North Pacific Focus 2017 Summer Edition

SUMMER EDITION 2017

Presented by

RED HOT RUN

MAKING HAY

IN THE BAY

BOATBUILDING \ IN THE STRETCH BC YARD RUNS ON SPONSONS GEAR SHIFTS \ ON DECK GET THE LED OUT SAFETY NET \ AMSEA JERRY DZUGAN IS A LIFESAVER

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Commodore’s Boats

Chelsa Paulk/Julianne Curry/angela Christensen

SUMMER 2017

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integrated marine systems

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COLUMNS

FEATURES

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ON THE HORIZON Revisiting the Jones Act

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DEPARTMENTS DEPARTMENTS 22 PILOTHOUSE LOG PILOTHOUSE LOG 44 TIDINGS TIDINGS 54 CALENDAR CALENDAR 66 INDUSTRY WAYPOINTS INDUSTRY WAYPOINTS 87 SEASON SUMMARY BOOK REVIEW 108 Q&A GALLEY WATCH 129 FISHERPOETS FISHERPOETS 13 THE MARKET 10 ON SEASON FORECASTS 14 YARD 12 OUR OUR YARD

LEDs are finally getting their time to shine in the Pacific Northwest.

ON THE HOMEFRONT Airing our dirty laundry

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Installing raw seawater chilling systems means big payouts in Bristol Bay.

THE LONG HAUL Icy trip to Kodiak

22 YOUNGBLOODS Strength of the tides

ALSO ALSO

35 INDEX 35 AD AD INDEX 36 IN FOCUS 36 IN FOCUS

GEAR SHIFTS

RED HOT RUN

MAKING HAY

IN THE BAY

BOATBUILDING \ IN THE STRETCH BC YARD RUNS ON SPONSONS GEAR SHIFTS \ ON DECK GET THE LED OUT

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CLASS IS IN SESSION Meet the man behind Alaska’s marine safety culture.

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SUMMER EDITION 2017

Presented by

BOATBUILDING: KEEP IT COOL

Cover: Deckhand John Paul Gramelis aboard the Aventura.

Kai Raymond photo

WOMEN MAKING WAVES The women of Petersburg, Alaska, built their careers out of fish.

SAFETY NET \ AMSEA JERRY DZUGAN IS A LIFESAVER

SUMMER 2017 / NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS

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PILOTHOUSE LOG

FOLLOWING SEAS S ometimes things go the way you planned, and sometimes they don’t. This is true of fishing seasons as well as putting together a magazine. The biggest difference is that unexpected changes at my job don’t result in the loss of lives, boats or full holds.

It’s a good thing this industry has some phenomenal allies in marine safety, like Jerry Dzugan, executive director of the Alaska Marine Safety Education Association.

Sitka, Alaska-based fisherman and freelance writer Brendan Jones’ profile on Dzugan starts on page 30. But no man is an island. When Jones got to writing about Dzugan, he couldn’t leave out the origins of Alaska’s fishing safety program, because Dzugan has lived and breathed every moment of his association’s development over the last 37 years. You can’t think of AMSEA without thinking of Jerry Dzugan and vice versa.

I have heard whispers of his retirement, but he’s staying put for now at least. Jennifer Lincoln, a member of the AMSEA board and a marine safety specialist for NIOSH, confirmed that Dzugan was seriously considering retiring this year.

But “there were other things that needed to be done that he wanted to do,” she explained.

It turned out to be a pivotal decision. AMSEA’s work under Dzugan’s guidance has helped reduce Alaska fishing fatalities by 83 percent over the last few decades. But this year, with holds overloaded in the midst of an epic return, at least six Bristol Bay boats swamped as a result of overloading and weather. Dzugan responded before the season was over (read his editorial in the October issue of National Fisherman, p. 8, or on our website) because there were also nine fatalities in the Alaska fishing industry in the first half of the year, the most in more than a decade.

Imagine what we’d be saying if this had been the first year without him. When he leaves, everything falls apart! We’re

PUBLISHER EDITOR IN CHIEF ASSOCIATE EDITOR BOATS & GEAR EDITOR ART DIRECTOR PRODUCTION ASSOCIATE

Jerry Fraser Jessica Hathaway Samuel Hill Jean Paul Vellotti Doug Stewart Dylan Andrews

glad to have you around, Jerry, to help us pick up the pieces and get this train back on the rails.

There is some good news coming out of Bristol Bay this year, too.

Over the last few years, more boats have been installing raw JESSICA HATHAWAY seawater systems. In the Editor in chief remote bay, onboard chilling dramatically improves fish quality, but ice is hard to come by. Enter RSW systems that keep the catch chilled until it can be handed off to the tender.

NPF Boats & Gear Editor Jean Paul Vellotti explores the installation of these systems in new boats as well as retrofits and even in poly fish totes. The smallest systems make it possible for skiffs to get in on the action and help setnetters get the 10- to 15-cent price bonus drift gillnetters have been enjoying. Read the full story on page 26.

Conveniently located between Alaska’s fishing grounds and the West Coast hub of boatyards is Commodore’s Boats in Richmond, British Columbia. The yard has been taking advantage of the Stateside boatyard overflow by sponsoning a handful of U.S. fishing boats, among other services. See the profile of the Canadian yard starting on page 14.

ADVERTISING PRODUCTION & ADVERTISING PROJECT MANAGER Wendy Jalbert / wjalbert@divcom.com Tel. (207) 842-5616 • Fax (207) 842-5611 NORTHEAST Kristin Luke / kluke@divcom.com Tel. (207) 842-5635 • Fax (207) 842-5611 NORTHWEST Susan Chesney / schesney@divcom.com Tel. (206) 463-4819 • Fax (206) 463-3342 GULF COAST Jeff Powell / jpowell@divcom.com Tel. (207) 842-5573 • Fax (207) 842-5611

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North Pacific Focus, Summer 2017, Vol. 5, No. 2, is published quarterly by Diversified Business Communications, 121 Free St., P.O. Box 7438, Portland, ME 04112-7438. READERS: All editorial correspondence should be mailed to: National Fisherman, P.O. Box 7438, Portland, ME 04112-7438.

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NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS / SUMMER 2017

EYES ON THE

HORIZON YOUR PASSION: harvesting Alaska’s wild seafood.

OUR MISSION: making sure the world demands it.

While you spend time working on your boats and gear to prepare for the season ahead, we are also looking beyond the horizon, developing new markets and maintaining relationships with your customers in the U.S. and overseas.

Building global demand for Alaska seafood sustains fishing families and communities for generations. The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute team is proud to be on deck with you. www.alaskaseafood.org

Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute

TIDINGS

Bristol Bay

Nushagak

NEWS FROM THE WEST COAST & ALASKA Anacortes

Processor group opposes potential Jones Act waiver

T

Dakota Creek InDustrIes

he Pacific Seafood Processors Association is challenging the Jones Act waiver request sought by Seattle-based Fishermen’s Finest and Dakota Creek Industries out of Anacortes, Wash., af-

The future of America’s Finest is in flux.

ter the 264-foot factory trawler America’s Finest was grounded prior to launch for comprising too much foreign steel.

Without a waiver from the feds, the nearly complete vessel would likely be sold abroad an estimated loss of $25 million. About 10 percent of the vessel’s weight consists of foreign steel, according to reports — well above the allowed 1.5 percent prescribed by the Jones Act. “Our association is opposed to these waivers being granted by Congress, at least until questions about the serious violation of U.S.-build requirements are fully answered, and measures are taken to make sure that those involved in the violation do not financially ben-

T

he California Department of Fish and Wildlife was looking at a $20 million budget shortfall this spring and Gov. Jerry Brown wanted to close a big portion of the gap by increasing landing fees for the commercial fishing fleet by 1,300 percent.

Thankfully, industry stakeholders and North Coast legislators were able to talk state officials down to a 97 percent overall increase, which is still substantial but more in line with the rate of inflation and acceptable to the industry that hasn’t seen those fees adjust in at least 20 years.

The final fee increase will generate about $900,000 annually in revenue for the state. The original proposal would’ve generated $12.4 million annually.

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NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS / SUMMER 2017

efit from the admittedly illegal activity, especially in comparison to others in the shipbuilding and seafood sectors,” said association President Glenn Reed in June.

The processor group opposes a “free pass” for the offending companies without an investigation, Reed added.

Dakota Creek has proposed buying a $700,000 cold-forming press machine to be donated to Seattle’s Seaport Steel for use by West Coast shipyards as a way to make good on the mistake.

CalIf. Department of fIsh anD game

Fee increase for Calif. fishermen gets cut back

San Francisco

Calif. crabbers will pay higher fees.

While the new increase isn’t the death blow to the industry that the original proposal could have been, the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations’ Executive Director Noah Oppenheim said it will still have a serious effect on fishing businesses.

“It’s going to be a rough go for numerous processors and fishermen who are going to have to swallow this in-

crease without any sort of phase-in and without any sensitivity to the impact that the increase will have on normal function of business,” he said.

EPA moves to remove restrictions on Pebble

I

n July, the EPA announced its plan to reverse course on the proposed Pebble Mine project in the Bristol Bay watershed, undoing the pre-emptive veto of the project made under the Obama administration.

Pebble Limited Partnership and its parent company Northern Dynasty Minerals celebrated the decision as a major step toward returning to a fair permitting process, as both have long held that the EPA’s push to block the mine through the Clean Water Act in 2014 was a biased decision.

Bristol Bay salmon returns fast and furious

B

ristol Bay fisherman and processors are celebrating one of the largest sockeye runs on record. This year’s run was predicted to be 41.5 million fish with a harvest of 27.5 million, but the fleet hauled in more than 37 million

At least four Bristol Bay gillnetters ran into trouble in bad weather while carrying heavy loads, like the Ketok, here partially submerged in Nushagak Bay.

AlAskA DepArtment of fish AnD GAme

The 1,000-plus-page Bristol Bay Watershed Assessment that determined the mining operation would cause serious harm to Bristol Bay’s salmon fishery still stands, but isn’t being used as reason to halt the project under the Trump administration’s EPA. Northern Dynasty Minerals is in the process of securing new partners for the project.

“We need to let any prospective investor in Pebble know that they will have to deal with tens of thousands of Alaskans who do not want a mine on top of Bristol Bay’s salmon rivers,” wrote Norm Van Vactor, CEO of the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation, in an op-ed soon after the announcement. “It’s time to put in place an Alaska-driven solution to the Pebble problem, which has dragged on for far too long.”

fish, and the total run topped 56 million, according to harvest data from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game on Aug. 1.

If a huge uptick in volume wasn’t enough, fishermen are also getting better prices for sockeye this year. Buyers are paying a base price of $1 per pound this year, up from 76 cents last season.

A lot of fishermen are also going to see a 15-cent pay bump for chilling their catch and a 5- to 10-cent bonus for floated and bled fish — all of which is happening more frequently throughout the fleet now, according to Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association staff.

SEPTEMBER Sept. 8-10 Santa Rosalia Fisherman’s Festival 1 Custom House Plaza Monterey, CA (831) 625-9623 www.festaitaliamonterey.org

Sept. 22–23 Bellingham SeaFeast 4716 Fir Tree Way, Bellingham, WA www.bellinghamseafeast.com

Sept. 23 Fishermen’s Fall Festival Fishermen’s Terminal 1900 W. Nickerson St. Seattle, WA www.fishermensfallfestival.org

OCTOBER Oct. 2-10 North Pacific Fishery Management Council Meeting Hilton Anchorage West 3rd Ave. Anchorage, AK www.npfmc.org

Oct. 6-8 Dungeness Crab & Seafood Festival 221 N. Lincoln St. Port Angeles, WA (360) 452-6300 www.crabfestival.org To list your event in North Pacific Focus, contact Samuel Hill at shill@divcom.com or (207) 842-5622.

The Nushagak District set records with the total run coming in at just over 19 million fish, blowing past the previous district record set in 2006, when 14.7 million fish were counted.

Total harvest was up to 11.5 million fish, well above the 10.8 million hauled in 2006.

The region also saw two days during which fishermen caught more than a million fish, something that had never happened in the district. On July 3 when 1.5 million fish were caught, four boats sank or were grounded in the area as they struggled to get through poor weather weighed down with heavy hauls.

NOVEMBER Nov. 14-20 Pacific Fishery Management Council Meeting Hilton Orange County 3050 Bristol St. Costa Mesa, CA www.pcouncil.org

Nov. 16-18 Pacific Marine Expo CenturyLink Field Event Center 800 Occidental Ave. S. Seattle, WA www.pacificmarineexpo.com

Nov. 28-29 International Pacific Halibut Commission Interim Meeting Grand Hyatt Seattle 721 Pine St. Seattle, WA www.iphc.int SUMMER 2017 / NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS

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INDUSTRY WAYPOINTS In mid-June, Chris Oliver announced that he was leaving his 16-year post as executive director of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council to take on the role of assistant administrator of NMFS. Originally from Rockport, Texas, Oliver was a research associate at Texas A&M University from 1987 to Chris Oliver 1990, working with federal and state agencies on management issues associated with Gulf of

Mexico shrimp fisheries. He holds a BBA in business management and a master’s degree in fisheries science, both from Texas A&M. Oliver received support from more than 50 stakeholder organizations across the country in an unprecedented display of unity in the commercial fishing industry. (Read more about Oliver’s background in National Fisherman, Sept. ’17, p. 22.)

• The North Pacific Fishery Management Council announced the appointment of David Witherell as the council’s executive director. Witherell has worked for the council for 25 years, starting as a management plan coordinator in 1992 and being promoted to deputy director in 2002.

“Fortunately my predecessor Chris Oliver spent quite a bit David Witherell of time training me to take over the reins, and he gave me a deep understanding of the type of work and gave me the experience to understand what I was getting into as executive director someday,” explained Witherell. Diana Evans, a fishery analyst with the council for 15 years, will replace Witherell as deputy director.

The act also requires an independent third-party review of the environmental assessment process within the FDA. “The primary purpose of this bill is to ensure that consumers have all the facts and can make an informed decision when they are purchasing salmon,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).

• Rich Lincoln, founder and senior advisor of Ocean Outcomes, was reappointed to his obligatory seat on the Pacific Fish- Rich Lincoln ery Management Council. Brad Pettinger, head of the Oregon Trawl Commission, was appointed to an at-large seat.

• A bipartisan group of U.S. Senators from Alaska, Washington and Oregon filed a Genetically Engineered Salmon Labeling Act that would require any manmade salmon to be labeled as such.

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NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS / SUMMER 2017

• The small city of Hydaburg, Alaska, celebrated the opening of the new Haida Alaska Wild Seafood plant in June. After procuring a $1.3 million grant from the Economic Development Administration, Haida Alaska Wild Seafood purchased a building that had previously been home to a fish processing plant. Haida Alaska The company Wild Seafood is adding a test kitchen, a smokery and a vacuum-sealing machine.

The aim of the plant is to provide jobs for locals and economic growth for the city of 400 people.

• The Coast Guard is making an effort to phase out 110-foot cutters and replace them with larger and more seaworthy 154-foot patrol ships. One of the agency’s two new fast response cutters in Southeast Alaska, the John McCormick, toured Alaska ports in July to give the public a look at the new ship.

The fast response cutters stationed in Ketchikan will be patrolling from Dixon Entrance on the Canadian border in the south to Yakutat in the north.

Coast Guard Cutter John McCormick

• Former Pacific Seafood executive Andrew Jacobs was charged with embezzling an estimated $900,000 from the company and was sentenced to two years in federal prison.

Jacobs worked for the company for 11 years. The embezzlement occurred during his last four years while he was collecting a six-figure salary. According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan Bounds, he secretly diverted company funds to purchase electronics, jewelry, firearms, vacations and prostitution services, and concealed his purchases by doctoring receipts and invoices.

• The Environmental Protection Agency has fined Norton Sound Economic Development Corp., owner and operator of the Norton Sound Seafood Products Co., $51,050 for violations uncovered during an inspection in 2016. According to the EPA, the size of the waste material released by the company was too large, and the company failed to Norton Sound adequateEconomic Development Corp. ly monitor gr inders and identify chemicals used in washing fish totes, or meet reporting and recordkeeping requirements.

• Seattle celebrated its third annual Alaska Herring Week in late July. During the event organized by the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, restaurants and grocers throughout the city featured herring-heavy menus and herringstocked shelves to boost the popularity of the fish.

In 2016, 33 restaurants took part, and this year 60 restaurants and grocers were involved.

Photo: Chris Miller/csmphotos.com

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SEASON SUMMARY

Outlook

ALASKA FISHERIES

ALASKA CLARENCE ESS Salmon deckhand in Sand Point (Area M) on the 58-foot seiner Sea King, owned by Paul Holmberg

“Salmon seining for sockeyes in Area M got off to a good start in June, and by August the pinks showed up in droves. Even better is that the price jumped to a base of a buck a pound for the sockeye and up to 33 cents per pound for the pinks.

Weather throughout the summer, has Clarence been fishable, for Ess the most part.

“We’re still getting some reds (sockeye). And we’re loading the boat every day, which is about all we can handle, as the cannery has us on 60,000-pound limits.”

LINDA BEHNKEN Owner and operator of the 40-foot halibut and blackcod longliner Woodstock out of Sitka and a National Fisherman Highliner, class of 2009

“It’s been a great season.

Fishing has been strong.

In the spring the fish were really schooled, and we Linda found schools of small fish, Behnken schools of big fish. They stayed deep in the spring, but by July they had moved in where they normally are, in the shallows.

“I’ve heard really strong reports from fishermen in both areas, especially out of 3A, the end closest to Yakutat.

“Blackcod fishing was really solid and strong.

People had to work to get away from whales, but that was really doable in Southeast.

“Prices are really strong. Overall we had an unusually calm summer, a long stretch of calm weather that helped people stay out on the water.”

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NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS / SUMMER 2017

“

The cancellation of the second king opening has really hammered the [Southeast] troll fleet. That’s been really difficult for the fleet to accept. There’s a sign-on letter going around to ask for more information from the Department [of Fish & Game] because I feel like it hasn’t been a very transparent process.

”

— Linda Behnken, ALASKA LONGLINE FISHERMEN’S ASSOCIATION Geoducks CYNTHIA WALLESZ Owner with her husband, George Meintel, of the salmon gillnetter Lofoten and Lofoten Fish Co. out of Petersburg in Southeast Alaska

“We are almost halfway through the salmon gillnet season here in Southeast Alaska. So far the big news for Southeast gillnet fishermen is the huge catches of chum salmon!

In some areas, it wasn’t unusual for a boat to catch 1,800 chum in a three or four-day opening. And at 80 cents a pound to the big processors, that’s a good week!

“Sockeye catches are below average so far in our Cynthia area, and many Wallesz of the fish are a bit smaller than usual. Regardless, our customers have been devouring the fresh and frozen sockeye we’ve been sending each week. I hope coho will be plentiful in August and September. Salmon trollers who fish the outside waters are reporting lots of small coho.

Hopefully they will fatten up before reaching the inside waters and our nets. Ah, the weather. It has been a dreary, wet summer; we’ve had very little sun and warmth.”

SALMON

HALIBUT

BLACK COD

SEASON SUMMARY

Outlook

WASHINGTON OREGON CALIFORNIA FISHERIES

WEST COAST FISHPATRICK ROELLE Captain of the Manatee II, 40-foot ice boat with a 5-netton hold in Reedsport, Ore.

“The weather for this season has been great. The price has been up, but the fishing has been slow with most ice trips using about half of the ice brought out. We have been averaging about 100 13-pound fish per day.

“By this time last year we had landed over 20 tons.

It was an exceptional beginning, though. This year we are at 8 1/2 tons to date, returning with 4,000-6,000 pounds with four days’ fishing time. Usually we bring in full loads at this time — 8,000 to 10,000 pounds.”

Fishpatrick Roelle

“

We filed our reply in California Sea Urchin Commission v. Johnson. On behalf of a coalition of Southern California fishermen, lobster trappers, and sea urchin divers, the Pacific Legal Foundation took on the Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to abandon its obligations under a statutory compromise… Fishermen are at risk of being punished for simply getting too close to a sea otter while working. Many years after accepting the terms of the compromise, the service backed out of its end of the bargain — violating the law and leaving fishermen vulnerable to losing their livelihoods.

”

— PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION PRESS RELEASE

DAVE BITTS Owner and operator of the 45-foot Elmarue, which goes after Dungeness crab and salmon, and a National Fisherman Highliner, class of 2007

When asked what the Elmarue’s hold capacity is, Bitts replies wryly, “I don’t know. I wish I could find that out! My live tank holds about 3,600 pounds of crabs. That’s about the same poundage as my two best salmon trips.”

As of mid-August, “salmon is open in California from Point Arena, which is about 14 hours, on my boat, north of San Francisco, to Pigeon Point which is about 9 hours south of San Francisco.

“There was really good sport fishing in that area before it was opened to commercial fishing, and commercial fishermen are not happy about it.

“People are seeing a lot of next year’s fish, and that’s really promising. It looks like there may be more

ALBACORE

TOM BRINTON Co-owner and operator of three squid boats based out of Long Beach, Calif.

Dave Bitts

Sacramento fish than were predicted. No idea about Klamath yet, and we won’t have definitive answers about ocean abundance until next February.

“All in all for commercial fishermen this season is pretty much a disaster. If people were really determined and a little bit lucky they might make it through the summer, and we kind of knew that coming in.”

SQUID

SALMON

“I have two business partners, and we all fish pretty regularly. This time of year we focus more on bait — live bait. We have a bait company that we Tom started 10 Brinton years ago out of Long Beach. We started on that about four months ago [April].

“We’ve actually had one of our better starts this year. April was really good. June was really good.

The price is great. It definitely makes it more worthwhile to scratch fish.

We’ve been getting $1,000 a ton, and now we’re getting $1,100. When you’re accustomed to fishing for $500 or $600 a ton, to fish half as much and get the same money. It’s good.

“In May we got blown out for 3-4 weeks straight pretty much. Since June it’s been nice.”

SUMMER 2017 / NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS

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Q&A

FIGHTING FOR FISHERMEN Noah Oppenheim is the executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations.

NPF: How did you get your start in commercial fisheries?

Oppenheim: It’s been a long journey.

I started out in commercial fisheries through my experience traveling abroad. I spent time in Ecuador working toward a degree in biology and spent time in the fishing port of Puerto López, where I worked with artisanal fishermen who were working gillnets, basically catching everything they could. I was there while they successfully fought off a shark fishing ban that would’ve caused serious issues for them.

It was there that I became interested in fishing and what it meant to be a small-boat fisherman. I grew up fishing in lakes and rivers in Maine — I wasn’t from a commercial fishing family, but I knew what that identity meant to people, to an extent.

Commercial fishing became my major focus as I emerged into a more holistic understanding of fish, the ocean and what human interaction with this resource should really mean.

When I graduated, I wanted to stay in commercial fisheries, so I took the first job that involved me with fishing, which was as a fisheries observer in Dutch Harbor (Alaska).

It became very clear to me during training that the NOAA model of management and the real impetus for the observer program was consolidation.

The agency felt like having fewer boats made [the fisheries] easier to manage.

So I found myself being a part of this top-down fisheries management apparatus, which is not what I saw as optimal, being from Maine and experiencing the small, vibrant fishing towns there.

I got “woke” at that point. I felt like I needed to get a better handle on what commercial fishing meant from the perspective of an industry participant. I had

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been interested in it all academically, but I needed to see the personal side. I got a job as a deckhand on a salmon gillnetter in Alaska working in Area M. I got real pay for real work. I got a sense of that independent spirit, what it means to be self-reliant in every aspect of work. I really enjoyed it, loved it. It was a hell of a season. Not the best, didn’t catch many fish, but it was great. And that wasn’t just because I was a greenhorn, it just wasn’t the best season.

I came back from that wanting to study fisheries seriously. I went on to be a grad student at the University of Maine, where I studied the lobster fishery. We were focused on predictive models — using landings data, ocean conditions and juvenile lobster abundance to predict the health of the fishery. I was also looking at who was going to use this information that all the egghead scientists come up with — how to turn data into operational tools and knowledge is a huge challenge. Fishermen have to deal with all these abstractions affecting how they can fish.

Fishing experience helped me understand what this means for fishermen.

After I finished up grad school, I applied to and was accepted for a yearlong Knauss Ocean Policy Fellowship in California Rep. Jared Huffman’s office.

I handled natural resources and part of the climate and energy portfolios. I worked really closely with fishermen in his district — there are a lot of fishing communities there, and fishing is a major driver in coastal economies. I worked with [former PCFFA director] Tim Sloane a lot in that role. When my fellowship year was over and Tim decided to leave, I applied, and here I am.

NPF: That’s a quick climb up the industry ladder. What’s it like to be in your role at such a relatively young age?

Oppenheim: Yeah, it’s a pretty crazy jump. I think this organization definitely took a risk with me. I’m only 30 years old and coming from a place of relative inexperience. But I think the organization was looking for some new blood,

someone with strong ties to D.C. and someone who was going to steer the organization in a new direction while still staying true to its roots.

NPF: What challenges have you faced since taking on the role in February?

Oppenheim: I inherited the organization from an absolute icon, Zeke Grader.

The organization lost a lot with his loss.

Internally, one of the major challenges has been rekindling those connections that he had made over the years. Luckily, a lot of people are invested in the success of this organization and what Zeke built. Schooling up on the organization and its connections has been a welcome challenge for me.

Externally, I inherited a fishing community that’s really in a state of crisis.

We had big issues with Dungeness crab last year, salmon is due to have issues soon, and we’re still dealing with the rockfish collapse. The membership has been dealing with one, two, three punches all in a row every year.

There’s so much work to be done to rebuild our image, what it means to be a fisherman in the eyes of politicians, environmentalists and people who just don’t know that much about the industry.

Policy-wise, we’ve got to deal with PR in relation to marine mammal entanglements. There’s also the obvious issue of watershed management — corporate agriculture is deadset on sucking rivers dry to benefit wealthy almond farmers at the expense of the future of fishing.

But I feel like we’re at a turning point.

That top-down management approach is losing its favor as we realize the corporatization of fishing isn’t necessarily a good thing. The pendulum is starting to swing back toward valuing small boat operations, and the PCFFA has traditionally been a big voice in that.

NPF: Do you think this problem with the corporatization of fishing is a wellknown issue to the general public?

Oppenheim: It is and it isn’t. A lot of sophisticated seafood consumers are well aware of the issues — California is home to the localvore movement, after all.

The idea that you should know the name of the fisherman who caught your fish is growing. There are plenty of places where the name of the boat that caught the fish is written on the chalkboard next to the specials.

It’s a complex arena, though. There’s not a more complicated resource in the country than California’s watershed. It’s important to find the right message, to not be too antagonistic.

While California is similar to a place like Maine — small-boat fishermen, big crustacean fishery — California is an economic juggernaut, and fishing is just a drop in the bucket here. There’s resource decline — the state is a desert, so salmon are holding on by their scales, you know? And there are plenty of forces here that would rather not see us fishing at all.

NPF: How important is the trend of telling the fishermen’s story in regards to these policy issues and making the public more aware?

Oppenheim: It’s critical. Fishermen have real opportunity to capture this moment, to humanize the industry they love and work in. As society at-large becomes more focused on individual stories and social media becoming a big force, it’s important to establish and promote our identity. People are attracted to that. There’s a real chance to begin to tell your story and make sure it goes down the supply chain with you.

This a blue-collar industry full of working families, and people can connect with that. We want people to know that their neighbors and people they’d love to hang out with are out fishing. It’s a public resource and captured by people just like them. It’s a entirely communitybased, and the threats to industry are wholly removed from community. I hope that seafood consumers can understand that and make choices to eat local, eat sustainably and support their neighbors.

And stay away from farmed salmon.

We have a compelling message. We have a reason to exist that the public just absolutely cherishes.

NPF: What’s a snapshot of your day-today duties?

Oppenheim: I’d say the job is onethird fund-raising, one-third talking with members and one-third conversation with allies or adversaries on policy. I try to spend as much time as I can talking to people on the ground.

Day-to-day operations are funded by organizations that value our work and want to promote the same things we do.

It’s frankly a really busy job. I probably put in 65 to 70 hours a week. But they’re interesting hours, and the work is invigorating. I’d say it’s a dream job, exactly where I want to be.

There is so much I’ve learned and so much more I need to learn, and I’m very excited. If I was going to burn out, I would’ve already. I’m in it for the long haul.

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11

FISHERPOETS Poetry boat

BY DAVE DENSMORE Dave Densmore was born in Kodiak, Alaska, and grew up in various Aleutian Island villages. He earned a full share by the age of 12 and bought his first commercial fishing boat at 13. Ten years later, he was the youngest king crab skipper in the Bering Sea. He went on to troll for salmon and tuna along the West Coast from California to Canada.

Through his writing, Densmore works to capture the spirit of a way of life that is disappearing.

Well guess I’ve lived on boats, Damn near all my life.

They’ve been both salvation and shelter From a lot of life’s troubles and strife.

Rebuilt some old and tired, Salvaged, derelicts and junk.

Even took on a few Folks said were better off sunk.

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But always seemed to be The thing to do at the time, And there were even a couple That turned out just fine.

But now I’ve taken on A completely different tack.

I’m building myself a new boat And I’m building her from scratch.

This boat is actually quite different It’s designed to keep my soul afloat.

So I construct with the utmost care, Hammering words into a poetry boat.

Yes I am building a new boat Driving one nail at a time.

The nails are simply the words I forge out line by line.

The planks are the poems I so love to watch begin, As I work at my craft To build, shape, and bend.

I hammer the planks home One hand-forged nail at a time.

And as I see another finished One more plank’s behind.

ON THE MARKET The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute ALASKA SEAFOOD MARKETING INSTITUTE

at your service Alaska Seafood Market Update COMFISH 2017

Walmart accepts GSSI certification almart, the world’s largest retailer, will now accept certification schemes that have successfully completed the Global Sustainable Seafood Initiative Benchmark Process. This is a huge success for ASMI’s Responsible Fisheries Management program, the first certification scheme formally recognized by GSSI in July 2016.

W

Seward Seafood School SMI hosted 18 international chefs and media guests in Seward for the annual Alaska seafood school June 18-22,

A

which familiarized guests with the wild, natural and sustainable qualities of Alaska seafood. Guests spent three days working with salmon, whitefish and shellfish at the Alaska Vocational Technical Center Culinary Institute. Guests toured the Bear Creek Weir, Icicle Seafoods plant, Alutiiq Pride Shellfish Hatchery and the Alaska SeaLife Center.

China Agricultural Trade Delegation SMI hosted an Agricultural Trade Office delegation from Shanghai, China, on June 22 in Seattle, in partnership with Western United States Trade Association and the Washington State Department of Agriculture, which financed the mission. The inbound mission highlighted female executives in seafood. The group attended sales meetings with American Seafoods, Ocean Beauty, O’Hara Corp. and Icicle Seafoods.

A

Seafood Expo Global in Brussels SMI exhibited at Seafood Expo Global in Brussels, Belgium, April 25-27. Fifteen Alaska companies coexhibited, and at least 10 more used the ASMI booth. ASMI brought the German food truck to the show again, which was the site of a U.S. seafood reception.

A

ASMI seen at Detroit’s Gateway ’17 laska seafood was a featured product at Gateway ’17 in Detroit, which was hosted by Alibaba Group, a Chinese e-commerce company.

The event targeted U.S. businesses to encourage exploration of China’s growing domestic market through e-commerce.

Alaska seafood was one of four groups showcased as an e-commerce success in China.

A

Alaska Herring Week in Seattle SMI’s Alaska Herring Development Project kicked off its third annual Alaska Herring Week in Seattle, June 19-25. Now in its third year, this event is designed to grow awareness and value of the Alaska herring fishery through product development and market expansion and has expanded from eight restaurant participants to more than 50. San Francisco and Portland, Ore., have expressed interest in participation.

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Festival inspires Arctic Street Food he North by North Festival in Anchorage May 11-14 highlighted the social and cultural connections of Arctic nations. The Arctic Street Foods competition brought in food trucks and chefs from Alaska, Iceland, Norway and Russia to create high-concept Arctic street food. These included an Alaska-inspired Chicago dog created by Chef Aaron Apling-Gilman of Seven Glaciers Restaurant at Alyeska Resort, made with Alaska-grown ingredients.

T

Lent stars Alaska seafood SMI partner Sysco Corp. featured Alaska seafood products during a North America seafood promotion from late January to early April. E-mail blasts linked to product information and

A

recipes, as well as the ASMI website.

ASMI also partnered with HEB, a 250-store chain in Texas, to promote Alaska cod during Lent. HEB executed more than 350 in-store demos and handed out Swap Meat and Feed Your Fitness recipes. Events took place in Austin, Houston and San Antonio.

ASMI started the Lenten season with a 50-cent coupon for frozen Alaska pollock products on Ibotta — the free app that pays consumers cash for everyday purchases. Outpaced only by Amazon and eBay, Ibotta is the third most used shopping app in the nation.

SeaWeb sponsorship SMI was the lead sponsor of the annual SeaWeb Seafood Summit, held in Seattle, June 5-7. The summit is the world’s premier seafood sustainability conference, bringing together global representatives from the seafood industry with leaders from the conservation community, academia, government and the media.

ASMI also sponsored the SeaWeb Seafood Champion Awards, recognizing outstanding leadership in promoting environmentally responsible seafood.

A

Annual Report Download the 2016 Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute annual report at alaskaseafood.org.

Board and Cap Meeting The board of directors and Customer Advisory Panel met in Juneau, May 8 and 9, to discuss opportunities and challenges for Alaska seafood as a key player in the global seafood market.

CAP members are domestic and international seafood experts in various fields, including foodservice, retail and seafood processing.

Women in Seafood Leadership ASMI Executive Director Alexa Tonkovich and International Program Director Hannah Lindoff were featured speakers at the Intrafish Media’s Women in Seafood Leadership Summit reception and dinner on Tuesday, June 6. The event brought together more than 100 industry leaders to discuss building career paths and attracting women into the global seafood industry.

RFM stakeholders take notice Notices of stakeholder registration for RFM reassessment for crab, cod and pollock fisheries are available at alaskaseafood.org.

SUMMER 2017 / NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS

13

OUR YARD

QUICK LOOK at Commodore’s Boats

bing.com/maps

COMMODORE’S BOATS

LOCATION

Richmond, BC

OWNER

Bo Spiller

YEARS IN BUSINESS

27

NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES 10 to 15, seasonally NUMBER OF BOATS SERVICED In the hundreds

BY JEAN PAUL VELLOTTI

G

rowing up in a small community of about 50 people near Dodge Cove on Digby Island, British Columbia, Bo Spiller watched his father build wooden trawlers for the area salmon fleet. By default, the boats would come back for maintenance and repairs, and the young Spiller fell into becoming a shipwright the old-fashioned way — his father needed the help.

Eventually, Spiller traded working at that yard, located across from Prince Rupert and nearly at the top of the Pa-

“About 45 to 50 percent is still wood, but we are getting more and more steel and aluminum, and

”

even some fiberglass.

— Bo Spiller, owner

cific Canadian coast, for one due south in Richmond, just below Vancouver. It’s here, as owner of Commodore’s Boats, that Spiller continues the wooden shipwork tradition while adapting to the changing materials of the fleet.

“About 45 to 50 percent is still wood, but we are getting more and more steel and aluminum, and even some fiberglass,” said Spiller, noting that the yard is primarily known for wood boat repairs.

“And even though we can’t build new (U.S.-flagged) boats here because of the Jones Act, we are certainly capable of repairs and modifications. And we are getting more and more customers from across the border, who are looking at around a 25 percent savings based on the exchange rate.”

With two Travelifts in the yard — a 70-ton and a 220-ton — there is more than enough capacity for a range of boats willing to make the journey, either north from their home port, or a stopover on the way back to the Lower 48 after fishing in Alaska.

This point was well illustrated by the Tucker brothers who are based out of Washington state. They gave Commo-

FISHERIES SERVED Mostly crabbers and salmon trawlers OTHER SERVICES Travelift for hauling and surveying, wooden boat repairs, engine repowering

commodore’s boats photos

Commodore’s Boats has plenty of room at its yard in Richmond, British Columbia, which makes Travelift moves easier.

NOTABLE BOATS Swell, a 1912 tug, lengthened to 88 feet and totally restored

dore’s a chance to complete a sponsoning job on two crabbers. Spiller said he had sponsoned a fiberglass boat going back to the 1990s but more recently had just finished another one in aluminum when Mark Tucker came up to determine if the yard was capable of the job.

As a fifth-generation Dungeness crabber, Tucker knew what worked in a boat and what didn’t, and having worked his 42' x 14' Voyager for the past 15 years the main drawback was deck space.

His relationship with the boat actually goes back further, as he bought the Voyager in 2002 from his uncle, who had it built new by Edwing Boats in Chinook, Wash. At the time, the Voyager’s main purpose was to gillnet, with some crabbing. But Mark Tucker is all-in on Dungies, holding permits in California,Washington and Alaska.

“I wanted to be able to haul traps safely, and the number of traps depends on where I’m fishing. We were traveling up and down the coast in the winter from

OUR YARD San Francisco to Alaska and pushing the limits of the boat,” said Tucker. “We wanted to make it safe.”

After a haul-out at Giddings Boat Works in Oregon, naval architect Bruce Culver out of Tacoma took measurements and began drawing plans to widen and lengthen the boat. But Giddings was booked, and so was Fashion Blacksmith in Crescent City, Calif. In fact, yard after yard couldn’t accommodate the work, so Tucker took to searching online for builders near Vancouver, eventually making a connection with Commodore’s.

“I figured the Canadians had been building aluminum boats way before the Americans, and my dad had a 32-footer built there in the 1970s. I asked around and only heard good things about Commodore,” Tucker added.

With plans in hand, Tucker brought the Voyager up, and Spiller assigned a crew to start the project. Arriving in June, he assured the owner that the boat would be ready for crab season, and indeed, it pushed out on schedule in December.

At most times, three to four employees worked on the boat, but Spiller took the lead in getting the design goals right and making sure the bulkheads and stanchions were perfect. Although plans existed for the Voyager, Spiller mentioned adding length and width is a somewhat routine process.

“I know how a boat works, so it’s fairly simple to me to look at it and make it work. You add a new stem, a new stern, and fill it in,” he said in a straightforward no-nonsense manner.

Starting with the 42' x 14' hull, Tucker wanted to add another two rows of crab traps. To accomplish that, the boat had to be widened by 7 feet and lengthened 8.

With a new design coming in at 50' x 21', the formula doubled the amount of available deck space. It also added a lot of area below the deck, so new fuel tanks were added to more than double the capacity from 750 to 1,600 gallons. The added space was a benefit to enlarging the engine room, although the 400-hp Cummins 855 remained in place.

Having fished a season, the Voyager now cruises at 7 to 9 knots with its increased trap capacity. Starting with four rows across, it now fits six, and can hold seven rows down, which is one more than before. Each trap is 40 inches with

Welding up the 6061 marine-grade aluminum on the Toke Point.

115-pound frames, or roughly 125 pounds each when fully rigged.

That capacity pays off in halving Tucker’s runs off Washington where he has a 500-trap permit. By loading 225 traps on deck, and another 25 in the hold, he’s dropping everything in two trips now.

And if the California season isn’t hampered by domoic acid again this year, he will reach his permit limit in one load.

Despite the Voyager’s hard-chine transom, Tucker says the boat performs well in a following sea, having just run back from Alaska where he encountered 10to 12-footers off Vancouver Island.

“A lot of the old-timers will look at the boat and say you are going to have trouble with it in following seas, but it handles beautifully,” said Tucker.

Spiller said this can be attributed to carrying the keel forward 4 feet and adding a new raked stern, plus a little flare to “spread the waves.” The job was com-

pleted with marine-grade 6061 aluminum except in places where it that material is too hard to bend — piperails and elbows, for example.

Commodore’s happened to be working a twin sponsoning job — for brother Ron Tucker — at the same time.

“I probably wouldn’t have ended up doing the work there without Mark,” said Ron Tucker, who coincidentally either needed a sponson job, a new boat, or as it turns out, both.

Fishing a 32-foot crabber for 20 years out of Tokeland,Wash., Ron was ready to cash in the one-time upgrade on his crab license, which stated he could go up 10 feet in length. Looking around at newbuilds, the prices were high, and he ran into the same problem as his brother: the yards were busy, with newbuilds looking at three years out.

After talking with Spiller, he went up to Kenai, Alaska, and bought a 39' x 13' aluminum boat that was built locally there and ran it straight down to Commodore’s for a haul-out. Although Ron couldn’t find out as much information on the boat that he wanted to know, he did learn the owner who recently passed away had fished her for the past 20 years around Kenai and took good care of the boat.

Positioned on the other side of the Commodore shop, Ron’s boat didn’t have the luxury of plans drawn by a naval architect. So Spiller did the design by sight, starting with plywood templates placed on the deck until a satisfactory shape was agreed upon. The result took full advantage of the licensing upgrade, and the Kenai boat, which Ron renamed

The Voyager gets new stringers installed under the deck.

SUMMER 2017 / NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS

15

OUR YARD Toke Point, measures in at 42' x 18'.

Since the Toke Point wasn’t as drastic a sponson job with only 2 1/2 feet added per side, there wasn’t as much room to expand below decks as there was with the Voyager. Plus, the 1,000-gallon fuel capacity was already acceptable. So was the hold, which can take 15,000 pounds in the insulated fiberglass box.

But with the added length, deck space was also doubled on the Toke Point, and crab pot capacity went up from 100 to 200. Unlike his brother, Ron only fishes Southeast Alaska and is just in for the season. He said the boat handled well, and he was in some “tough weather so far.”

Although named Toke Point, he’s now based a little farther north in Westport, Wash., an area Ron says has “a big fleet but little support.” The area has a quiet nature. Heading into Richmond was like “entering a metropolis compared to Westport.”

Satisfied with the work so far, both Tuckers plan to head back to Commo-

The Toke Point gets new framing and flare.

dore’s for additional work on their boats, and interestingly enough, for the same upgrade.

“We have good visibility now, but a stepped pilothouse would really increase visibility,” said Mark.

And Ron said he wanted to raise every-

thing up during construction, but wanted to get the sponson job done first and would head back north after the season closed.

Jean Paul Vellotti is the Boats & Gear editor for North Pacific Focus.

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NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS / SUMMER 2017

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ON THE HORIZON

Are changes afoot for the Jones Act? Markos Scheer practices commercial and admiralty law in Washington and Alaska with Williams Kastner & Gibbs, a full-service firm.

He’s the president of the Northwest Fisheries Association and serves on the board of the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation.

By MARKOS SCHEER

T

he Merchant Marine Act of 1920 — or the Jones Act, as it’s commonly called — will be celebrating its 100th anniversary soon. It was enacted in 1920 to promote domestic coastwise transportation and shipbuilding. Some, including Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), argue this constitutes outdated protectionist policies and that those policies are detrimental to U.S. interests in today’s economy.

The act controls commercial activities in a number of ways, most significantly by restricting the eligibility to obtain one of the commercial endorsements by requiring the vessels are U.S. flagged to engage in coastwise and fishery trades. It also requires that at least 75 percent of the ownership of any vessel or vessel-owning entity be held by U.S. documentation citizens. The crews on these vessels, particularly the masters and mates commanding the vessels, must be 75 percent U.S. citizens. Further, all but a small component of any vessel must be built in a U.S. shipyard, with U.S. components and U.S. steel. Indeed, vessels that undergo material refits and material changes in service must be performed in U.S. shipyards and using materials sourced in the United States.

The act also governs the relationship between the employer and crew aboard a U.S. vessel. The Jones Act seaman claims are derivative of an association between the act and the Federal Employers Liability Act, and are distinct from general negligence claims, claims for maintenance, cure and unearned wages, and those under the Death on the High Seas Act. Prior to the implementation of the Jones Act, seamen were very limited as to their ability to recover for injuries aboard ship. Under general admiralty law, a seaman claim required the injured party prove that the owner or master breached a duty of care, which caused injury. While that standard was somewhat lesser than for breaches on land.

Under the act and associated caselaw, the standard became a featherweight one, the defect is not required to be the sole proximate cause of the injury, and is a basis for the injured party to claim damages beyond maintenance, cure and unearned wages.

The Jones Act has been in the news quite a bit in recent years. McCain introduced Senate bill 1561, which would permit foreign-built hulls to participate in coastwise trade, and presumably fisheries in the EEZ. This is the second time McCain has introduced what is effectively a repeal of the coastwise limitation of the act. McCain and other proponents assert, among other things, that the act is outdated,

and the repeal of this provision in the act would materially decrease the cost of shipping goods in the United States, thereby increasing trade and competition and materially lowering the cost of constructing new vessels to replace the aging American fleet. Depending on the scope of the repeal, the interrelationship with the Anti-Reflagging Act of 1987 and other laws, like the American Fisheries act, this change might prove to be very beneficial to the fishing industry, potentially allowing repurposed and aging vessels to be replaced with less expensive new construction, or surplus purpose-built vessels from other countries.

The impact of the act on shipbuilding could not be more evident than in the case of the construction of the America’s Finest, the largest catcher processor built in the United States in 30 years. More than $75 million dollars later, it was discovered that a small portion of the steel used to construct the vessel was reformed in Holland, rendering it foreign steel.

Once installed in the vessel, the vessel no longer qualified for a coastwise endorsement — an essential trade endorsement for the ship to participate as a catcher processor in U.S. waters and fisheries. For the vessel to become authorized to receive the necessary endorsements, it must obtain a Congressional waiver, as part of some other bill, which must be signed by the president. It remains to be seen if that waiver will be passed in today’s political climate or signed by a president who promotes an America First ideology and might interpret the waiver as inconsistent.

Many interest groups strongly oppose the repeal, arguing

“Sen. John McCain and other proponents assert that the act is outdated and the repeal of this provision in the act would materially decrease the cost of

”

shipping goods in the United States.

that the cost of construction in the United States, as a result of regulations, labor and other circumstances unique to us, drive up the cost of construction so much that U.S. shipyards would not be competitive in the world marketplace, resulting in those builds going overseas and resulting in massive domestic job cuts and permanent economic losses in states that rely on those shipbuilders as a pillar of coastal state economies. Further, U.S. merchant mariners argue that the repeal of the act would bring in foreign, lower wage seamen from outside the country, again causing massive job losses.

What is clear as we approach the 100-year mark for the Jones Act, is that there is much history yet to be written, and the act will continue to affect any commercial operations in U.S. waters. It is essential, no matter on what side of the issue you might fall, that you engage, get informed and remain involved. As I have told many clients through the years, “If you’re not at the table when these issues are decided, you can be sure that you’ll be on the menu.”

SUMMER 2017 / NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS

17

ON THE HOMEFRONT

Another season of glitz and glamor

ing crab season, I just plan it and go by myself. In the winter, 99 percent of travel is fish biz related. Anyways, back to April.

In April, he said he didn’t have time, so then I pitched May. I figured we could sneak off for a couple of days. The May idea went down in a ball of flames. June, let’s try June. OK so no Lori French is the founder of Faces of that didn’t work either. The crab gear had to be put away, and the barn decided she needed a complete facelift, tummy tuck California Fishing in Morro Bay. and boob lift — a complete overhaul to keep her standing. Side note: the barn is really a thing of beauty, well over 100 years old. She started out as a dairy barn and in the ’70s and was converted to a crab barn.

In July, I was pretty much foaming at the mouth to go campBY LORI FRENCH ing. Time and time again, I’d get my hopes up, and the Old Man of the Sea would smash my dream of sitting by a river t all started over a quarter I found on the floor. I place the or lake with a pile of trashy novels, my swim goggles and an blame for this story squarely at the base of Old Man of the iced tea.

We got down to the very last weekend anything could hapSea’s feet because it totally could have been avoided. Hell hath pen before salmon season when I was tidying up our bedroom. no fury like a Super Glamorous Fishwife’s pen.

You see, we have these competing change jars that we fill There was a quarter on the floor by his dresser.

“You had absolutely no plans of going camping this weekup and use the earnings for trips. The competition has been friendly for years, and I always win. This year, he changed his end did you?” asked the Super Glamorous Fishwife.

“You want to go down to the boat with me and help me get tactics and started emptying the change out of his pockets, picking up all the loose change around the house, and — the the bedding off the boat so you can wash it?” was his response. ultimate scam — collecting when my egg customers pay in “And then we can run some other errands.”

Sounds totally like a trip to the lake doesn’t it? quarters.

Well we got down to the boat. On a July weekend in Morro It was time to empty out those jars and declare a winner.

(Ahuummm, me.) I have been begging the Old Man of the Sea Bay, this is a feat just by itself. After some serious parallel parkto go camping in my little trailer since April. I wanted to go in ing issues — mine not his “Fine! YOU park!” which resulted in January, but I am a realist. I know if I want to take a trip dur- my getting out of the truck on the very crowded Embarcadero and letting him park.

Donnie on the Linda J was laughing at us because he witnessed this little interchange of marital love. And then it happened, the Old Man of the Sea started tossing blankets, sleeping bags, comforters and pillows off the boat and onto the dock. I’m used to this stuff, I’ve been doing this a lot of years. I have a strong stomach. But this year I picked up the pillows and all hell broke loose.

EXPERTS IN MARINE ELECTRICAL “OH! MY! GOD! What the hell AND ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS happened? These are TOTALLY DISLooking at the changing GUSTING!” marketplace as an opportunity Several hundred heads from the fishto create innovative solutions and-chip line up above the boats turned to help companies power their to stare down at the entertainment comfleet, find their catch, ing from the Langosta II. communicate, and navigate their way safely home.

“There is no way I’m washing these.

They are going into the dumpster now!”

“They’re fine. Just wash them.”

“No they are moldy and mildewy.

Their team of electricians These are just gross. You guys will die if and technicians excel at you sleep on these!” providing everything electrical Then Donnie came over, “Nah they’re and electronic; including fine.

They’ll make it another season.” creation, distribution, and storage of electrical power “Donnie, you are not helping me and electronic data. here.” He just chuckled.

“You can take the stuffing out and make new cases.”

I

18

NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS / SUMMER 2017

ON THE HOMEFRONT

“

I have a strong stomach.

But this year I picked up the pillows and all hell

”

broke loose.

“Donnie! Do I look like I have time for that? Jeez you guys are just pigs.”

I walked up the ramp, pushed through the fish-and-chip line and made my way to the dumpster. In those babies went.

When I walked back down to the boat I realized I had forgotten to take pictures of the disgusting pillows, so I went back up to the dumpster to dive for the dang things. Hey, you never know when you’re going to write a story and need photographic evidence! As I pushed through the crowd yet again, I saw a parking space open up right in front of the boats.

“Hey, Donnie,” I called. “Guard this parking spot!”

I was beginning to wonder if the fishand-chip line would kindly get a clue that we were actually doing something and move over a bit.

I hightailed it to my truck and maneuvered over to the parking spot. A lady tried to snake the spot, but Donnie stood firm and told her that a commercial fisherman needed the spot to load up. Her response wasn’t very pleasant, but hey I got the parking spot.

Up and down the ramp we went with stinking boat bedding and assorted tools.

The fish-and-chip line must have had strong stomachs is all I can say. I mean I could smell the bedding, and I don’t usually smell those smells anymore. And off we went toward the wash machine to kill things.

Later that afternoon, I just had to text our “marriage counselor,” Bob on the Maureen.

Me: “My husband is a tight, cheap fisherman who won’t let me throw the moldy, mildewy boat pillows away. He thinks there’s more life in them. Please help!

Bob: “I’m shaking my head.”

Me: “Damn it! Tell him he’s being a cheap @$#!”

Bob: “No can do sister. Two for 20 at TJ Maxx.”

Me: “The fact that you know what a

TJ Maxx is kinda scares me.”

Bob: “ I’m a modern man, baby! Bed Bath and Beyond, too. Wait for the 20 percent off coupon in the mail. First thing I do at the end of crab season is to throw all the pillows away and start fresh.

Too much mold.”

Me: “Wait! You shop? OMG he’s never going to hear the end of this!”

So I turned to the Old Man of the Sea and read him Bob’s text messages.

By now we were both laughing, but I was still dead serious about the pillows being trashed. The rest of the afternoon was spent trying to kill the sleeping bags

in the washer and hanging them out in the sun to bake.

The very next morning I headed into town to TJ Maxx to follow our marriage counselor’s advice: “2 for $20.” I got an assortment of down and bamboo spa pillows. I mean nothing is too good for my cheap Old Man of the Sea. The bamboo spa pillows wound up on the boat. The Old Man of the Sea told me he didn’t like feather pillows on the boat, as they gave him allergies. I just looked at him, “Feather pillows give you allergies, but moldy pillows don’t?” He gave me a kiss on the cheek and left the house.

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SUMMER 2017 / NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS

19

THE LONG HAUL

Konrad Uri is one of the founders of the Bering Sea crab fishery and a 1981 National Fisherman Highliner

Konrad Uri

Fleet on ice

Konrad Uri (below) ran the 110foot Martinolich crabber Rainier from Port Moller to Kodiak in 1972.

By KONRAD URI

A

s I look back on my fishing career, many fond memories come to mind (especially as I get older and sentimental).

They might not have always been easy times fishing in the Bering Sea in the days before Internet and satellite phones, let alone GPS, but the one thing the isolation of fishing in such remote locations brought to us was a team spirit to work together and get things done. We had a loran, radar, VHF and a single sideband radio.

The vessel was our family vessel, Rainier (a 110-foot Martinolich Tacoma crabber) and the year was 1972.We left Dutch Harbor the end of October heading for Adak and the winter red king crab fishery.

Fishing for red crab out west was a lot different than the fishery in the Bering Sea. In the Aleutian Islands, it was always spot fishing to begin with, and later when an area was defined you were able to fish in a more normal manner. The fishery that early winter was poor and not looking very good at all.

We went home to Seattle for Christmas, hoping the fishery would be better in the New Year. Unfortunately, it did not improve in the New Year, and at the end of February, we left for Dutch Harbor, as the Bering Sea was frozen over. This also was the talk on the boat — the Bering Sea is frozen over — let’s go home. I was not too thrilled at that talk and told the crew, “We will talk about it once we get to Dutch.”

When we talked about going home, I suggested we try and

get up to the area outside of Port Moller, as I remembered that Magne Ness had once mentioned there were crab there in the winter. I asked (strongly suggested) the crew if they wanted to give it a try, since we had not made any money at all, and they all agreed.

We left Dutch Harbor heading for the spot outside Port Moller. Since the ice was down to Amak Island, it wasn’t long before we were threading our way up through the ice floes. It was slow going, and a lot of noise when we would hit a larger ice chunk, but we finally were able to force our way through to the spot I was looking for. We only had 60 pots aboard, as I was worried about the weather and what would happen if we started icing down.

It was an interesting first day, since the water was so stiff the boat squeaked when rolling from side to side in the ice. This noise was constant, and I tell you it kept everyone on their toes.

We finally got the gear off and drifted with the ice until morn-

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THE LONG HAUL ing.We went to start hauling gear and found that the hydraulics were frozen — it took us an entire day to thaw out the lines and valves. No fishing that day — just a soak day for the gear.

After that, we never shut the hydraulics down — it was so cold we had to leave heaters on all the overboard lines so they would not freeze solid. By this time, Kaare Ness on the Royal Viking showed up to fish alongside us. When we starting hauling gear the next morning, there were lots of red crab in every pot. After six days we had a full load of 140,000 pounds aboard and headed for Kodiak, since nobody in Dutch Harbor was buying. Bix Bonny, who had B&B Fishing Co. in Kodiak, offered 50 cents a pound, which was music to our ears.

Little did we know how hard the trip to Kodiak would be.

We had good going through the ice in the Bering Sea and through Unimak Pass, but from then on the steam was no fun at all. The wind and cold on the Pacific Side was terrible — we had to stop and chop ice every two hours until we were able to get far enough offshore and away from the cold.

When we arrived in Kodiak it was blowing and snowing and cold enough that the spray was freezing on the bow.

Bonny came down and asked if we could wait six hours to unload, and if so, he would give us a nickel more. That sounded good to us after all the hard work chopping ice just to get to Kodiak.

Bix came back later and said if we could wait out another six hours he would give us another nickel, and then came back once more saying if we would wait until morning, we would still get another nickel. We were up to 65 cents a pound, and everyone was feeling great.

We did finally get unloaded the next day and headed back for the Bering Sea. We had to stop and anchor up the next morning because we were making so much ice. After that, the weather finally came down as we were on our way.

When we got back to where we had left our gear, it was scattered all over, having been moved around by the ice.

By this time, there were three or four other boats who had followed us up to the area — with word of good fishing Regional News spreading fast. It took us all two days to find most of the crab pots. The fishing was just as good as when we had left.

There were three lines of crab all heading west-northwest side by side.

One line was all female red crab, one was mixed, and the last one was all clean big crab. I had never seen this before or after, but it made for great fishing. Kaare Ness on the Royal Pacific traveled with me on three trips to Kodiak, making the steam easier. The

cold did not ease off at all that winter.

One morning when we got out and looked around, the entire Bering Sea for as far as we could see was covered with about 5 inches of snow.

Because of the time it took us to get back and forth to Kodiak, we were only able to get 2 1/2 trips from outside of Port Moller through the Unimak Pass and back to B&B Fishing Co. It made for a nice end to a season that had started out so poorly.

Fishing in Alaska in the 1970s was a special time — we were in this together and worked as if our lives depended on it.

Which they did, this was serious business. When we look back on fishing together as a family and in a fleet that treated each other like family, I have nothing but the fondest memories, no matter how hard we were actually working.

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SUMMER 2017 / NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS

21

The fishery belongs to her also Elma Burnham is a writer and Bristol Bay setnetter. She launched Strength of the Tides in fall 2016 from her home in Bellingham, Wash.

By ELMA BURNHAM

I

spent most of the past winter feeling disappointed.

The election of Donald Trump was jarring and left me feeling devastated about the current state of this country.

It’s not that the issues I worry about today weren’t present under the Obama administration or would disappear during a Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton presidency, but it is undeniably true that my main concerns felt more pressing and raw after Nov. 8, 2016.

A year before, Obama had just visited Bristol Bay, Alaska, as the first president to make the trip to the southwest bush villages, and gave the hopeful illusion that the possibility of Pebble Mine was dwindling fast. Our reality changed rap-

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NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS / SUMMER 2017

idly and continued to move quickly in the wrong direction after last year’s election. Inauguration Day came and went, and Trump’s administration acted swiftly to remove protections the EPA had laid out to preserve the culture and habitat of Bristol Bay. This was disappointing, to say the least.

Bristol Bay has been my home for the last seven summers and is near and dear to me. Vying to destroy the watershed gets personal fast, but this is not the Elma Burnham only tenet of Trump’s fishes in presidency that is perAlaska’s sonally disappointing.

Bristol This person, whose Bay. words vilifying women were made known before he won the election, is now among the most powerful — at least politically — in the world.

When faced with disappointment, however, I believe in effecting change when one can muster the energy and inspiration. On Nov. 14, just

Elma Burnham

YOUNGBLOODS

a week after election day, I turned to one of my own communities — commercial fishing — and launched a project called The Strength of the Tides is Hers Also and wrote a pledge commanding a respectful and honorable space for women within the industry. Change is real, and change begins in our own communities at a local level. I want and need to make sure that my own people know abusive language or acts against women is not, never has been and never will be OK. I want the women in this community to know their crew, employers and employees have considered these issues and have signed on to hold each other accountable to make sure that the aforementioned is true.

After Trump’s election, there has been plenty to be unYou can sign and share the pledge online at www.sites. sure about. I do not want to be unsure about the role of google.com/view/strengthofthetide. women in Bristol Bay, and I don’t want any of my peers to mune to mistakes of disrespect, mistrust or confusion about be unsure about it either.

More and more women are joining the commercial fish- the woman’s role on the crew. These little things can wear ing fleet, and we need to set a high bar of respect for them. us down, and if you could avoid wearing down your crew, The standard put forth in the pledge is high, but it is not out or your fleet, wouldn’t you?

Tell your captain or crew or beach gang to take their disof reach for any captain or vessel, processor or beach gang.

This is why I’m asking every captain, crew, processor, ten- criminatory comments elsewhere. Tell your fishing comderman, biologist and fisheries stakeholder to care. I want munity that there is room for us women here, that Trump’s to make sure the women already kicking ass on the fishing words are not part of our culture. Ask your daughter, sister, grounds and those looking to get involved know their com- wife, mother what she needs to perform her best. Then tell munity has voiced a commitment to welcoming us, making her you want her on the boat, that she will not be harassed on your boat, that she is strong as well as beautiful, that the room for us, respecting us.

The pledge thanks those who have already committed strength of the tides is hers also. Sign the pledge today. to respecting women in the industry, which is many, but I still find it important to say it out loud, to tell each other, to hear each other. Women hold 40 percent of Bristol Bay permits, but are not represented in key organizations like the Alaska Board of Fisheries or the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Maritime Workforce Development at Development Association. Despite the Kodiak College offers short, focused workshops many positive experiences women are having in Bristol Bay, this lack of repon vessel systems, repair, and maintenance. resentation is itself a problem.

This problem of representation, however, pales in comparison to the disrespect from side comments that wear us down over the course of the summer to the cases of abuse and assault that occur on the fishing grounds.

I know too many (any is too many) women who have experienced assault and sexual violence. The pledge demands an end to any form of violence, a commitment to fair and equal pay, and support of women in the fishery.

This means hiring women, teaching women to drive skiff, listening to women’s needs. Most of the men I’ve worked with have become mentors and taught me how to believe in myself, to trust myself on the fishing grounds.

To learn more about our maritime workshops go to Some of them have been my loves and koc.alaska.edu or call 907.486.1239 today!

Kodiak College, UAA is an EEO/AA employer and educational institution. best friends, but none of them are im-

We can deliver the training you need, when you need it.

SUMMER 2017 / NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS

23

Ran ORtneR

YOUNGBLOODS

GEAR SHIFTS

FLASH FORWARD

BY JEAN PAUL VELLOTTI

T

here’s a reason boats keep high-pressure sodium, or HPS, systems.

“They create massive amounts of light,” said Michael Morris, president of Durabrite, speaking on the classic filament units that are commonly in the 1,000to 1,500-watt range. “But LEDs have changed the game. They run totally cool, basically the temperature of a cup of coffee.”

Although Durabrite entered the LED game nearly 10 years ago, it was just two years ago that they began looking to the Pacific Northwest and discovered different lighting needs than off the Northeast coast, where the company was starting to gain acceptance among Maine and Nova Scotia lobstermen.

Morris said a daylight-balanced LED deck light that could light up an acre, which was working in the North Atlantic, wasn’t the right color temperature for the Pacific fog and snow squalls.

So they dialed back the temperature to mimic the classic HPS color, and the result was something that approached an amber glow.

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NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS / SUMMER 2017

The first Pacific LED deck light candidate was the Beauty Bay out of Dutch Harbor, a boat that replaced its 1,500-watt units with LEDs that came in at 300 watts each. At about 2,800 degrees Kelvin, the color temperature was just right without becoming too orange, which also reduces the amount of light output.

Now that the LEDs were dialed in correctly for the Pacific Northwest, the next challenge was “getting something that has real punch,” said Morris. “You can just keep adding LEDs to increase light, and that’s what some companies do, but this also adds weight to the fixture. We’re not a hard-core lighting company as much as a power and thermal management company, and our patented technology is the way our circuit board tech drives the LEDs.” Colby Chevalier, a lighting manager at Imtra Corp., echoed the importance of LED circuitry to ensure reliable and consistent deck light fixtures. “A fixture might have 30 LEDs but they must match another fixture 5 feet away.What’s really important for any LED company is to enforce the ‘binning process,’ which is where they are tested for output, color temperature and other variables.”

Durabrite Lighting SoLutionS

LEDs are finally ready for their close-up

Amber LEDs were specifically designed for operating in the Pacific Northwest’s snow and fog.

Regardless if the LEDs are produced domestically at companies like Cree and Phillips or even overseas in South Korea, the binning process ensures the LEDs that come on a reel of as many as 1,000 pieces are matched. From there, a quality assembler can assemble fixtures with like LEDs from the same batch, ensuring consistency.

For Imtra, this means sourcing materials that are assembled at Vision X, an LED company based in Auburn, Wash. Durabrite’s LED components are sourced and assembled at its factory in New Jersey.

If most LEDs are outsourced, then

GEAR SHIFTS

Imtra Corp.

what separates LED deck lighting technology between brands? The answer is found in the details.

“LED lights ultimately come down to efficiency. The light is very focused by design. A filament bulb reflects off a silver reflector, gets smoking hot, and very little of that output was leaving the fixture as usable light,” said Colby.

“It’s a misconception that LEDs don’t generate heat. They do, but they also manage that heat better.”

Using the housings of a fixture as a heatsink, aluminum has become a popular material because of its nonconductive nature and ability to withstand saltwater. On the back of most LED units, you will see a series of fins that are additional heat sinks. The circuitry in LEDs will dictate not only heat management, but also the lifespan of the product. If proper thermals are put in place, 50,000 hours of use becomes the benchmark of usability.

And that’s not to say that LEDs will suddenly fail once they reach that number. With such a new technology, very few applications have approached the equivalent of nearly six consecutive years of use, 24 hours a day. But the predictions are that the LEDs by then will begin to lose output and perhaps have a warmer color shift. Still in all, the consensus is that 100,000 hours will be the maximum output for the current generation of LEDs, before there will be even more reliable technology.

Imtra Corp.

Simulations of onboard lighting allow for adjustments before installation.

LEDs are optimized in a grid pattern whether the fixture is big or small.

But in the here and now, there are tangible benefits of LEDs as deck lights that go beyond their solid-state construction and ability to withstand impact and breaking waves.

“LEDs use one-third the power of conventional bulbs. If you have a 500watt quartz unit, you can replace that with a three- or four-unit LED fixture,” added Colby. “For boats that turn the lights on as soon as they leave the breakwater, this puts a load on the generator, and LEDs can save some fuel.”

Morris said his Canadian customers were the first early adopters of LEDs to reduce fuel costs, an important factor for a company that relies on 85 percent of its commercial marine sales as upgrades or retrofits.

“The Nova Scotians were the first to understand the efficiency and benefits.

They could shut down a 20-kW generator and save $100 of fuel per night.

After a few seasons in Novi, that gave us credibility.”

Also unlike the short-lived compact fluorescents that don’t like cold weather, flicker and most importantly, have mercury in their base, LEDs have a performance advantage in the way they can turn on and off instantly and their ability to focus precisely.

“In the past, it was a guessing game on where to put the lights,” said Nate Cabral who manages commercial lighting sales at Imtra. “You based your installation on a past boat and maybe put five forward and used two with a narrow beam.”

Now, with computer-aided design, the team at Imtra can take 3-D ships plans and overlay different lighting possibilities, showing exactly where the light will fall on the deck. For boats without these plans, a 2-D model is used, based on overhead and side views.

Reducing the number of fixtures can not only free up space in an electrical panel, but also reduce the amount and gauge of wiring required. For most big LED deck lights, 14-gauge wire is sufficient because they have such a low power draw.

With LEDs poised to become as ubiquitous as the phased out common light bulb, Colby says Imtra is looking at ways to customize their lights, including using optics to focus the beams in wide and elliptical patterns.

A new technology called OLED (organic light emitting diode) is making its way into households but isn’t quite ready for the marine environment yet.

The major benefits of OLEDs are reduced power consumption and weight, which may be important to consumer technologies. But it has a way to go before significantly altering the current LED deck lights, which tip the scales at just more than 20 pounds.

Like all technology, the trend will be to make things smaller and cheaper, but Morris says there is something even more interesting on the horizon.

“Lights are going to get smarter. We are entering the Internet of Things, and our lights are going to learn all about the vessel.”

Jean Paul Vellotti is the Boats & Gear editor for North Pacific Focus.

SUMMER 2017 / NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS

25

BOATBUILDING

Dave BenDinger / KDLg

The Sea Hunter II crew pulls sockeyes from the RSW hold. Skipper Howard Knutson is believed to be the oldest drift permit holder fishing Bristol Bay, proving quality is not just a young fisherman’s realm.

Raw seawater system installations bring temps down quickly for better quality and bigger payouts

I

t seems like a no-brainer: a chilling system that could pay for itself in one year while adding value to the catch in the hold. In Bristol Bay, where the salmon have been running hard, profits from the boats are being invested into raw seawater (commonly called RSW) cooling systems, either as retrofits or in newbuilds.

“Bristol Bay is unique,” explained Kurt Ness, operations director for Inte26

NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS / SUMMER 2017

BY JEAN PAUL VELLOTTI

grated Marine Systems in Seattle. “You see a huge run for a short duration of time. So they might use the systems for four or six, maybe eight weeks of the year. They start up, use them, and decommission the units until next summer.”

Still, the value added to the dock price for chilled salmon makes a dedicated RSW system worth the price of admission and maintenance. In fact, the demand is so high that IMS has devel-

oped units specifically for boats fishing Alaska’s Bristol Bay and Prince William Sound. Designed as an electric model, as opposed to either hydraulic or diesel drive, the 3- and 5-ton models offer versatility because of their tiny footprint and easy installations.

During a retrofit — where space is at a premium — especially on a 32-foot boat, these RSWs are designed to run off small 7- or 9-kW single-phase generators. Great for boats that can’t pull off

BOATBUILDING

“

it also adds a hydro pump that drives It would be insane the compressor. A qualified refrigeration tech is still needed in either case to to build a new boat complete the hookup and commission the system. and not put in a raw The deciding factor between drives, however, comes down to whether a seawater system. boat can spare enough power to run the — Pat Pitsch, hydraulics off the main engine.

Pat Pitsch, owner of Strongback MetSTRONGBACK METAL BOATS al Boats in Bellingham, Wash., said it all depends on the motor size and the rig- above the keel for maximum efficienging. For example, a twin-engine boat cy, adding water into the hold doesn’t is easier because you don’t have to add change much from the days of shovela bow-thruster and that frees up some ing ice while at the same time allowing hydraulics. But adding a second engine boats to operate away from the ports a is also a trade-off, as that can affect the little longer. As fish are dumped into the volume of space below, ultimately af- hold, the circulating seawater pulls heat fecting the weight ratio and hold vol- from the fish and exchanges it though a condenser before being returned into ume.

“In the old days with prop and shaft the ocean.

Manufacturers offer bigger units than setups, the engines were aft, and the fish were forward of them,” said Pitsch, the ones headed up to Bristol Bay, alwho exclusively builds boats using jet though the 3- and 5-ton models from drives. Around 90 percent of the RSWs installed at Strongback are hydraulic, running off the main engine. Although they have also installed a few with a little diesel generator to supply the power.

That setup worked fine for boats whose crews were used to flake ice, and frankly it still does for existing boats either contemplating or waiting for a retrofit, which Ness says is a fair number. Instead of boats and crew taking More power but in a small footprint, time off after the season, they are hav- this model can be driven by hydraulics or with a small dedicated pump engine. ing RSWs installed.

“Last year was a good year, and we expect this year to be a good year as well,” according to Ness.

But it’s a different story for fresh orders around the yards. “It would be insane to build a new boat and not 42' Stormi Gayle put in a raw seawater system,” said Pitsch. “It’s all new Now accepting orders for hulls, construction for us, kits and complete boats. and we put them We offer twelve models from 25' to 47' in all of our new 932 U.S. Route 1, Steuben, Maine 04680 boats.”

Phone: (207) 546-7477 Fax: (207) 546-2163 As boats require www.hhmarineinc.com weight distribution

An electric-powered 5-ton system, developed specifically for salmon runs.

any more horsepower from a main engine, the self-contained units also have a small footprint of just under 8 cubic feet.

The base of the system is either aluminum or stainless, depending on application, and mounted on top are the powder-coated condenser, the chiller and the compressor. The chiller uses a titanium core, and the refrigerant receiver uses sight glasses to monitor Freon levels. Titanium or copper-nickel plated chillers are essential, regardless of the brand, for the health of the catch.

Not all retrofits for Bristol Bay boats are using the electric model, however.

Instead some owners prefer a small hydraulically driven system that fits in roughly the same footprint and has the same tonnage output. Essentially keeping the same components on the plate,

Integrated MarIne SySteMS

Brian Robbins

H&H MARINE, INC.

This 5-ton hydraulic system is nearly identical to the electric model above.

SUMMER 2017 / NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS

27

Integrated MarIne SySteMS

Integrated MarIne SySteMS

”

BOATBUILDING

“Last year was a

good year, and we expect this year to be a good year as well.

”

— Kurt Ness,

Integrated MarIne SySteMS

INTEGRATED MARINE SYSTEMS

This 8-ton split unit has a titanium core chiller and diesel-driven compressor.

IMS (which start around $12,000) can be upgraded to a 7.5- or 10-ton model in the future because they use common mechanicals. As RSWs increase in size, the terminology ratings change from tons to horsepower, which simpli-

fies things somewhat, as a 25-hp model outputs 28.5 tons. It also makes comparisons between brands easier.

One other RSW option is a diesel drive split system, but it’s not common for gillnetters, as they are much larger

and would take up too much space and underutilize the tonnage output.

Technically you have the option for a hydraulic split (instead of diesel), but “you don’t see it too often because the hydro units are so much smaller to begin with,” said Ness.

And don’t think the manufacturers have forgotten about the skiff market in Bristol Bay. Although these boats don’t pack the tonnage of the 32s, there is a clever way they can stay competitive in the chilled salmon market.

Pacific West Refrigeration, based in Sechelt, British Columbia, has devel-

REGIONAL NEWS AND UPDATES

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An ASRC Company

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NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS / SUMMER 2017

WWW.NATIONALFISHERMAN.COM

oped 1- and 3-ton systems that hang off of poly fish totes, only requiring a small, portable generator and an overboard seawater supply pump.

“The units work well for the skiff boats, so that’s a viable option,” said Shelly Boutilier of Pacific West Refrigeration. “You could chill two totes with one chiller and an equalizer valve. The 3-ton can run off a little Honda engine pack.”

Two or even three totes plumbed

Their research finds that 50 percent of processors will require chilled fish by 2018, and RSW systems offer the positive economic benefit of a 15-cent-perpound bonus for chilled fish.

With a 200 percent increase in deliveries since 2008, and 71 percent of the Bristol Bay catch chilled in 2016, RSW is moving from a trend to a requirement. In the 2016 season, only 27 percent of the total product was canned, a record low.

“Fifty percent of processors will require chilled fish by 2018.”

— BRISTOL BAY REGIONAL SEAFOOD DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION

together creates either a high-capacity system taking up much of the skiff or the ability to spread the load by packing less fish than capacity in each tote.

The Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association says chilling salmon has a big payoff in the region.

Although the association’s payoff research shows a longer payoff period than IMS estimates (two to three years versus one), their calculations assume a larger system with a higher cost of entry, and they factor non-owner installations.

Pacific West RefRigeRation

BOATBUILDING

Something for skiffs, this chiller attaches to totes and cools quickly.

The association also has an interesting suggestion for an upgrade path, and that is to split the cost over several years, by piecemealing the system and prepping the hold and plumbing before installing the compressors.They also keep a listing of financing options available on their website.

Jean Paul Vellotti is the Boats & Gear editor for North Pacific Focus.

dkane@platypusmarine.com SUMMER 2017 / NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS

29

IN PROFILE The Alaska Marine Safety Education Association has dramatically improved survival and safety rates.

KING OF THE DRILL Safety sentinel Jerry Dzugan changed the game by manning the helm of Alaska marine safety

BY BRENDAN JONES

O

n July 31, 1980, following three days of scallop fishing, the Margaret Jane sailed to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, in a dense fog. They were dropping off one of their 18 crew members, a man who was injured while working.

Around noon, the Cape Beaver, a 160-foot steel-plated wetfish trawler, appeared out of the fog on the port side of the Margaret Jane. The ice-cutting ball on the bow of Cape Beaver sliced into the hull of the Margaret Jane, and the boat began taking water. A television crew from NBC aboard the Cape Beaver shot footage as crew members from the Margaret Jane jumped overboard, scrambling for the boat’s life raft.

The footage shows a wave washing over the stern, a crewman being swept into the house. Crew members jump for

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NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS / SUMMER 2017

their lives. It takes less than two minutes for the Margaret Jane to sink. In the end, four fishermen perished.

Today, Jerry Dzugan uses footage of that sinking to show why safety training matters. That moment when you see the man step out from the forecabin, before being swept by a wave to his death — that catches their attention, he says.

And he’s right. As executive director of the Alaska Marine Safety Education Association out of Sitka, Dzugan leads 275 instructors who run safety-training workshops for fishermen in every corner of the country. It’s their job to get as close as possible to replicating emergencies and survival at sea, and they are dead serious about it.

In 2011, while deckhanding aboard the Snorkel, my buddy Rick Petersen in Sitka convinced me to take his two-day AMSEA drill instructor course. I had heard good things both about his teaching, as well as the class itself. I’d learn how to properly don a survival suit in under 60 seconds, fix simulated boat leaks, and have the opportunity to fight

The collision and sinking of the Margaret Jane was filmed by an NBC crew. AMSEA uses footage of the accident to focus its trainees.

AlAskA MArine sAfety educAtion AssociAtion photos

fire — premium skills for tending a sea cucumber diver, a fishery more dangerous than crabbing.

On a rainy fall morning, trollers, divers, longliners and a seiner or two filtered into the fluorescent-lit room, pouring coffee from a station in the corner, slowly stirring in packets of sugar. A book in front of our seats showed two geared-up fishermen about to be swept away by a frothy wave. We filled out some paperwork and got comfortable. A hush came over the class as we watched the Margaret Jane sink.

About halfway through the day, a fitlooking man with glasses and an impressive moustache appeared at the back of the class. He gave a few tips on how to shave time off our survival suit exercises, watched a bit more and left.

If you had to pick the leader of this safety organization over its past 37 years — indeed since its inception — chances are you wouldn’t land on a wiry kid from the South Side of Chicago.

After moving to the suburbs of the Windy City in the 5th grade, he attended college nearby. He “married and had a kid young,” went to Teacher’s College at Chicago State University, before teaching history at an inner city public school.

During his summers, he hopped on his bike, exploring different quadrants of the country: Southwest, Far West, Pacific Northwest and finally Alaska. In 1978, he took his BMW R90/6 motorcycle on the ferry, stopping off in Sitka. He fished from the dock for dinner.

“I spent the night there, and just knew — this was the place.”

Water had always played a role in his life, if not a major one. He gillnetted smelt with his father on Lake Michigan, collecting the fish in galvanized pails, pan-frying them in oil. At 15, a book set him afire — “We Die Alone,” a classic story of a Royal Air Force pilot shot down in Norway, and pursued by the Nazis as he struggled to make it back to Allied lines. The book fueled the urge to just “get the hell out of the city.” In 1979, he moved to Sitka.

To hear Jerry tell it, it’s not him but Hank Pennington, a “big red-haired affable guy,” who is the driving force behind AMSEA. Despite never having fished commercially, Pennington, a Sea Grant agent

Jerry Dzugan down at the docks.

who lived in Kodiak in the 1970s, had “a lot of fishermen buddies,” and could tell a helluva story. He teamed up with the Coast Guard at the air base in Kodiak to go to battle against the high rate of fishing fatalities on the crab grounds. Pennington and a helicopter pilot took their show on the road, traveling around to Alaska fishing ports to give safety training.

“It wasn’t Coast Guard approved.

There was no money for it.They just did it,” Dzugan says.

From the beginning, maritime safety in Alaska was improvised. For example the Seven Steps of Survival were born when a couple of Coast Guard guys got together at a bar, sometime in the mid70s, reflected on their experience doing rescues and came up with 14 steps of survival.

“One of the guys had read somewhere that the mind only remembers seven things at a time,” Dzugan says. “So they narrowed it down to seven.” Boom.

In 1983, Pennington secured Alaska Sea Grant funds and collaborated with the Coast Guard to produce the fourpart “Survival” series.

Pennington brought together the Marine Advisory Program out of University of Alaska Fairbanks, and the Alaska Sea

Grant College Program with the Coast Guard in 1982 to produce the video series. By this time, Northstar Survival, a private company, held classes. The Coast Guard did classes, while MAP and Sea Grant agents carried on separate programs. People began to talk.

“We had an ad hoc informal board, from all these different organizations,” Dzugan says.

Funding was secured from NOAA to develop a curriculum to address the safety needs of commercial fishermen and marine users.

“We just sat beneath the trees over at SEARHC [Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, a hospital in Sitka] and did it.” The videos, along with the curriculum, were used as a stepping off point for the newly created AMSEA. In the meantime, Dzugan had been longlining out of Sitka.

“The director said, ‘You fish, you have an education background, why don’t you join the board?’” Shortly after, the board asked Dzugan to resign and become the first director.

That first year, using state money, and an eventual federal grant, Dzugan worked on a curriculum for classes. “We built on roots that were already there,” he says.

A year after AMSEA was born, a young man from the East Coast was killed on an Alaska seiner that capsized. His father, Bob Barry, a career diplomat, flew from Finland to Anchorage to identify the body. At that time, fishing vessels were held to the same laws as sport vessels — no life raft or EPIRB required.The boat, the Western Sea, fell to the bottom of the ocean with little more than a few life jackets aboard.

“This changed things,” Dzugan says.

The Barry family lobbied to increase safety aboard fishing boats. In 1988, Ronald Reagan signed the Fishing Vessel Safety Act — requiring survival suits, life vests and training for boat safety. By 1991, it became law.

“The industry didn’t want it,” Dzugan says. “They said they had their own programs.” Some large seafood companies lobbied against it.

Then the fish processor Aleutian Enterprise sank, killing nine crew members, including a fishery observer.The skipper, Continued on page 35 SUMMER 2017 / NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS

31

CREW LIFE

When you teach a girl to fish, she’s no more limited by the sky than she is by the sea

I

n Petersburg, Alaska, where the streets are named for boats and the boats are named for women, bringing your daughter onboard may seem natural. For many Generation X women from Southeast Alaska, making their way to various helms of maritime businesses feels equally natural.

As the winter holidays wrapped up in the early days of 2017, many of the area’s young adults returned to their daily grind at campus and in offices — having forged their lives and careers far from densely forested Mitkof Island. Many return only during academic breaks, and fewer remain active players in the state’s economy. The effects of so-called brain drain are a perennial focus for Alaska’s educators, entrepreneurs and legislators.

With their parents now at retirement age, the emerging effect of an aging marine fleet is felt particularly in rural communities.

College has provided the credentials many of the region’s young women needed to cross over into policy and the boardroom, but their formative years spent among maritime men offered the credibility. This generation has come

32

NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS / SUMMER 2017

BY TIFFANY BORGES

of age under an uneasy truce between nepotism and sexism — exposure to the roughest elements of man and nature with your father as skipper. Although the folktales and superstitions banning women from fishing vessels have long been dismissed (by most), the industry is still considered the domain of men.

“You have to keep up, not be intimidated,” says Cora Campbell of her earliest awareness that she was capable of meeting the physical demands of the fishing grounds.

Campbell, a 1997 graduate of Petersburg High School, intended to return to town after earning her teaching credentials in Washington state. She now heads up a subsidiary of Norton Sound Economic Development Corporation from an Anchorage office overlooking Cook Inlet. Of her historic appointment as commissioner of Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game (2011-14), she shrugs off fanfare — at 31 years old, Campbell was the youngest commissioner and first woman to hold the office — in favor of her reality.

“I don’t work at my desk or in the field as a female,” she says. “I’m just doing my work.”

She speaks happily of her childhood spent on the water, saying it fortified her work ethic as well as her relationship with older sister, Kelly, who owns Wrangell Boatshop on a neighboring island.

“We’re incredibly close,” Campbell says. “She’s running a maritime business and doing very well.”

As president and CEO of Siu Corp., Campbell is driven in part by a lifelong familiarity with Alaskan Native culture and a personal sense of justice. Campbell relished traveling within the state during her time with Fish & Game, and describes the bounty of Alaska’s interior and coastal regions.

“One reason for living in these remote places is the harvest available, both of seafood and wildlife. Many Alaskans are tired of hearing about their region being the most impoverished census district in the nation.”

Siu Corp. aims to return a portion of the material wealth extracted from these regions to its stakeholders.

Chelsa Paulk

In their downtime, Campbell and her husband, Casey, retreat to their cabin near Talkeetna to ensure that their children are exposed to the rugged skills of Alaskan life.

“Anchorage can seem rather confining,” Campbell says, contrasting the city lifestyle and conveniences with the simple pace of smaller towns on the highway and beyond.

Julianne Curry is a fourth-generation fisherman who never sought to leave the industry. The trends and logistics of the fishing world were her first language.

Her skills have been honed through a marketing degree, tireless travel and networking. Always interwoven was loyalty to her family’s business and, by extension, the fishing community.

She served as executive director of Petersburg Vessel Owners’ Association for six years (preceded by Campbell),

Cassandra Squibb is the marketing director for Copper River Seafoods, based in Anchorage.

angela Christensen

Angela Christensen is an assistant fleet manager for Silver Bay Seafoods and is based in Petersburg.

Director Cassandra Squibb spent the first half of her childhood in Petersburg, and the remainder between Juneau, Klawock and Boston. From these disparate locales grew her parents’ tugboat business. If the fishing world had experienced both first and second waves of feminism by the early 1990s, the timber industry remained largely uncharted by women.

Squibb recalls assisting ships from Asian ports with the intense technical task of leveraging massive vessels alongside their tug, to secure loads of logs freshly harvested from Prince of Wales Island. Hand signals and flashing light sequences comprise the internationally recognized directions. Her father often had to emerge from the wheelhouse to validate that she, a teenage girl, was authorized to give these commands.

In describing her unusual upbringing, Squibb is now able to appreciate what at

Julianne Curry

Chelsa Paulk

Cora Campbell served as the youngest Fish and Game commissioner in Alaska and now heads a Native corporation.

which Curry cites as key to broadening her professional scope.This was followed by working as executive director for United Fishermen of Alaska, where she progressed to regular interaction with political heavyweights including Alaska’s congressional delegation. Still, she hungers for relief from white-collar work, which she continues to find on deck.

“The single best feeling for me is pulling away from that dock, putting the gear away, and being out in Frederick Sound, just taking that in,” she says.

Currently working as a consultant, including co-chairwoman of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute’s Domestic Marketing Committee, the advocacy piece of her work springs from a desire to provide Alaska seafood with maximum visibility.

Speaking of the American populace, she says, “There’s a real disconnect about our food source, but the richness of this product is just unparalleled. People are taking notice.”

Angela Christensen rattles off the lineage of regional boats and permits like a familiar family tree. As an assistant fleet manager for Silver Bay Seafoods, she describes the fishing fleet as a fusion of business interests and family legacy.

“My dad’s generation was maybe a turning point,” Christensen says, “that pride in their daughters’ abilities. He always emphasized my strength and reliability, the focus was on that, nothing about gender.”

Christensen spent 13 years salmon seining, branched into the retail side of vessel supply and now works as a liaison between fishermen and internal corporate interests. She recalls that as a teenager, her peers who were unfamiliar with the fishing industry might jeer, “You only got that job because your dad hired you.” But the opportunity was hers to claim, nonetheless. She credits the lessons in teamwork and stamina as the core of her fishing experience.

“There’s no portion of that operation which was not my job, no matter how young I was,” she says. “You can’t call in sick! Knowing that perseverance is the expectation — the norm — that’s crucial. You’ll never be the same after the rhythm of a fishing boat becomes part of your character.”

Copper River Seafoods’ Marketing

Julianne Curry served as executive director of the United Fishermen of Alaska and now is a private consultant.

SUMMER 2017 / NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS

33

CREW LIFE the time was considered drudgery.

“There is no downtime. With a ship in port, we were conditioned to be ready for anything.”

She and her sister Eliza longed for the leisure they envisioned their peers indulging in back in Juneau: Summers spent “sleeping in, biking to the mall, and here we are, stuck with our parents,” she laughs heartily. Her early childhood was devoid of clutter and commercial toys, with the natural world being the family’s main source of recreation. She describes beachcombing, playing musical instruments and trips to the public library as prime entertainment. Beyond the typical teenage angst, she does recall a fledgling appreciation for the risk-taking and fortitude of her parents.

“I began to see how much they had on the line. I fell in love with market-

here’s this lady witnessing vulgarities, it gets waved off by people who know me: ‘She can handle dock talk. She grew up on a tugboat.’”

Each of these women also grew up aware of the devastation that could be unleashed by the ocean. Vessels sinking, catching on fire and families who never returned to safe harbor were part of their consciousness. Endurance and heroism were often gratefully there, too.

Squibb was nearly born at sea, and her family narrowly survived a devastating tug fire and sinking just a few years later.

The boat bearing Christensen’s name, the F/V Angela Marie, sank 23 years ago, the crew’s dramatic rescue defying the nighttime darkness, nearly frozen survival suits, and an unrelenting winter storm.

Seared into the psyche of Petersburg is the loss of Christensen’s classmate

“There is no downtime. With a ship in port, we were conditioned to be ready for anything.” ing around the same time.” She earned her communications degree from Boston University in 2000 and returned to Alaska eager to integrate her passion for local, sustainable nutrition and the rhythm of public relations. Squibb has a deeply ingrained frenetic work/play balance. But she makes time for fishing treks, downhill skiing and ferry trips with her growing family.

With the teenage years came the milestone of wheel watch, effectively driving a prosperous corporation, which fosters self-reliance and humility. Eliza Squibb earned her 100-ton Masters’ license before she turned 30. Their youngest sister, Lucy, works as a commercial deckhand from Bristol Bay to Prince William Sound.

“I feel like I still have the route from Klawock to Hydaburg memorized,” says Cassandra Squibb. Of the salty swagger that can typify the fishing industry, “Anytime guys seem to flinch, like

34

NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS / SUMMER 2017

Renée Odegaard, her 1999 death commemorated in the local Fishermen’s Memorial Park. The Odegaard family’s 46foot boat was overcome by a storm that ripped through the Inside Passage on Halloween night. The imprint of such a loss unites across generations. Odegaard was just 22 years old; her brother Eric was 25. Along with their father, Jim, they are honored by memorial plaques in the center of town.

Despite the potential for tragedy, there’s pride in the continuity of preserving the trades of their fathers and grandfathers. In some way, these women will sail on in various capacities for those who went before them, as well as those whose final trips came too soon.

Nothing less than devastation recently gripped the family of Darrik Seibold, 36-year-old veteran of the F/V Destination, a vessel that sank near the Pribilof Islands in February 2017. The Coast Guard conducted a search of more than

5,000 miles to no avail; the boat was detected on the ocean floor five months later. His mother, Gail Andrews, explains that she feels a part of herself forever lost to the sea.

“No mayday, no lifeboat, no explanation, no body, no closure.” Almost inconceivably, Andrews has been here before.

In 2008, her companion of many years vanished similarly from his own boat, which was found beached, engine in neutral, his dinner on the table and catch on the deck.

“He was just going to work,” says Seibold’s cousin Ambre Burell of seeing off her beloved cousin for another crabbing season in the Bering Sea. “Never did I even consider that he wouldn’t return.

We don’t think that way.”

She likens their shock to the way another family might learn of a fatal car accident. “When you live in Petersburg, this is your life.”

The local memorial temporarily displayed six pairs of raingear, symbolizing each of the crewmen aboard the Destination. The statue they hang from is a bronze likeness of her husband’s grandfather. It sits adjacent to the Sons of Norway Hall, historic center of family and hospitality for the town of three thousand. But like Burrell’s own teenage daughters, who both fished on local boats as they grew up, it’s not just the sons who take on the family legacy.

“Women in seafood maybe be unconventional,” Curry says, “but there are so many of us.”

Then there are the hardy wives and mothers, without whom the Alaska seafood industry, its earliest processing efforts and towns like Petersburg would not exist. These children of Petersburg have grown up watching their parents, father and mother alike, put in long hours to make it all work.That’s the ethic that propels them as well as the future of the industry.

Tiffany Borges is a freelance writer living in Wasilla with her husband and six children.

Follow her at www.parksandglenn.com.

IN PROFILE Continued from page 31 a young man at the time, gunned the engine to the starboard after taking water, creating an internal wave that rolled the boat. Survival suits were stuck behind fish boxes. A door was welded shut. An alarm had failed.

“One of the big companies [Arctic Alaska, owned by a group of California investors] that was resistant to training owned the Aleutian Enterprise,” Dzugan said. That provided some oomph for the Coast Guard to get something out there.

That pushed the training requirement over the top.”

Meanwhile, with an increase in attention and funding, AMSEA was finding its sea legs. Between 1988 and 1992, Alaska had twice the number of fishing-related drownings as the rest of the country.

Today, 37 years after Dzugan took the helm, AMSEA employs 276 active instructors in 113 ports. The association has expanded its instructor network, teaching classes in Samoa, Puerto Rico, in ports on the East and West coasts, in Florida, Louisiana and Texas. Fatalities at sea have gone down by 83 percent.

“He’s contributed greatly to increasing the safety culture in Alaska and across the country,” said Paula Cullenburg, an AMSEA board member and director of Alaska Sea Grant. “He’s always been one to promote awareness and safety culture, not regulations. He’s been a role model.”

He’s even inspired new careers in marine safety. NIOSH injury epidemiologist Jennifer Lincoln took an AMSEA course in Seward when she joined NIOSH in 1992 and went through a crash course on the industry.

“There’s no question that that initial MSIT course really inspired me to dedicate my career to improving commercial fishing safety. Every time I see him teach, I am overwhelmed by how fresh it is for him. How fresh it is for the people who take the class,” she said. “He’s got a true passion for marine safety.”

Here in Sitka, Dzugan and AMSEA are synonymous. It’s difficult to envision one without the other.

“Jerry is the most dedicated, friendly, good communicator about fishing safety I’ve ever met,” said veteran of the troll fleet Eric Jordan. “AMSEA wouldn’t be what it has come to be without him.”

A few times Dzugan has come across

folks who have survived a sinking and recall lessons from AMSEA. “Guy on the La Conte [a 77-foot longliner that sank in 1998, killing two] saw me and said, ‘I remember exactly what you told me.”

Dzugan recalls giving a class in Angoon. A month afterward, a longliner in Chatham Strait was caught in bad weather by Point Gardner. The chopper flew over from Sitka and dropped in a rescue swimmer. The captain later said to Dzugan, “We just remembered what the class was and what you said, and it happened just like that. We already knew what to do.We knew what to expect. It prevented panic.”

“What works about AMSEA, is that they’re able to combine working with folks in town with a national presence.

And, as far as I can tell, that’s Jerry’s vision,” says Sitka fisherman Karl Jordan.

From the start of his directorship at AMSEA, Dzugan said he recognized the importance of local instructor training, and the need for local knowledge.

“What works in Alaska is not necessarily what’s going to work in the Gulf of Mexico,” Dzugan says. To that end, instructors are required to have fishing experience.

“With local-based instructors, you got local credibility. This empowers the local fleet, and it just goes down the line.”

“What we do is give

fishermen better tools to make decisions with.

The most often heard comment was ‘I didn’t think a boat could sink

”

that fast.

— Jerry Dzugan

Looking over his long career, Dzugan says he has come to a few realizations, the first being that all decisions are made in the wheelhouse.

“What we do is give fishermen better tools to make decisions with,” he says.

“The most often heard comment was, ‘I didn’t think a boat could sink that fast.’”

These days he sails the 36-foot fiberglass Wyldewind, a Bill Garden design.

No more BMW motorcycle.

“It’s all about trip planning. I don’t take risks.”

Brendan Jones is the author of “The Alaskan Laundry.” He lives and fishes in Sitka, Alaska.

INDEX TO ADVERTISERS Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute ..... 3 www.alaskaseafood.org

Marport Stout Inc .............................CV2 www.marport.com

Foss Maritime Company .................... 19 www.foss.com

MER Equipment ................................. 16 merequipment.com

Fusion Marine Technology, LLC ......... 18 www.fusionmarinetech.com

NET Systems Inc ................................. 12 www.net-sys.com

General Communication Inc (GCI) ..... 22 www.gci.com

North Pacific Fuel ............................... 28 www.petrostar.com

H & H Marine Inc ................................ 27 www.hhmarineinc.com

Pacific Marine Expo .............................. 7 www.pacificmarineexpo.com

Integrated Marine Systems Inc ........CV3 www.imspacific.com

Platypus Marine .................................. 29 www.platypusmarine.com

Kodiak College ................................... 20 www.koc.alaska.edu

Simrad Fisheries ...............................CV4 www.simrad.com

Kodiak Shipyard ................................. 18 www.kodiakshipyard.com

WESMAR Western Marine Electronics ............... 12 www.wesmar.com

LFS Inc Seattle .................................... 11 www.lfsinc.com

SUMMER 2017 / NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS

35

IN FOCUS/

BRISTOL BAY SALMON

Deckhand John Paul Gramelis picks sockeye salmon from a gillnet aboard the Aventura at sunset after a day of fishing around Ugashik with skipper Eric Ohlsen.

Photo by Kai Raymond Instagram / @Kai_Raymond

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NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS / SUMMER 2017

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