fights among commercial and recreational fi shermen and environmental advocates, “I made up my mind we weren’t going to pick fi sheries,” said Fraser. Presented with arguments to ban some fi shing method or gear, Fraser would often respond that “it won’t stop there.” Fraser handed off the editing reins of the magazine in 2010, but stayed on as publisher of NF and WorkBoat magazines until 2019. In his years of at-sea interviews C
M
Y
CM
MY
CY
CMY
K
To subscribe, call 1-800-959-5073
THE PACIFIC PROVIDES THE FISH. FOR EVERYTHING ELSE THERE’S FISHERMEN’S TERMINAL. Freshwater Moorage Forklifts / Cranes / Electric Hoist Loading Docks Boatyard Gear Storage Net Repair Area Electricity, Water, Showers
Tell us what you need to be ready to fish! (206) 787-3395 November 2020 \ National Fisherman 33
COVER STORY: HIGHLINERS
Frank Patti Sr. Continued from page 29
lots of questions. He felt so strongly that he already had a safe and proper operation that he decided to abandon his wholesale seafood license and just be a retail operation, as such was exempt from HACCP.The last time I visited him, he was washing down the facility. I said, ‘Frankie, don’t you have a hundred other people who can do that?’ He said words to the effect, ‘Yea, but nobody can do it like I do.’ He does a great job in providing excellent seafood to so many folks who could not eat seafood if they could not buy the harvest of commercial fishermen.” After the Vietnam War, Frank came to the aid of Vietnamese refugees. “They had 70 or so left there at Eglin Air Force Base, and nobody would hire them because they were all fishermen. A nun came
Frank Patti Sr. oversees Bobby Favorite and Buster Grasso on the shrimp packing line at Joe Patti’s Seafood. Both Patti and the seafood business turn 90 this year.
Patti Marine photos
fishing the family’s shrimp boat, the Guiding Star, built by Adolf Tosh in Biloxi, Miss. And since then, Patti has dedicated himself to the fishing business and his community of Pensacola, not that he’s eager to admit it. “I don’t do nothing for nobody,” he says. “Except give ’em a paycheck maybe.” When you count all the people who work at Joe Patti’s Seafood, the business that Patti’s mother, Anna Patane — also an immigrant from Sicily — started in 1930 to keep her husband close to home, they add up to about 170 paychecks. In addition, there is the crew at Patti Marine Enterprises, the shipyard Patti started in 1977. “Adolf Tosh was over in Biloxi, and they weren’t doing so good over there,” says Patti. “So I invited him to come here and help us build boats. He knew boats inside out, and I learned a lot from him.” “Tosh’s son still works at the yard,” says Tony Minton, who has been working with Patti for 67 years. “I lived in Gulf Shores, Alabama. Mother and Dad passed away, so I came over to Pensacola when I was 15, and went to work for Mr. Joe. Frank and I grew up together. I called his father Daddy, too.” Minton still works with Frank Sr. “And when you work with Frank, I’m talking work,” he says. “We cuss each other every day, but he’s always there for me when I need him. When I was shrimping and cut
my fingers off in the winch, he was waiting for me at the dock and took me to the hospital. If I ever needed money or advice, he was always there.” Bob Jones, a 2018 NF Highliner and retired longtime executive director of the Southeastern Fisheries Association has also known Patti Sr. for decades. “Frank was one of the first people I met on my first trip ever to Pensacola in 1964,” says Jones. “We did the ‘dance of two young bulls,’ and throughout our relationship he respected what I had to say, and I respected what he had to say. He is one of the hardest workers I have ever met. He is, you might say, a little bit hard-headed. I had the privilege to teach him and his crew HACCP, which was not one of the easiest classes because he had
In 1957, Frank Patti Sr. returned from the Navy and took over the Guiding Star.
34 National Fisherman \ November 2020
Frank Patti Sr. and Tony Minton (above, center), along with the rest of the crew on the deck of the Guiding Star. Minton has worked for the Patti family for 67 years.
www.nationalfisherman.com
COVER STORY: HIGHLINERS
Highliner Roll Call 1975
Joe Easley, Spuds Johnson, Nels Otness
1977
Frank Patti Sr. in front of the F/V Captain Joe, a 100-foot shrimp boat built in the family’s yard and named after his father.
down and asked me if I could help.” Patti took a twine needle and some mesh up to the base to test who was really a fisherman. “I ended up buying a two-story apartment building for them, and they all came down. Some worked in the shop, some worked on the boats, some got their own boats.” While doing good works on the one hand, Patti got crosswise to the law in 2001. But still he turned lemons into lemonade. After serving 39 months in prison for tax evasion, Patti started a program to hire ex-convicts and teach them skills needed to work in the seafood business. “We bring them in on work release,” he says. Frank Patti Sr. and the business his parents started, Joe Patti’s Seafood, both turn 90 this year. “We sell as much fresh shrimp as we can get, and frozen, too,” says Patti. “But the local boats are almost non-existent. We still have four or five.”While he does have to buy some imported seafood, Patti favors the shrimp he grew up on. “Domestic shrimp is the best you can get, and we sell it for a fair price,” says Patti, who still opens and closes his Joe Patti’s Seafood every day except Christmas, New Year, Easter and Thanksgiving. “It’s easy to get a bad name in the seafood business,” he says. “I’ve got to be here.”
1991
Ron Hegge, Rick Steiner, Tony West *Special Award: Lifetime Achievement Clement V. Tillion
2005
Wilburn Hall, Bill Webber Sr., Bill Maahs
2006
Oral Burch, Adolph Samuelson, Wayne Smith *Special Award: Lifetime Achievement Dr. Dayton L. Alverson
David Cousens, Julius Collins, Jim McCauley
1992
Vito Giacalone, David Karwacki, Jim Lovgren
1978
1993
Dave Bitts, Eric Jordan, Kaare Ness
1994
Rodney Avila, Tilman Gray, Craig Pendleton
Dan Arnold, John J. Ross, Larry Simns
1979
John Bruce, Snooks Moore, Jimmy Smith
1980
Tim Adams, Nelson R. Beideman, Joseph Testaverde *Special Award: Lifetime Achievement Angela Sanfilippo
1981
Michael McHenry, Dennis Petersen, Gary Slaven
Louis Agard Jr., Bart Eaton, Barry Fisher Kenny Daniels, Joe Novello, Rick Savage Gordon Jensen, Ralph Hazard, Konrad Uri
1982
Richard Miller, William Sandefur Jr., Gabe Skaar
1983
Dave Danborn, Bruce Gore, John Maher
1984
Dick Allen, Paul Pence, James Salisbury
1985
Oscar Dyson, Mike McCorkle, Rudy Peterson
1986
Jake Dykstra, Richard McLellan, Bill Moore
1987
Al Burch, Earl Carpenter, Einar Pedersen *Special Award: U.S. Coast Guard Station Kodiak
1988
Frank Mirarchi, Sonny Morrison, Louis Puskas
1989
Nat Bingham, Pete Knutsen, Francis Miller
1990
Arnold Leo, Fred Mattera, Mark Taylor
1995 1996
William Foster, Robert Smith, Diane Wilson *Special Award: U.S. Rep. Gerry Studds
1997
Jim Bassett, Mark Lundsten, Pietro Parravano
1998
Bill Amaru, Felix G. Cox, Gary Nichols
1999
Wayne Moody, Jay Stinson, Ray Wadsworth
2000
Scott Keefe, Patten D. White, Richard Neilsen Jr.
2001
Ginny Goblirsch, Jamie Ross, Tim Thomas
2002
George Barisich, Russell Dize, Luis Ribas
2003
Dan Hanson, Chris Miller, Arne Fuglvog
2004
David Goethel, James Ruhle Sr., Tony Iarocci
2007 2008 2009
Linda Behnken, Kevin Ganley, Joel Kawahara
2010 Bob Evans, Jim Odlin, David Spencer
2011
Larry Collins, Dan Falvey, Bill Webber Jr.
2012
Dewey Hemilright, Kevin Wark, Wayne Werner
2013
Robert Heyano, Robert Hezel, Jerry McCune *Special Award: Lifetime Achievement Brian Rothschild
2014
Martin Fisher, Ida Hall, Russell Sherman
2015
John F. Gruver, Kathy Hansen, Jeremiah O’Brien
2016
Robert T. Brown Sr., Ben Hartig, Carl “Sonny” McIntire Jr.
2017
Bob Dooley, George Eliason, Bruce Schactler
2018
Ryan Bradley, Kristan Porter, *Special Award: Lifetime Achievement Bob Jones
2019
Dick Ogg, Heather Sears, *Special Award: Lifetime Achievement Jack Schultheis
Paul Molyneaux is the Boats & Gear editor for National Fisherman. To subscribe, call 1-800-959-5073
November 2020 \ National Fisherman 35
BOATS & GEAR: WHEELHOUSE ELECTRONICS
BEYOND MAGNETRON Solid-state technology opens up a new world of possibilities for radar
Furuno
Furuno’s NXT line of radars give fishermen a new way to use radar, providing detailed information on targets.
ook out at the radars atop the wheelhouses in almost any fishing port in the United States and Canada, and one name stands out — Furuno. The company’s blue-on-white logo is visible on the domes and open arrays of vessel after vessel. According to Eric Kunz, senior product manager at Furuno USA, customers are seeing huge leaps in radar technology. Since World War II, Kunz says, radar has relied on the magnetron, a high-powered vacuum tube that works as a self-excited microwave oscillator. Crossed electron and magnetic fields are used in the magnetron to produce the high-power output required in radar equipment. As Kunz tells the story, the British developed an innovative magnetron early in 1940, but concerned it might fall into German hands, they sent it to the United States in exchange for aid. “They sent it to MIT, where it was used to develop the first radar, and then RCA and Bell started mass producing it. They used it to spot U-boats, and it helped us win the war of the North Atlantic.” But after 80 years as the foundation of radar, things are finally beginning to change.“Since 2018 we’ve been delivering NXT radars,” says
L
36 National Fisherman \ November 2020
Kunz. “These are not your traditional magnetron radars. They are solid state, with transistors and digital signal processing.” Kunz explains that while the magnetron enables radar to collect information on range and bearing, the solid-state technology provides a third piece of information — radial velocity, or Doppler. “With Doppler,” Kunz says,“you can see if a target is coming at you. And if it’s coming at more than 3 knots, the radar turns it red, tracks it and gives you its CPA, its closest point of approach.” Among other features, Kunz highlights Furuno’s rain mode on some radars. “Solid state allows us to look at the signal quality, and our target analyzer can differentiate targets from rain. This is all developed by us.” Kunz goes out on fishing boats and talks to fishermen about what they want. “What a lot of fisherman like is our True Target Trails. A heading sensor in the satellite compass is integrated with the radar to give true radar trails so that they can see at a glance what is moving in relation to them. If they have an AIS overlay, they can find out what kind of vessel it is and where it’s going.” Kunz notes that besides collision avoidance, True Trails can give fishermen an idea of what other fishing www.nationalfisherman.com
Kongsberg Maritime
By Paul Molyneaux
BOATS & GEAR: WHEELHOUSE ELECTRONICS
“These are not your traditional magnetron radars. They are solid state, with transistors and digital signal processing.”
Furuno
— Eric Kunz, FURUNO USA
On a dual screen, Chesapeake bayman Tim Moore’s Furuno DRS6A NXT radar shows every boat and every buoy out to 19 miles.
Raymarine
magnetron transmitter, the information is processed digitally. “The 6-foot antenna Magnum
Raymarine’s Quantum radars are sensitive solid-state X-band systems with Doppler for tracking targets.
Raymarine
boats are doing.“Some use it that way,” he says. Long a favorite of the recreational fishing and yacht communities because of its very user-friendly platforms, Raymarine has been making its way onto commercial fishing boats. “The Northeast is our biggest slice,” says Jim McGowan, Raymarine’s maritime marketing manager for the Americas. “Of course, we have the home field advantage being here in New Hampshire. Mostly we sell to lobster boats and smaller trawlers.” According to McGowan, Raymarine has two radar systems that could have commercial fishing applications, the Magnum and the Quantum. The Magnum has an open array 4- to 6-foot antenna, and while using a traditional
The Long Island tuna boat Ocean Vue, equipped with Raymarine’s Quantum and Magnum radar systems, is ready for anything.
To subscribe, call 1-800-959-5073
can pick up targets as far away as 96 miles,” says McGowan, adding that it can track weather and large vessels, and flocks of birds. “The birds show up blueish green, and a lot of times can indicate the presence of baitfish. And you know, where there’s feed, there’s fish. Radar used to be collision avoidance and navigation, but now it’s more of a fishing tool.” Raymarine also makes a solid-state Quantum radar system, which has a 22-inch dome antenna, but like the Magnum, is ARPA (automatic radar positioning aid) compatible. “The Quantum has a CHIRP pulse that provides fine detail,” says McGowan.“It uses Doppler to track moving targets. It’s great if you are pulling traps in the fog, especially in high-traffic areas like Boston Harbor.” With Quantum, McGowen notes, the targets are color coded so users can see at a glance what’s happening around them. “Oncoming targets show up red, and receding targets are green,” he says. “ARPA plots the targets. It can lock onto them and track them, and you have visual and audio alarms.” Both systems can be set up with Raymarine’s Axiom multifunction display or used through apps on a cellphone. “Our products are easy and intuitive,” says McGowan. “Nobody wants to read a 500-page manual. You can download the apps and have everything on your phone, and you can check it even when you’re on deck.” McGowan points out that Raymarine also provides equipment for the Coast Guard and the Navy. “We build to military specs,” he says. “Our equipment will withstand salt, shock, and vibration.” JRC, a Japanese marine electronics company, has its U.S. headquarters in Houston. November 2020 \ National Fisherman 37
JRC has introduced the JMA 3300 and JMA 3400 series, which both offer fishermen new target tracking options.
JRC designs and builds similar products to those of other manufactures in the marine industry. “What we offer is durability and support,” says Ramon Rodriguez, strategic account manager for JRC. “We have been manufacturing maritime products for over 100 years. When a system is discontinued or replaced, we will continue to support the product for a minimum of 10 years.” Rodriguez notes that the company’s commercial fishing market, with many sales in the Pacific fleet and Alaska, is expanding into the Canadian maritime industry. “We have many products that fishermen like,” he says. “The JMA-3400 series can be set up as an X-Band or an S-Band radar with different
The JMA-3400 series can be set up as an X-Band or an S-Band radar with many configurations and display options.
Koden
configurations and options available. The JMA-3300 series with a 10-inch display, the JMA-3400 series with a 12-inch display, or the JMR 5400 series with a 19- or 26-inch display. These radar displays can be connected to a variety of different antennas.The JMR-5460 is a 60-kW high-power S-band radar for bird detection. It can detect birds 80-90 miles away with the 8-foot open array antenna.” Rodriguez notes that the JRC JMA-3400 displays have a USB port for a mouse and can import C-Map Max charts.“You can put your chart on the screen,” says Rodriguez. “And the radar gives your position in relation to the chart when a GPS is connected to the system.The JRC GPS antenna can be connected directly to the radar processor removing the need for extra equipment and wiring.”
JRC
JRC
BOATS & GEAR: WHEELHOUSE ELECTRONICS
Koden’s new black box will feed digitally processed signals to a PC with the capacity to display more detailed images.
According to Rodriguez, JRC’s solid state S-band radar, the JMR-5400 series, can track even the smallest targets, and can pick up floats on seines and gillnets. “We sell a lot to the Pacific tuna boats,” he says, noting that in addition to use in spotting distant birds, it is valuable when boats are working in close proximity to each other. Among the bigger names in radar, 73-year-old Koden Electronics is the only one yet to introduce solid-state transmitters. “All of the Koden radars we sell are still using magnetrons,” says Brian Sibley, the Mackay Marine sales manager for the Canadian Maritimes. Sibley notes that Koden can get a commercial fishing grade radar onto a 45- to 80-foot boat for as low as $3,000 U.S. dollars.
Finally, a Low-Cost Black Box Radar! Packed With Professional Features: • Dual Range Display • True Trail Function • 4kW, 6kW or 12kW • Radome or Open Array • Up to 72NM Range • Connects With Any VGA Display • ARPA & AIS Interface Standard
KODEN MDC-2000BB Series Radar
U.S.-based Customer Support and Service • Call us or visit our website to learn more • www.si-tex.com • (631) 996-2690 Si-Tex-Koden Radar - NatFisherman-ver2.indd 1
38 National Fisherman \ November 2020
9/8/20 9:27 AM
www.nationalfisherman.com
Koden
BOATS & GEAR: WHEELHOUSE ELECTRONICS
“Most of the equipment we sell is to the large inshore fishing fleet,” says Sibley. “A lot of companies have gone to complexity, and menu-driven touch screens, but Koden has kept things traditional, with commercial fishermen in mind.There are still knobs and direct pushbuttons on the machine for the customers who want something simple.” Sibley notes that many Koden units are repairable if they fail. “With a lot of systems today, replacing the unit
To subscribe, call 1-800-959-5073
Koden
Koden radar signals can be processed and displayed on a variety of displays, including this big screen from Nauticomp.
The Hailey and Hannah out of Cape Sable Island, Nova Scotia, is equipped with two Koden open scanners and a Si-Tex dome for backup.
is the more viable option if there is a failure.” he says. While Koden sells dome and open array antennas, Sibley leans toward selling the open array. “If you’re trying to spot a high-flyer, even a small 3.5-foot open array will give you a better chance to see it. The dome radars are
for the smaller fishing boats that need a decent inexpensive shorter range radar, a backup radar, or a radar when the fog rolls in, so they can keep fishing.” But for those comfortable with computers onboard, Koden is coming out with a new black box radar interface. “With the black box
November 2020 \ National Fisherman 39
interface, the radar array plugs into a processor, and you can feed that out to a PC with software. You can also get a stand-alone black box radar that outputs direct to a computer screen. A lot of younger fishermen like that because you can get a much larger screen for the cost. In the past, black box products have been very expensive, and many manufacturers have moved away from them. Koden is now able to offer something for that market. According to Gerry Splitt, territory manager for Navico, which owns four marine electronics brands, including Simrad and Lowrance, magnetron systems are not going away. “We still have magnetron systems,” says Splitt. “Our R5000and Argus Radars are commercial systems that are IMO approved.” But Navico is also big into solid state, and its broad market is helping drive its research and development. “We’ve upgraded from our 3G and 4G broadband transmitters to pulse compression technology that works well in small boats for smaller targets and boats working close together,” says Splitt.“Our radar gives
Navico
BOATS & GEAR: WHEELHOUSE ELECTRONICS
Simrad says it can match the performance of high-powered competitors with Halo radars that use the same energy as a light bulb.
out one pulse that contains five chirps, smaller pulses at different frequencies that it stitches back together to make a single image on your display.” According to Splitt, the Simrad Halo radars can accomplish this with 150-watt (peak) at maximum wind velocity, 40-watt (average) at zero wind velocity, of power. “A typical radar is going to have a 4-kW to 30-kW signal. We’re matching a 6-kW magnetron radar and
doing it with the same energy as a light bulb.” The Halo has its versions of the bells and whistles its competitors have — Doppler tracking capacity and different modes for different conditions. What Splitt is excited about is what these radars offer in terms of performance for the price. Splitt describes a test of the Simrad Halo against a comparable commercial radar, both 35 feet up. He admits that the Halo tracked a target to 11.2 miles, to the competitor’s 11.8. “But ours costs $6,499, and the competitor costs $100,000. If you don’t mind giving up half a mile, I’ll save you $93,000.” While a vacuum tube that helped win a war has been an integral part of the radar world for 80 years and counting, as Raymarine’s Jim McGowan says, solid state technology and other innovations are making radar more of a tool for fishing. Paul Molyneaux is the Boats & Gear editor for National fisherman and the author of “The Doryman’s Reflection.”
BRI DWYER PHOTO
Presented by
This November 17-19th, in conjunction with National Fisherman, Pacific Marine Expo will transform into Expo Online – a digital experience that will allow commercial mariners to come together virtually. The online event will feature three days of free streaming educational content and special events, discussions in the National Fisherman Forum, and a comprehensive supplier guide in lieu of an exhibit floor. Just like the annual show, let Expo Online help you start 2021 with your best foot forward.
NOVember 17-19, 2020
For more information about Expo Online, go to pacificmarineexpo.com
Produced by:
2 40WF_676464_pme20_expo_online_ads.indd National Fisherman \ November 2020
12:49 PM www.nationalfi9/9/20 sherman.com
NOVEMBER PERMIT NEWS
Dock Street Brokers
(206) 789-5101 (800) 683-0297 www.dockstreetbrokers.com For all the latest permit & IFQ listings please call or visit our website.
IFQ NEWS *Price differences reflect the range from small blocks of D or C class on the lower end to unblocked B class unless ortherwise indicated.*
HALIBUT At the time of this writing, salmon seasons are ending and we expect increased effort in the halibut fishery. Fishing reports from 3A and 3B have been mostly positive, resulting in some quota sales. However, landings continue to be well below the historic average for this time of year, and market activity remains limited. The latest is as follows:
AREA
ESTIMATED VALUE
2C $45.00/# - $57.00/# - No activity despite reduced asking prices. 3A $35.00/# - $44.00/# - Offers fall short of current price expectations. 3B $22.00/# - $26.00/# - Recent sales, unblocked wanted. 4A $10.00/# - $15.00/# - Buyers available at reduced asking prices, IFQ available for lease. 4B $10.00/# - $18.00/# - Blocked and unblocked available. 4C - No activity.
$10.00/# - $18.00/#
4D - Unblocked available.
$10.00/# - $18.00/#
SABLEFISH At the time of this writing, harvest effort has transitioned from salmon to IFQ. 55% of Gulf IFQ and 45% of SE/ WY IFQ remains uncaught. There continues to be a strong supply of unfished IFQ available for lease or purchase, but diminished demand has resulted in few sales. We expect market activity to remain limited until grounds prices improve. The latest is as follows:
AREA
ESTIMATED VALUE
SE $12.00/# - $17.00/# - Limited activity, IFQ available for lease. WY $14.00/# - $17.00/# - Unblocked available, offers encouraged. CG $9.00/# - $13.00/# - Some activity at reduced asking prices. WG $6.00/# - $10.00/# - Low supply of unblocked, make offers on blocked. AI - No activity.
$1.50/# - $8.00*/# (A class)
BS $1.50/# - $8.00*/# (A class) - No recent sales, limited availability.
To subscribe, call 1-800-959-5073
ALASKA PERMITS
ESTIMATED VALUES
Power Troll
$25k
Area M Drift
$185k
Area M Seine
$170k
Area M Setnet
$55k
Bristol Bay Drift
$155k
Bristol Bay Setnet
$63k
Cook Inlet Drift
$23k
Kodiak Seine
$36k
PWS Drift
$130k
PWS Seine
$140k
SE Dungeness (75 - 300 pot)
Variable - Sellers wanted
Southeast Drift
$70k
Southeast Herring Seine
$100k
Southeast Salmon Seine
$175k
SE Chatham Black Cod
$420k
WEST COAST PERMITS
ESTIMATED VALUES
California Crab Variable - Call for info Market activity has increased as the season approaches. There have been several recent sales, but prices remain low and supply continues to outweigh demand. Call for more information. The latest is as follows: - 175 pot: $30k - $50k range, sellers wanted - 250 pot: $45k - $60k less than 40’. $50k - $100k for 40’ - 60’ + - 300 - 350 pot: $70k - $150k, low availability - 400 - 450 pot: $100k - $280k, value dependent upon length - 500 pot: $250k - $400k+, highest value in 58’ and above CA Deeper Nearshore
$35k
CA Halibut Trawl
$70k - $100k
California Squid
Variable - call for info
CA Squid Light/Brail
Variable - call for info
Oregon Pink Shrimp
$50k - $65k
Oregon Crab Variable - call for info Steady demand for 500 pot permits over 50’ - 200 pot: $45k - $60k - 300 pot: $110k - $200k - 500 pot: $200k - $300k for <50’ & $6k - $7k per foot for >50’ Puget Sound Crab
$155k
Puget Sound Drift
$11k
Puget Sound Seine
$100k
Washington Crab Variable - call for info No recent sales activity, leases available - 300 pot: $90k - $160k depending on length - 500 pot: $300k - $400k depeneding on length Washington Pink Shrimp Washington Troll
$38k - Leases available $21k
Longline - Unendorsed $90k - $120k - Cash buyers looking, sellers wanted. Leases available. Longline - Sablefish Endorsed Variable -Tier 2 and 3 permits available, prices reduced A-Trawl
Variable - Call for info
November 2020 \ National Fisherman 41
AROUND THE YARDS
NORTHEAST
2020 lobster boat racing season wraps up; six races draw 379 competing boats
Jon Johansen photos
By Michael Crowley
Kimberly Ann (right) and Alexa are ahead of the rest of the pack.
Blue Eyed Girl is the fastest working lobster boat. She hit 49 mph at Portland.
aine’s 2020 lobster boat racing season, which began in June in Rockland and ended in August in Portland, was like no other. The continual threat of the coronavirus wiped out five races, leaving just six locations on the roster. The pandemic also affected the number of boats that showed up for some races. A good example was Moosabec Reach with 81 lobster boats coming to the starting line this year, whereas it was 125 boats in 2019. Altogether, 379 boats showed up for the five races, though many of those raced at more than one event. The Maine Lobster Boat Racing Association operates the races, with about 30 races held at each event, over a course averaging just under a mile long. The schedule at each location varies slightly, but a typical race day starts with the Class A Skiffs race, for skiffs 16 feet and under with outboards up to 30 hp, operator 18 years and under. There could be as many as three skiff races, based on engine type and horsepower. Those are followed by the Gas Powered Work Boat category for boats 24 feet and up. Since most fishermen’s boats are diesel
M
42 National Fisherman \ November 2020
High Voltage pushes ahead of Bad Influence to win at Winter Harbor.
powered, that’s the biggest racing category, with as many as 15 races, broken up by horsepower and boat size. It starts with race number nine, Diesel Class A — Up to 235 hp, 24 to 31 feet — and ends with Race 24 Class O — Non-working boats, any length, any horsepower. The day generally concludes with gasoline and diesel free-for-alls, the World’s Fastest Lobster Boat race, followed by the World’s Fastest Recreational Lobster Boat race and maybe a race for the fastest lobster boat from whatever harbors where the races are being held. Several classes had rivalries that carried over from one race to another. A good one was Diesel Class M(B) 40 feet and over, 501 to 750 hp with Kimberly Ann (Calvin Beal 42, 750-hp FPT) matched up against
Alexa Rose (Morgan Bay 43, 750-hp John Deere).They competed against each other in all but one race with Kimberly Ann usually winning. She hit 39.2 mph at Rockland. A race that got a lot of attention in Bass Harbor, Moosabec Reach and Winter Harbor was Diesel Class E 336 to 435 hp, 24 to 33 feet. Several boats were in the race class but the two to watch were High Voltage (AJ-28, 400-hp Yanmar) and Bad Influence (Holland 32, 350-hp Yanmar). They were “within a boat length of each other all the way up the course,” said Jon Johansen, president of Maine Lobster Boat Racing. Usually High Voltage dominated, hitting 40.3 mph at Moosabec Reach. A crowd favorite is the fastest boat, Wild Wild West (West 28 with a 1,050-hp Continued on page 45 www.nationalfisherman.com
AROUND THE YARDS
SOUTH
Maryland team rebuilding oyster buyboat for spring 2021; pushboat for classic skipjack launches after covid delay
Wayne Goddard is refurbishing the Poppa Francis to work in the 2021 spring Maryland/Virginia oyster planting season.
ayne Goddard of Valley Lee, Md., and his son-inlaw Brian Hite of Ridge, Md., are rebuilding portions of the 65-foot oyster buyboat Poppa Francis at their railway on St. George River in Piney Point, Md. The Poppa Francis was built in 1989 by Wayne’s father, Francis Goddard, who has semi-retired from boatbuilding. Few boatbuilders ever really retire. There always seems to be one more boat in them. The Goddards are installing new wooden decks, two new 225-hp John Deere diesel engines, and a new pilothouse. The original steel decks have been pulled off and are being replaced with pine decking. The new pilothouse is going to be 10 inches higher than the old one to provide better visibility when shells and seed are mounded up on deck. The pilothouse shell — walls, roof and doors — are going to be prefabricated by Larry Jennings of Jennings Boatyard in Reedville, Va., out of a composite fiberglass system. The pilothouse is being made in Reedville and will be installed on the boat by crane. The Goddards are going to fi nish off the interior of the pilothouse themselves. “We have had more work with this boat in the last five years than we have
W
To subscribe, call 1-800-959-5073
since my father built it,” says Wayne. The Goddards are hauling seed oysters and oyster and clam shells to and from Virginia’s James River. One customer has the Goddards haul New Jersey clam shells from Nanticoke Harbor in Maryland to private oyster grounds on the James. “He has clam shells hauled in from New Jersey. We haul them to James River and plant them and haul seed oysters back on the return trip,” says Wayne.
Continued on page 45
Larry Chowning
Larry Chowning
By Larry Chowning
Wayne, 65, says he is rebuilding the boat as much for his son-in-law as for himself. “I’m getting older, but I see a future for my family in this business,” he says. “Brian is a commercial waterman. He crabs and oysters. Hauling seed and shell is just another part of the business that I hope will help him survive in the water business.” The Goddards are pushing forward to complete the project by spring of 2021 so Poppa Francis can be ready for the upcoming planting season. Moving down to Virginia, the boatshop crew at the Reedville Fishermen’s Museum in Reedville, Va., has fi nished a 14' x 4' 6" pushboat, named Spat II. The skiff is being used to motor the museum’s skipjack, Claud W. Somers. Spat II was nearing completion in June 2019, as reported in the NF Around the Yards South October 2019 issue. But the covid-19 pandemic shut down the museum, and work on the boat stopped until June 2020. “We were supposed to have had the boat completed in early spring (2020) but the virus stalled our progress,” says Gerhard J. Straub, captain of the skipjack. The Claud W. Somers is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Register of Historic Places. During the 19th century, the Maryland Legislature passed laws restricting use of
Covid-19 slowed the progress on completion of the Reedville Fishermen's Museum push boat, but it is now finished and on the waves.
November 2020 \ National Fisherman 43
AROUND THE YARDS
First-of-a-kind combo will run spinies to bay salmon; Washington boatyard delivers 49-foot California crabber
Strongback Metal Boats
By Michael Crowley
Strongback Metal Boats is building this 32-foot combination boat to fish Bristol Bay salmon and spiny lobsters off Southern California.
early two years ago, Strongback Metal Boats president Ole Oksvold said he was thinking about building a version of a jet-powered boat that could fish for salmon in Alaska’s Bristol Bay and spiny lobsters off the Southern California coast. Well, this September that idea could become reality with the completion of a 32' x 15' 6" aluminum combination boat at Strongback Metal Boats’ Seattle boatyard. “This boat is likely to go to California for spiny lobsters,” says Oksvold. The 32-footer has an enclosed tophouse and is powered by a 730-hp MAN matched up with a 24-inch TraktorJet. For maneuvering, there’s a 10-inch Wesmar bow thruster. The boat’s owner is an Alaska salmon fisherman who will have someone else run the boat in the winter, when it’s working Southern California’s spiny lobster grounds. Then it’s back to Seattle in the late spring to have the hauler used for pulling lobster traps removed from the starboard aft deck and the Kinematic net reel and power hauler installed for salmon gillnetting. (Both the net reel and hauler are removed for spiny lobster fishing to keep a clear, flush deck to stack lobster traps.) Then she will be barged to Alaska for Bristol Bay’s salmon season. Accommodations for a crew of five
N
44 National Fisherman \ November 2020
include two sets of V-bunks plus a day bed in the tophouse for the captain. There’s also a head and shower. In the galley is a Wallas diesel stove for cooking and heating the cabin, which exits out the side of the house. That’s what Oksvold likes about the Wallas stove: “You don’t have a big exhaust that runs straight vertical up through the deck,” he says. There will be a bit of a learning experience in sending the jet-powered 32-footer to California’s spiny lobster fishery, which often takes place in shallow water that can have a lot of kelp. The question is, can a jet-propelled boat maneuver through kelp as well as a prop-driven boat?
“We are going to find out,” says Oksvold. He says he talked with someone at NamJet, which produces the TraktorJet, and it appears “there are no TraktorJets in the spiny lobster fishery.” One thing he is confident about is the ability of the jet-powered 32-footer to move a lot quicker when setting out spiny lobster traps than the boats currently in that fishery. “We’ll have a lot more speed,” he says, estimating the 32-footer will be good for 28 to 30 knots. All in all, Oksvold thinks it makes a lot of sense to have the boat working both fisheries: “Otherwise, it would just sit around till the next spring.” In May, Maritime Fabrication in La Conner, Wash., delivered a new 49' x 18' Dungeness crab boat to a fisherman in Crescent City, Calif. The Lynn Senour designed Jennifer Anne left Maritime Fabrication and headed down the West Coast powered by a 575-hp John Deere. “The owner loves the boat,” says Maritime Fabrication’s Isaac Oczkewicz, noting that the Jennifer Anne has already been prawn fishing and will troll for salmon before crabbing in the fall, its main fishery. A boat that was in the shop in August for repairs is Oczkewicz’s brother’s Bristol Bay gillnetter.This summer, about three weeks before Bristol Bay closed, another gillnetter ran into the side of the boat. “It was an inattention kind of thing,” explains Oczkewicz. Partial repairs were made, and the boat finished out the season. It will take some aluminum Continued on page 45
Maritime Fabrication
WEST
Maritime Fabrication built the 49-foot crabber the Jennifer Anne for a Crescent City, Calif., fisherman.
www.nationalfisherman.com
AROUND THE YARDS
Around the Yards: West
Around the Yards: Northeast
Around the Yards: South
Continued from page 44
Continued from page 42
Continued from page 43
and fiberglass work to repair the damage. Another Oczkewicz family-owned aluminum gillnetter on the shop floor is the Dano, a 32' x 16' Bristol Bay boat built last year for Ed Oczkewicz, Isaac’s father and founder of Maritimer Fabrication in 1978. It’s a bow and stern picker with a raised pilothouse on the stern. ”It’s nothing major,” says Oczkewicz, “ironing out a few new-boat bugs.” Maritime Fabrication is scaling back on building new fiberglass boats to focus on retrofitting and repair work. However, the yard retains the molds. So if someone wants a fiberglass boat, Maritime Fabrication’s neighbor, Tomco Marine Group, a fiberglass shop, will do the fiberglass work, and Maritime Fabrication will do the outfitting. Besides building boats, Maritime Fabrication has been designing and building deck machinery, such as anchor winches, gillnet rollers and reels, and level winds for commercial fishing boats for more than 35 years. Periodically improvements are made to the existing lineup. This year there were a couple of adjustments. One was an articulating base for a gillnet reel on a setnet application, and the other was adding heavy-duty bearings to the gillnet rotator base, which makes turning the drum easier, says Oczkewicz.
Isotta Fraschini). She’s not a working lobster boat, but that doesn’t matter. Wild Wild West’s fastest official time this year was 59.9 mph at Moosabec Reach’s World’s Fastest Recreational Lobster Boat Race races. Though unofficial, she was caught with a GPS reading of 63 mph, which, Johansen felt, was more accurate. That same day, winner of the World’s Fastest Working Lobster Boat went to Dana Beal’s Right Stuff (Libby 34 with a 500-hp Cummins) at 42.9 mph. However, that’s because Blue Eyed Girl (Morgan Bay 38, 900-hp Scania) wasn’t there. Blue Eyed Girl, — which races in Diesel Class K 701 to 900 hp, 28 feet and over — has consistently been the fastest working lobster boat on this year’s racing circuit, with a top speed of 49.4 mph at the Portland races. Maine Lobster Boat Racing isn’t NASCAR, so there’s no big financial payday at the end of the season for those with the fastest boats, men and women who put a fair amount of money into their engine to get a lot more horsepower than is necessary to haul lobster traps. Just the pleasure of being in the middle of a pack of boats with screaming engines and your hand firmly on the throttle that’s jammed down hard.That’s what a lot of Maine lobstermen look forward to.
the oyster dredges to boats powered by sail. The laws are still on the books today, and Maryland has the only sail-powered commercial fi shing fleet left in North America. The museum uses the Claud W. Somers as an education boat. The skiff is powered by a 4-cylinder Beta Marine diesel 43-hp engine; rated at 2,800 rpm; working through a Beta Marine TMC 60 2:1 reduction gear; and turns a 18" x 14" three-bladed prop. The propeller was purchased from Black Dog Propellers in Stevensville, Md. The engine came from Beta Marine U.S. in Minnesott Beach, N.C. “They gave us the best price on the engine, and we drove down and picked it up to save on shipping cost,” says Straub. A 29-gallon aluminum fuel tank was custom made by Bert & Cliff ’s Machine Shop in Wicomico Church, Va. A Beta Marine panel, with engine switch, gauges and fuel gauge, is installed forward of the engine near the bow. This enables crewmen to read gauges and turn the engine on and off while standing on the deck of the skipjack. A fuel gauge is a welcome addition, as the crew used a wooden stick to check fuel on the old pushboat, says Straub.
Marine Medical Kits
H&H MARINE, INC.
- REORDER FORM FOR QUICK ONLINE ORDERS - TRAINING AVAILABLE FOR THE MOST MARITIME INJURIES - ALL IN HD STORM LIKE CASES - EASY TO USE FOLLOW THE NUMBERS
TRAUMA - BLOOD LOSE - WOUND CARE FOOD POISONING - MOTION SICKNESS-EYE INJURIES - BURN INJURIES
1-800-272 3008
www.marinemedical.com To subscribe, call 1-800-959-5073
Brian Robbins
Cost effective on-board medical supply kit and educational material to prepare the commercial fisherman for at-sea injuries.
42' Stormi Gayle
Now accepting orders for hulls, kits and complete boats. We offer twelve models from 25' to 47' 932 U.S. Route 1, Steuben, Maine 04680 Phone: (207) 546-7477 Fax: (207) 546-2163
www.hhmarineinc.com November 2020 \ National Fisherman 45
BOATS & GEAR: PRODUCTS
Product Roundup
MOB system install goes DIY Emerald Marine Products rolls out walk-on alert system By Brian Hagenbuch he people at Emerald Marine Products realized early on that covid-19 would make third-party installations more complicated on boats. To that end, they developed the ALERT (Automatic Lifesaving Emergency Radio Transmitter) Portable DIY Man-Overboard Alarm System, a “walk-on” system that eliminates the need for electricians to come onboard and install an independent system. Emerald Marine’s system includes an ALERT2 Man-Overboard Receiver and two ALERT418 transmitters that crew members wear on their work vests, with additional transmitters available to protect larger crews. When a crew member goes overboard, the water-activated alarm emits a piercing sound.
T
The ALERT receiver can also be set up to stop engines, set a plot on the chart and/or notify the entire vessel. According to Emerald Marine, the need for such safety features is even greater in the industry now as the pandemic forces companies into smaller, physically distanced crews that may be working on more solitary decks for longer hours. “I knew a month into covid-19 that work conditions would change drastically. I was already concerned about the lack of fall-overboard alarms. A reliable solution was needed that would make it incredibly fast and easy for companies to protect their employees. People are filled with uncertainty and worry; a fall overboard doesn’t have to be
ALERT eliminates third-party installation.
one of those concerns,” said Robert Linder, Emerald Marine Products president. Several other man-overboard systems rely on Bluetooth or satellite and may be unreliable, or have a costly delay. And unlike permanently installed systems, ALERT can easily be moved between vessels. It can also be customized to fit the needs of specific vessels and fisheries. The system with the receiver and two transmitters costs $1,250, and Emerald Marine is currently offering a free 30-day trial. EMERALD MARINE PRODUCTS
emeraldmarineproducts.com
Keep sharks at bay Shark Defense Technologies reduces bycatch and attacks By Brian Hagenbuch umans have long had a sense that a decaying shark will drive away its own species. Records as far back as the 18th century indicate that fishermen have dangled dead sharks in the water to clear their grounds. The Navy tried to figure out why around World War II but was unsuccessful, and the second half of the last century saw gimmicky attempts at shark repellents that attempted to re-create the scent of a dead shark. Then, around 15 years ago, organic chemist Eric Stroud and marine biologist Patrick Rice of the R&D company Shark Defense Technologies got serious about studying why dead sharks repel living ones, and how this knowledge might be used to help fishermen.
T H
46 National Fisherman \ November 2020
Stroud “ultimately identified about 112 of these properties, called necromones, that are in sharks when the shark is decaying. They developed several products — spray cans, a high concentration to put in the water — but nothing that was really practical for fishing,” said Luke Walsh, who owns SharkTec Defense. Walsh explained that a 2012 test on Florida longliners found the repellent produced by Shark Defense Technologies reduced shark bycatch by 78 percent over one- to four-hour fishing periods, but its effectiveness dipped drastically for longer fishing periods, making it impractical for longliners who often fish 10 hours or longer. SharkTec got involved in 2015 and released bricks of their Sharp Repellent Chum
Decaying sharks release necromones that scare off other sharks.
in March 2020. Walsh said that although they launched for charter fishing to keep the barrier to entry low, the company has its sights set on the commercial industry. “This is a problem happening roughly 20 percent of the time, if not more, in certain fisheries. If you reduce this problem by 20 percent, it’s going to dramatically impact the way people fish,” Walsh said. Walsh said the repellent is great for bottom fishing, longlining, or any kind of fishing where the chum can reliably be placed upstream in the water column. SHARKTEC DEFENSE
www.sharktecdefense.com
www.nationalfisherman.com
AT A GLANCE
ACCON MARINE’S PULL-UP CLEATS sit flush to the deck when not in use, making them ideal for cleats in hightraffic areas that could be a tripping hazard. The cleats come in two sizes — 12-inch and 15-inch — and are constructed from marine-grade 316 stainless steel. The 12-inch model takes lines up to 3/4-inch and loads up to 14,000 pounds, while the 15-inch can take a 1-inch line and 20,000 pounds. Both come with a mounting template and waterproofing cup for easy installation.
ACCON MARINE
www.acconmarine.com
HOOPER’S ISLAND OYSTER CO. has developed a new OUTFEED TUMBLER CONVEYOR. The device increases capacity by attaching one or two portable conveyors to the sides of tumbler frames, as opposed to traditional conveyors on the end of tumblers. This allows for continuous operation by eliminating the need to clear the conveyor or change tubs, significantly boosting speed and capacity. The aluminum framed conveyor is enclosed with waterproof controls for outdoor use.
VERATRON’s new INTELLIGENT BATTERY SYSTEM allows skippers to monitor batteries from the cockpit. The sensor plug simply clamps onto the battery’s negative pole terminal and then taps into any NMEA 2000, OceanLink or AcquaLink display, where it shows the charge and health of the battery, as well as voltage, current and temperature. It can be used on single batteries or banks and works with 12-volt or AGM battery types. A new model for fall 2020 will function with a 12-volt battery.
Japanese maker ASANO, specializing in stainless steel fishing hardware, has a new SNAP HOOK, the 3SH. The new hook has a 2.5-ton working load limit, improving on its predecessor’s 1.8-ton limit. The greater load strength is facilitated in part by an interlocking system at the gate junction that helps the hook distribute weight evenly. The gate itself has smooth action and is perfectly engineered to fit all the way back into the hook’s cavity for maximum opening. It is also rounded to fit ropes and fingers.
VERATRON
ASANO
www.veratron.com
www.asano.com
Rolling gaff hooks, buoy sticks, and other necessary tools on boats can be irritating and dangerous. Eight sizes of BECKSON MARINE CLIPPER and CLIP-MATE CLIPS can safely and securely hold a range of gear fishermen need at hand from 1/4-inch to 2-1/8-inch in diameter. Rolled edges of the clips mean tools can be easily popped in and out of the clips. Constructed from durable plastic, these non-magnetic clips can be easily installed almost anywhere with one or two screws.
Software developer DYNAMIC SYSTEMS has released its SIMBA TRACEABILITY AND INVENTORY SYSTEMS FOR FRESH FOOD for nonEnglish speakers. SIMBA uses touch computer data entry and barcodes to help producers and distributors keep track of real-time data on stock, including product, size, grade and color. The SIMBA system is now available in up to 99 languages, and a single touchscreen can be set up to display two different languages at once.
HOOPER’S ISLAND OYSTER
BECKSON MARINE
DYNAMIC SYSTEMS
www.hoopersisland.com
www.beckson.com
www.dynamic-systemsinc.com
To subscribe, call 1-800-959-5073
November 2020 \ National Fisherman 47
CLASSIFIEDS
BOATS FOR SALE 21’ BOSTON WHALER 21’ Boston Whaler Outrage - includes boat, motor + trailer 150 mariner trailer workboat - solid workboat, no seats, 92 motor, 87 trailer, 77 boat.
Price: Asking $3,000 Contact: Call Bob 631-672-5327
43’ CHESAPEAKE BAY - 1973 Build (1973) wood- Port Haywood, VA. “Margaret-Mary” documented. “Fishery”. Draft 5” – Net tons 13-17 GRTPower – Detroit, V8-71 235 HP, F.W.C., 2 ½ to Trans: 2” 5/5 shaft – 4 blade brass, enclosed head. Tow-Bir 6’ 5.5. open stern aluminum Tower Hydraulic – steer Diesel fuel tanks-100 gal-each (200.) Windlass/Bow 12 knots – 8 GAL/ HR. Strong. Multi-use – Year 1991-2015, on hard restoration, fish plates. New “oak” keel – end – cutlass- skeg keel shoe. Rudder assembly rebuilt. R/E tow boat. Fishing Parties. Cruise. Mooring details. Recreational. Search and rescue. Needs Navigational electronics, Buzzards Bay, MA. Price: $68,000 Contact: Earl 508-994-3575
50’ LEDFORD SEINER 50’ Ledford Seiner Includes power skiff, 2 salmon seines and many extras. Complete turn key operation, step on and go fishing.
Price: Asking $800,000 Contact: Call Hugh 651-253-4344 hlwisner@yahoo.com.
LE BLANC CRAB / LONGLINER LL-288 1999 Le Blanc Crab / Longliner Hull Material: Fiberglass Dimensions: Length: 44.11’ Beam: 18.7’ Draft: 6’ Capacity : Fuel: 2,000 Gal. / Water: 700 Gal. / Speed: 10 Knots Gross Ton: / Net Ton: 30 / Hold: 10 K Live Machinery : Engine: 3406 CAT / Gear: TD 2 to 1 TD RSW 5 Ton System - Sleeps 3 / AC Unit / Pull Master H 14 Winch / Rope Hauler / F/Deep Water Trap Fishing. Price: $217,000 Contact: Call John 321-784-5982
48 National Fisherman \ November 2020
www.nationalfisherman.com
CLASSIFIEDS
To subscribe, call 1-800-959-5073
November 2020 \ National Fisherman 49
CLASSIFIEDS
55’ GILLNETTER 55” Gillnetter - Cat 3406 with a twin Disc 514 4.5 to 1 ratio for $85,000. Also a new twin Disc mg5114 dc 3.43 1 housing with Vulcan silicone torsional input coupling for $16,500.
Price: $85,000 Contact: Brian 781-724-4960
BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES
LAW
FISHERY/LOBSTER FACILITY FOR SALE
MARITIME INJURIES
$595,000 PRICE REDUCED! Tightly Held Leasehold Marine Facility located in the high demand port of Galilee in Narragansett, Rhode Island. An 11,000 commercial fishing opportunity with its unparalleled access to Port Judith and the Atlantic, with office/retail income producing tenants in place.
401-523-9555 ⬧ imcommercial@yahoo.com https://buildout.com/website/270greatisland
HELP WANTED
LATTI & ANDERSON LLP
Over 50 years experience recovering multimillion dollar settlements and verdicts representing Fishermen, Merchant Seamen, Recreational Boaters, Passengers and their Families nationwide.
CALL 1-800-392-6072 to talk with Carolyn Latti or David Anderson
www.lattianderson.com
MATES/CHIEF ENGINEERS WANTED Tradition Mariner LLC is looking for qualified Mates and Chief Engineers to serve aboard their fleet of 1000 ton to 1400 ton capacity High Seas Tuna Vessels for extended voyages at sea. For more information, please visit our website:
www.traditionmariner.com Place a Marine Gear Ad! Call Wendy (207) 842-5616 wjalbert@divcom.com
Seeking potential US Licensed Chief Engineers and Mates That have experience operating and maintaining large scale tuna purse seiners operating in the South Pacific. Carrying capacity of the vessel is 1600MT of Tuna and trip lengths vary from 30 to 60 days. Contract is on a trip by trip basis.
Please contact: schikami@westpacfish.com 50 National Fisherman \ November 2020
www.nationalfisherman.com
CLASSIFIEDS
HELP WANTED
MARINE GEAR
**LOOKING FOR A USCG LICENSED CHIEF ENGINEER** For an uninspected fishing vessel, a Tuna Purse Seine operation with 4000HP and 1500 MT Cargo Capacity. Must hold a current USCG Engineer’s License, have a minimum 3 years experience with this type of operation. This Full Time position operating out of American Samoa and several other Western Pacific Ports and Requires experience and working knowledge of EMD and CAT engines, R717 Refrigeration / Freezing system, Hydraulic Systems, etc.Please submit Resume and license info to PPFisheries@gmail.com
MARINE GEAR F/V HAYLEY ANN SEABAG South Pacific Tuna Corporation is currently seeking qualified and experienced individuals for the following positions aboard a Class Six purse seine fishing vessel: MASTER CHIEF ENGINEER CHIEF MATE For details, please refer to our webiste www.sopactuna.com or contact: Robert Virissimo bobbyv@sopactuna.com
MARINE GEAR
$210.00
Includes shipping 14” h x 6” w x 18” l All proceeds will support MFCA on Honor Capt Joe Nickerson and his crew that perished at sea while fishing on the F/V Hayley Ann. Joey’s daughter, Hayley designed these bags to honor her father’s legacy.
For more info go to: www.mainecoastfishermen.org
TWO CATERPILLAR C32 ACERTS 1925 HP ENGINES. They also come with 2 ZF 2:1 ratio transmissions.. warranty until January 2021. Engine hours 4870 hrs. Oil samples available. Great running motors in great condition. Motors have been through all service Requirements. Contact me for any questions regarding motors. The motors are currently at Gregory Poole in Wanchese NC. Call Austin Robins 804-815-6294 Asking $200,000.
New England’s Most Complete Packaging Supplier www.skipsmarine.net
New Bedford, MA To subscribe, call 1-800-959-5073
◼
(508) 993-9446
November 2020 \ National Fisherman 51
CLASSIFIEDS
MARINE GEAR
MARINE GEAR
COMPLETE FRONT POWER TAKE-OFF SYSTEMS Multiple Options for Every Engine Front SAE Bell Housings & Flywheels SAE Hydraulic Pump Mounts Live Power Take-Offs Multiple Clutch Options
East Coast Dealership Opportunities Available
BEST BRONZE PROPELLER Sick of pitted and pink props after one session? Ours hold the pitch longer and recondition more times than the brand name props you have been buying and reconditioning every year for the few years they last. Built to your specs not taken off theshelf and repitched or cutdown. (781) 837-5424 or email at twindiscgears@verizon.net
800.777.0714
MARINE ENGINES & PARTS
All Island Marine is an authorized dealer of all these brands. Everything you need for boating is located in our showroom. Stop by and see us.
Ship Daily UPS/FedEx
480 Reina Rd, Oceanside, NY 11572 ⬧ 516-764-3300
www.allisland.com
To locate a dealer visit
www.merequipment.com
Volvo Engine for Sale CTAMD 63L—236 HP @2500 RPM- 1450 Bobtail Marrys up to #3 bell house. 7000 plus hours.
$12,000
Divorcee—MUST GO!
CALL Doug —805-218-0626 52 National Fisherman \ November 2020
TWIN DISC MARINE TRANSMISSIONS, CATERPILLAR & CUMMINS ENGINES & PARTS. New and rebuilt, Biggest selection of used ENG & Gear parts in the world. Worldwide shipping. Best pricing. Call Steve at Marine Engine & Gear 781-837-5424 or email at twindiscgears@verizon.net
DEPENDABLE 12 VOLT ELECTRIC TRAP HAULERS
ELECTRA-DYNE CO.
quick
POWERFUL
RUGGED QUIET and in stock
P.O. BOX 1344, PLYMOUTH, MA 02362 508-746-3270 Fax: 508-747-4017
W W W. E L E C T R A - D Y N E . C O M www.nationalfisherman.com
CLASSIFIEDS
MARINE GEAR
N-Virodredge™ USA N-Viro scallop dredge… Anything else is a drag! • Cleaner catches • Less bottom impact (207) 726-4620 office (207) 214-3765 cell ◼
®
• Saves fuel • Protects junvenile stock 736 Leighton Pt. Rd., Pembroke, Me. 04666
www.n-virodredgeusa.com ◼ tim@gulfofme.com
●
Protected under International patent application No. PCT/GB2009/002002
THE L ARGEST
COMMERCIAL FISHING SUPPLY IN USA.
Since 1982 we are a leading provider in quality commercial fishing supply in the United States. We warehouse a huge selection of ready to ship products
PARTS ● SALES ● SERVICE
432 Warren Ave Portland, ME 04103 Phone (207) 797-5188 Fax (207) 797-5953
90 Bay State Road Wakefield, MA 01880 Phone (781) 246-1811 Fax (781) 246-5321
Place an Ad! Call Wendy (207) 842-5616 wjalbert@divcom
SHOP NOW AT WWW.LEEFISHERFISHING.COM For further questions, please call 800.356.5464 or email graymond@leefisherintl.com
Manufacturers of Hydraulic Deck Equipment: Pot Launchers, Crab Blocks, Trawl Winches, Net Reels, Sorting Table, Anchor Winches
COMMERCIAL GEAR Catalog Available
Exsum Monofilament
Dockside Vessel Conversions and Repairs Machining, Hydraulics and Fabrications Suppliers of KYB Motors, Rotzler Winches, Pumps, Cylinders,
Hydrocontrol Valves, Hoses
Phone: 541-336-5593 - Fax: 541-336-5156 - 1-800-923-3625 508 Butler Bridge Road, Toledo, OR 97391
Siltlon & Marinmax Monofilament Dexter Russell Knives
1112 Main Street Sebastian, FL 32958 (772) 589-3087 Fax (772) 589-3106
www.snlcorp.com
Grundens ® Foul Weather Gear Mustad ® & Eagle Claw ® Hooks Chemilure Lightsticks
◼
Email: snlcorp@bellsouth.net
Inshore and Offshore Fishing Gear (800) 330-3087 AK, HI, PR, US VI (800)824-5635
Same Day Shipping!! To subscribe, call 1-800-959-5073
Keel Coolers Trouble free marine engine cooling since 1927!
THE WALTER MACHINE CO, INC Tel: 201-656-5654 • Fax: 201-656-0318 www.waltergear.com
November 2020 \ National Fisherman 53
CLASSIFIEDS
MARINE GEAR PARACHUTE SEA ANCHORS From PARA-TECH,the NUMBER 1 name in Sea Anchors Sea Anchor sizes for boats up to 150 tons Lay to in relative comfort and safety with your bow INTO the weather Save fuel, save thousands due to “broken trips”
PARA-TECH ENGINEERING CO.
On Sale!
1580 Chairbar Rd. • Silt, CO 81652 (800) 594-0011 • paratech@rof.net • www.seaanchor.com
P-Sea WindPlot II
NEW! P-Sea FishFinder with Hardness and Roughness
This Windows program turns any IBM computer into a chart plotter that displays our library of bathy. charts, FREE NOAA BSB raster charts, Navionics and C-Map MAX vector charts with tide and currents. Interfaces with GPS, ARPA radar, AIS, temp. or depth. Track and record other vessels paths with the ARPA/RADARpc option. Features include: virtually unlimited waypoints, marks and tracks. NOAA Fishing Logbook. Boundary builder for setting fishing zones. Vessel and cursor positions can be set for either TD’s or Lat/Long. with TD grid overlay TD to Lat/Long conversions with optional ASF correction table for GPS/TD accuracy. See the sea bottom in 3D with the 3D option or rebuild the bottom in 3D with the P-SeaBed Builder option. Record bottom hardness, roughness, biomass and temperature down to one hundredth of a degree with the new P-Sea FishFinder option and the Koden 1000 watt dual-frequency sounder module. See for yourself all of the latest features and download the online demos via our website now or call for a mailed CD or dealer referral at 800-88-RADAR.
MARINE GENERATORS Save Fuel Run Cooler Last Longer
9kW - 550kW Gensets
Manufactured by MER Equipment, Inc.
P-Sea Software Co.
800.777.0714
To locate a dealer visit
P.O. Box 1390, Morro Bay, CA 93442 USA
www.merequipment.com
Ph. order dept: (800) 887-2327 • Ph. Info: (805) 772-4396 • Fax: (805) 772-5253 E-mail: info@p-sea.com • Internet: www.p-sea.com
Only rely on the
STRONGEST
Rope Eye
2,0 bre 00lbs + stre aking ng th
Made in USA
888.607.4790
www.mondopolymer.com
54 National Fisherman \ November 2020
(New) SpinClearView S-300 Commercial grade marine clear view 12V window. Used on yachts, fishing, police, military, commercial vessels. The SpinClearView S-300 keeps a glass disk free of rain, snow and sea water by a nearly silent and fast rotation of 1500 rpm. $1,795.00 view more on tinyurl.com/ycob7ruh Cell/Tx: 707-322-9720 or Contact: david@satinbiz.com
CATCH A DOORMAT THIS SEASON.These lifelike, beautifully detailed coarse bristled mats will catch anyone’s eye on home/business doorstep, dock or cockpit. Ideal fisherman, boaters gift. Fluke (brown, black) small (30”) $19.95, Large (43”) $36.95, Stripers (38” grey, black) $27.95, Red snappers (43” red, black) $28.95, Largemouth bass (43” green, black) $29.95, scallop (24” brown, black) $27.95. Send check or MO to A. McDonald, 629 Main St. Greenport, NY. 11944. MC or Visa accepted. Add $5.95 S&H to all orders. $10.95 Gulf/ West Coast, AK, HI. Retailers welcome. (631) 377-3040 www.nationalfisherman.com
CLASSIFIEDS
MARINE GEAR
You Tried The Rest Now Try The Best
Commercial Fishing Gloves Oysters, Clams, Lobster and Crab Regular and insulated Lining Sizes S-XL 12”-26” Long Washer Dryer Safe, Waterproof 100% Nitrile Synthetic Rubber Cut Resistant with Non-Slip Grip Cheaper By the Dozen, Dealers Wanted
708-478-6600 - www.ufgloves.com
Place an Ad! Call Wendy (207) 842-5616 wjalbert@divcom.com
SERVICES NOTICE
Wanted To Buy. Offshore Live Lobsters. Top Dollar $$ Paid. Call Pier 7
Shooting seals and sea lions is against the law.
(located on Gloucester waterfront)
John (617)268-7797
PERMITS
Paying civil penalties > $29,000 Spending up to a year in jail Paying criminal fines Forfeiture of your vessel Harming your fishery’s good name
Report violations 1-800-853-1964
(207) 596-6575
342 Gurnet Road, Brunswick, ME 04011
coastaldocumentationii@gmail.com
Fresh Spot Prawns
Shooting a seal or sea lion may result in: • • • • •
Complete vessel documentation service to USCG regulations NMFS ◼ Permit Transfers
Ocean run spot prawns caught in southeast Alaska.
PERMITS PERMIT FOR SALE Longline permit, Tuna, incidental sword & shark 91' 166 ton. Call George 804691-7021 $9,000.
PLACE YOUR ORDER TODAY FOR THIS FRESH DELICACY!!! 100 lb. minimum
907-401-0158
ADVERTISER INDEX Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute .......... CV3
H & H Marine Inc............................................ 45
Pacific Marine Expo ................................... 9,40
Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute .......... CV3
Industry Electric Systems ............................. 39
Fishermen’s Terminal..................................... 33
Bloom Incorporated ...................................... 12
Klassen Diesel Sales Ltd. .............................. 31
PYI Inc ............................................................ 26
Boatswain’s Locker Inc ................................... 3
La Conner Maritime Service.......................... 31
R W Fernstrum & Company .......................... 12
Bostrom, H.O. Co Inc .................................... 24
Marine Hydraulic Engineering Co Inc ........... 25
Si-Tex Marine Electronics ............................. 38
Duramax Marine LLC .................................... 15
Marine Medical Systems ............................... 45
TWG Canada - LANTEC &
FPT Industrial ............................................. CV2
National Fisherman ....................................... 17
Pullmaster Brands ...........................................26
Fraser Bronze Foundry Inc ........................... 24
Naust Marine USA Inc ................................... 39
XTRATUF.......................................................... 5
Furuno USA ................................................ CV4
Oceanmax ...................................................... 27
To subscribe, call 1-800-959-5073
November 2020 \ National Fisherman 55
Last
set
PRINCE WILLIAM SOUND, ALASKA Dasia Rose and Katie Miller work the sorting table on the tender Silver Spray after the F/V Centurion delivers a load of silver salmon in Prince William Sound. Photo by Megan Corazza
56 National Fisherman \ November 2020
www.nationalfisherman.com
You Make The Alaska Seafood Industry Strong. Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute provides sustainability certification, research and quality handling education to ensure Alaska continues to deliver the highest-quality seafood in the world. This is just one example of how Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute puts all hands on deck to tell the story of wild, sustainable Alaska seafood so you and your family can focus on fishing today and for generations to come.
alaskaseafood.org Stay updated via our fleet-focused page!
@ASMINewsAndUpdates
MAXIMIZE YOUR TIME AT SEA TARGET YOUR CATCH WITH FURUNO
When your living depends on your catch, every trip counts, so you need to make the most of your time at sea. Furuno's acoustic sensing technology finds fish faster by seeing farther and wider, as well as measuring fish size and school density in multiple locations simultaneously. Even in deep water, Furuno sensors maximize your time and effort. We make it simple, so youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll always know the situation at a glance, and be ready to hit that quota by targeting your catch.
SearchLight SONAR
FCV1900/2100 TrueEcho CHIRP
CH500/CH600
Searchlight Sonar
WASSP Gen 3
3D Bottom Profiler
www.furunousa.com