North Pacific Focus 2016 Winter Edition by National Fisherman

WINTER EDITION 2016

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FEATURES

DEPARTMENTS 2 PILOTHOUSE LOG 4 TIDINGS 5 CALENDAR 6 INDUSTRY WAYPOINTS 7 ASMI NEWS 8 FISHERPOETS 9 OUR TOWN 12 SEASON FORECASTS ALSO

35 36

AD INDEX

COLUMNS

GEAR SHIFTS

COMFORT ZONE Learning custom repairs

15 ON THE HORIZON Avoiding accusations

16 MAKING THE RULES Protecting the Unuk River

Taking the long view at sonar development through military history

24 BOATBUILDING: NOT ON TREND One Bellingham yard goes back to the basics for an affordable Bristol Bay boat

28 BULLETPROOF NETS

How Homer’s seine alley shop works to deliver the best nets in the nation

THE LONG HAUL The Investor murders

TIME TO CHILL

ON THE HOMEFRONT Pacific crabbers at home

To get the chilled-fish premium, you’ve got to get real with refrigeration

20 YOUNGBLOODS Young Fishermen’s Summit

Cover: F/V GK in the upper Naknek District on a calm day for Bristol Bay. Bob Waldrop photo

IN FOCUS WINTER 2016 / NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS

PILOTHOUSE L LOG

SADDLING UP T

he Bristol Bay gillnet fshery has a reputation for being a bit of a rodeo. The cowboys come out on their shiny aluminum stallions, parading around the river’s ring, pulling reins to make tight turns in a crowded feld, churned muddy with wave action, waiting for the gun to go of so they can toss their lines and rope in something good. But the rodeo has taken a bit of a hit lately. With prices down, the show is a little less glamorous, and the diehard fshermen are looking around for a way to keep their stallions running until this rough patch passes. In this issue, Boats & Gear Editor Michael Crowley illustrates two signifcant ways to improve your proft from a big bay run. The frst is the biggest investment — aside from a permit — a new boat, but it’s not what you expect. Pat Pitsch is defying the trend toward luxurious, big-power gillnetters with a stripped-down model that costs at least 25 percent less than the typical Bristol Bay netter, according to the builder. The Strongback Metal Boats model is waterjet-driven with a 425-horsepower John Deer, lined like a truck bed and sporting a fy bridge. It’s proving to be a popular option coming out of the Bellingham, Wash., yard. Get the big picture starting on page 24. The success of the Strongback prototype shows that when the going gets tough, the tough get utilitarian. They also get innovative. When the economy tanks, we all talk about doing more with less, stretching a dollar. When the price of salmon takes a hit with back-to-back big runs, you need to get more from more, stay competitive in a fooded market. The quickest way to get a better price for your fsh is to improve your handling, and that’s what RSW systems are doing for the Bristol Bay feet, as well as crabbers and longliners. There may not be a lot of ice in the bay come July, but there’s plenty of seawater. Integrated Marine Systems

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

PRODUCTION ASSOCIATE

Jerry Fraser Jessica Hathaway Samuel Hill Michael S. Crowley Doug Stewart Ashley Herriman

Dylan Andrews

and Teknotherm are outftting boats with $30,000 (average) RSW systems, which seems like a lot at frst glance. But if you are saving big on a stripped down gillnetter, you can aford to invest in the quality of your product with a guaranteed JESSICA HATHAWAY price premium that Editor in chief doesn’t force you to compromise much on your hold space. Last year, processors paid another 15 cents a pound for chilled fsh. It would take 200,000 pounds of delivered chilled salmon to pay for a new RSW system at that rate. That’s 15-20 boatloads. Not bad. Beyond the scope of gillnetting and Bristol Bay, Highland Refrigeration is delivering on slurry ice systems that signifcantly improve the quality of the product on longliners and draggers from New England to Alaska. Read the full story starting on page 32. For something a little more hands-on, freelance writer Emilie Springer brings us the story of Homer’s Bulletproof Nets. This niche net builder is expanding its operations beyond seine nets, but its specialties are still quality and service. Emilie’s profle starts on page 28. In the meantime, we’re practicing our team roping and counting down to the season’s frst rodeo.

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Theodore Wirth, President & CEO Michael Lodato, Executive Vice President

NORTHWEST Susan Chesney / schesney@divcom.com Tel. (206) 463-4819 • Fax (206) 463-3342

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GULF COAST Jeff Powell / jpowell@divcom.com Tel. (207) 842-5573 • Fax (207) 842-5611

North Pacifc Focus, Winter 2016, Vol. 3, No. 1, is published quarterly by Diversifed 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.

NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS / WINTER 2016

Alaska didn’t jump on t e SUSTAINABILITY trend. WE STARTED IT. Marine conservation isn’t new to Alaska Seafood. In fact, a precautionary approach to setting harvest levels has been in place for decades. Look at the BSAI Catch Limits chart and see how the numbers tell the story. Each year scientists conduct surveys of the available biomass and use this data to calculate conservative catch limits – Acceptable Biological Catch (ABC). Then, fisheries managers go a step further and set harvest quotas – Total Allowable Catch (TAC) – that never exceeds the sustainable ABC. And, with the FAO-Based Responsible Fisheries Management (RFM) Certification, you have even more assurance that conserving our oceans is anything but trendy to us. Learn more at www.alaskaseafood.org

1981-2012 Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands (BSAI) Groundfish Catch Limits

TIDINGS

Pebble Mine

NEWS FROM THE WEST COAST & ALASKA Washington

Legislators push for crab fshery disaster declaration

California

New Year. If the governor declared an emergency, fshermen who have missed out on those expected big paydays could receive federal aid. “The delayed crab season is unprecedented in duration and magnitude, and California crabbers need our help now more than ever. For the past three months, we have all been hopeful that we could kick of the harvest, but as the holidays came and went and acid levels remained too high, the statewide impact has been catastrophic,” said Sen. Mike McGuire (D), chairman of the Joint Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture. “Crabbers are experiencing devastating losses that can’t be recouped due to the collapse of the fall salmon season and the unprecedented delay in the crab harvest.”

The California Dungeness and rock crab fshery is in the top tier of the state’s commercial fsheries. Values have exceeded $95 million per year and longterm averages of nearly $60 million, according to data from the Department of Fish and Wildlife.

keting its AquAdvantage salmon, but a restriction was passed within a federal budget bill in December that will rehe Food and Drug Administration quire labeling guidelines to be developed announced an import alert on ge- before it can be sold. netically engineered salmon in late Janu“This is a huge step in our fght against ary, which means they won’t allow Fran- ‘Frankenfsh,’” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski. (R-Alaska). “I adamantly oppose the FDA’s misguided decision to allow GE salmon to be placed in our kitchens and on our tables, and I frmly believe that mandatory AquAdvantage salmon combines the DNA of three species. labeling guidekenfsh into interstate commerce. lines must be put in place as soon as posIn November, the FDA cleared Aqu- sible so consumers know what it is they aBounty Technologies to begin mar- are purchasing. It seems that the FDA has

begun to listen, and I hope this is a sign that the agency plans to develop these necessary guidelines.” The guideline development process could take several years. According to AquaBounty’s CEO Ronald Stotish, the decision will not afect their current operations, as they have not started importing their salmon to the United States. In Alaska, State Rep. Geran Tarr (DAnchorage) introduced legislation that would prohibit the sale of GE salmon within the state entirely in order to protect Alaska’s wild salmon and fshing communities. “Wild Alaska salmon is a part of our way of life, and our sustainable fsheries can help us through these tough fscal times,” said Tarr. The bill was referred to the House Special Committee on Fisheries and the Labor and Commerce Committee.

FDA announces ban of modifed salmon imports

Doug Stewart

NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS / WINTER 2016

Noaa

ith January coming to a close, state legislators asked California Gov. Jerry Brown to declare a fshery disaster for the state’s Dungeness crab feet, which hasn’t been allowed to fsh since the typical season opener in November. The algae-produced neurotoxin domoic acid caused a delay all the way up the coast to Washington when crabs were declared unsafe for public consumption in early November. Oregon and Washington were eventually cleared for fshing, but the delay of California’s commercial season continues to drag on. California crabbers have faced tough seasons before, but the extended delay has forced them to miss out on the major crab sales holidays — Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year and the Chinese

Oregon

MSC Alaska salmon certifcate fnalized

he Marine Stewardship Council offcially released the certifcate that will allow all Alaska salmon suppliers to sell MSC-certifed salmon in 2016. This inclusive certifcate comes after a long period of negotiation between the Alaska Salmon Processors Association and the Pacifc Seafood Processors Association. ASPA was the certifcate’s former client holder, but transferred it to PSPA last summer in order to make it available to all interested processors. “We’re all glad that we were able to come to this agreement and that any processors that want it will have access to the label,” said PSPA President Glenn Reed. Processors moved away from the label in 2012, but made a move to return to its use to sell salmon in European markets, a near necessity after recent record and near-record salmon runs. The restriction that comes with the transfer allows only ASPA client group members to use the label on salmon harvested in 2013, 2014 and 2015. New members that have come on through the transfer to PSPA will only be able to

MARCH March 6 88th Annual Blessing of the Fleet Fishermen’s Terminal, Seattle (206) 787-3000 www.portseattle.org

March 8-11 Alaska Board of Fisheries Meeting Hilton Downtown Anchorage 500 W. 3rd Ave. Anchorage, AK www.adfg.alaska.gov

March 19 Blessing of the Fleet Newport Historic Bayfront, Newport, Ore. P.O. Box 971 Newport, OR 97365 (541) 574-5555 www.newportfshermenswives.com

use the label on fsh harvested in 2016 and beyond. The certifcate is active through Nov. 18, 2018.

Fight over Columbia River polices rages on

hree years ago, then-Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber introduced reforms of lower Columbia River fshing policies that were adopted by Oregon and Washington. Changes allocated more salmon to recreational fshermen in the main stem of the Columbia and restricted gillnetting to of-channel areas. With the setting of Columbia River spring fshing seasons comes the ongoing battle between commercial and recreational fshermen and their quotas. Sport fshermen claim the reforms are working just fne and that runs are rebuilding, while gillnetters call for revisions to fawed policies. Those of-channel spots where gillnetting is allowed are being stocked with more king and silver salmon, and additional of-channel locations are being researched. But advocates for the fshery claim the release of salmon has been declining. The spring king run is forecasted to hit around 300,000 fsh. The current allocation is set at 7,515 fsh for rec-

reational fshermen below Bonneville Dam, 1,222 for the mainstream nontribal commercial fshery and 198 for select area commercial fsheries.

Report clears EPA of bias in blocking Pebble Mine

ast fall, Pebble Limited commissioned a report claiming the Environmental Protection Agency fostered inappropriate relationships with antimine advocates and began its review of the project with an outcome in mind. An investigation by the EPA’s internal watchdog, found no evidence of bias in the agency’s eforts. Agency ofcials followed guidelines in assessing whether the controversial Pebble Mine project should be built, according to a report released by the EPA’s inspector general. The report did cite “possible misuse of position” by an EPA employee who used his personal email in communicating with Alaskan tribes opposed to the mine before retiring in 2013. The report recommends incorporating this situation into ethics training in the future. The Pebble developers, who have fled two lawsuits against EPA regarding unfair bias, called the report an “embarrassing failure” and are urging further investigation.

March 31-April 2 ComFish Alaska 2016 Kodiak Harbor Convention Center Best Western Kodiak Inn 211 Rezanof Drive W., Kodiak, AK (907) 486-5557 trevor@kodiak.org www.comfshalaska.com

APRIL April 4-12 North Pacifc Fishery Management Council Meeting Hilton Anchorage 500 West 3rd Ave., Anchorage, AK (907) 272-7411 www.npfmc.org

April 9-14 Pacifc Fishery Management Council Meeting Hilton Vancouver Washington 301 W. 6th St., Vancouver, WA 98660 (360) 993-4500 www.pcouncil.org

MAY May 26-30 Kodiak Crab Festival Downtown Kodiak, Alaska Kodiak Chamber of Commerce (907) 486-5557 www.kodiak.org

April 9-10 Bodega Bay Fisherman’s Festival Westside Park, Westshore Road Bodega Bay, CA info@bbfshfest.org www.bbfshfest.org

To list your event in North Pacifc Focus, contact Samuel Hill at shill@divcom.com or (207) 842-5622.

WINTER 2016 / NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS

• Kathy’s Net Loft in Juneau announced the sale of their gillnet retail sales and service business to Western Auto Marine in late December. “We believe this was the next step in the evolution of our business. That is, to make the purchase and ordering of gillnet supplies easier for fshermen, with the convenient central location seven days a week,” said Kathy Hansen, Southeast Alaska Fishermen’s Alliance executive director and 2015 National Fisherman Highliner. Hansen thanked fshermen in the area for their support of Kathy’s Net Loft for the past 25 years and reassured them they would be well cared for. • The Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association received a $4,500 grant 6

NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS / WINTER 2016

to support and expand Alaskans Own, a community-supported fshery program. The grant comes from Northwest Farm Credit Services, which runs a community grant program to improve rural communities in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington. The goal of Alaskans Own is to fght the troubling trend of Alaskans losing access to their own fsheries. The organization sells fshermen’s catch during the height of the fshing season through a subscriber service and makes an effort to proALFA members accept cess fsh lothe $4,500 grant. cally. The profts from the program are sent into ALFA’s Fishery Conservation Network, which engages fshermen in research and conservation initiatives. aLFa

• Roland Maw, a former Alaska Board of Fisheries nominee and Kenai Peninsula commercial fshing advocate, was charged with falsifying his Alaska residency, fraudulently receiving Alaska Permanent Fund dividend payments and commercial fshing permits. Maw pleaded not guilty to 17 felony and misdemeanor charges in a Juneau court toward the end of January. He was charged earlier in the month with illegally collecting more than $7,200 in dividends between 2009 and 2014. Maw had been appointed to the board by Gov. Bill Walker last January, but withdrew his name from consideration after he was accused of illegally obtaining resident hunting and fshing licenses in the state of Montana.

• Matt Marinkovich decided not to run for another term on the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association board, leaving the organization after six years of service. In a letter, Marinkovich said he got involved with the board because he was dissatisfed with its performance at the time. He joined to check out his “conspiracy theory,” but found something much simpler instead — seven opinionated fshermen who weren’t afraid to speak their minds.

M a r i n kov ich worked to help implement a Bristol Bay sockeye branding campaign and supported the fght Matt Marinkovich against Pebble mine during his time on the board. “We as Bristol Bay fshermen are going through a difcult time, but the BBRSDA has never been more equipped to make a diference,” he said. • Ketchikan was ofcially declared a Coast Guard City in January. Ketchikan was chosen for the designation because of the close relationship developed through integral support the city brings to Coast Guardsmen and their families, according to a Coast Guard release. “As a maritime community, it is important for us to both receive this recognition and to recognize the Coast Guard,” said Dave Landis, mayor of the Ketchikan Gateway Borough. “This is our livelihood. This is where we get our food and work, and the Coast Guard helping our community Mayor Dave Landis is key for us.” at the ceremony. Ketchikan is the 22nd city to be given this designation by the Coast Guard, joining Kodiak and Sitka as the third Alaskan city to be honored.

BBrsDa

Alan Cain, a natural resources enforcement adviser and trainer from Anchorage would replace Robert Mumford, who will be resigning from the board after its current meeting cycle ends on March 14. Cain has 40 years of experience working as an Alaska Wildlife Trooper, criminal justice planner and private contractor. Israel Payton of Wasilla was appointed to an open seat. Payton is a salesman for Airframes Alaska, worked as a hunting and fshing guide in Southcentral and Western Alaska for nearly 20 years and actively participates in Board of Fish and Game meetings as a member of the Mat-Su Fish and Game Advisory Committee. Robert Rufner of Soldotna, an environmental scientist

at the conservation group Kenai Watershed Forum, was named for a third seat. Rufner has worked for habitat conservation of anadromous fsh since 1996 and is a member of the Soldotna Chamber of Commerce, the Kenai Peninsula Borough Planning Commission, and the North Pacifc Anadromous Fish Commission Advisory Panel. Walker tried to name Rufner to the board last year to fll an open Alaska Gov. Bill Walker seat, but the Legislature rejected the nomination 30-29, as the seat is informally designated as a sport fshing seat and Rufner was viewed by some as leaning toward the commercial side of management.

UsCG

Alaska Gov. Bill Walker announced new appointments to the Board of Fisheries in early February.

James Brooks

INDUSTRY WAYPOINTS

ON THE MARKET The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute

at your service Fishermen’s town hall meetings n an efort to connect with Alaska’s fshermen during the of season, the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute has hosted a series of marketing town hall meetings in conjunction with fsh industry meetings, beginning with Pacifc ASMI’s Alexa Tonkovich and Clem Marine Expo Tillion attend a town in Seattle in hall meeting. Novem ber. During the well-attended meeting, discussion centered on the current sockeye market economics. ASMI provided an update on the institute’s salmon marketing activities worldwide. Since the launch, ASMI has held two more town halls in Alaska with representatives on hand to discuss current Alaska seafood market conditions, deliver an update of ASMI’s marketing activities around the world, and provide attendees with more information on how they can stay connected to the brand. More dates and locations for fshermen’s town halls will be announced throughout the year.

Federation of Natives Convention SMI was a sponsor of the Alaska Federation of Natives convention, which took place Oct. 15-17 in Anchorage. The convention, which annually draws as many as 5,000 attendees, is the largest representative annual gathering in the United States of any Native peoples. The proceedings are broadcast live statewide via television, radio and webcast to 70 countries worldwide.

FDA prohibits omega-3 claims he Food and Drug Administration issued a fnal rule prohibiting certain omega-3 claims on food product labels. Alaska seafood producers must review and amend labeling, marketing and promotional materials to omit

statements claiming the product is “high in” or is a “good source” of omega-3 fatty acid. Compliance with this rule was expected by January 2016 and is based on the fact that the FDA has not established appropriate nutrient levels to serve as a guide for these claims.

Swap Meat winner: Alaska salmon osso bucco

What are you worth? SMI released an updated “Economic Value of Alaska’s Seafood Industry” report in December 2015. McDowell Group, an Alaska-based research frm, updated the previous report from July 2013. The analysis quantifes the regional, statew ide, and national economic impacts of A la ska’s commercial seafood industry. Key The full industry report is available online. fndings include: • The seafood industry is one of Alaska’s foundational industries and accounts for about 20 percent of the state’s basic private sector economy. • With 60,000 workers, the seafood industry in Alaska directly employs more workers than any other private sector industry. • Seafood is Alaska’s second largest basic sector job creator after oil and gas. The report (ebooks.alaskaseafood. org/ASMI_Seafood_Impacts_Dec2015) also highlights the signifcant impact the industry has on state and local tax revenues and details how it lowers the cost of living in Alaska. While you’re there, you can also download the Alaska Seafood Annual Report at ebooks.alaskaseafood.org/ ASMI_Annual_Report_2015.

Meet the Swap Meat SMI created the Swap Meat for Alaska Seafood recipe contest to encourage chefs to use wild Alaska seafood in place of traditional protein

(beef, chicken and pork) on popular menu items. The winning dish, Alaska Salmon Osso Bucco by Chef Adam Hegstad of the Wandering Table in Spokane, Wash., and the rest of the Swap Meat recipe collection are available online. BBC features Alaska salmon SMI’s Northern Europe program partnered with BBC News to feature a wild Alaska salmon recipe. Alaska seafood chef ambassador and acclaimed celebrity chef Nigella Lawson created a salmon, avocado, watercress and pumpkin seed salad. Lawson has been promoting Alaska salmon in print and on TV as part of the promotion for her new book.

Feed Your Fitness recipes lympic distance runners Ryan and Sarah Hall know how important nutrition is to their all-around ftness. They have teamed up with ASMI to encourage athletes everywhere to feed their ftness with Alaska seafood. The new recipe collection highlights lean protein, anti-infammatory omega-3s and muscle-building nutrients, and features delicious favorites like Pan Seared Alaska Cod with Minted Pea Purée, and Southwest Salmon Quinoa Cakes over Mixed Greens.

Fit for a meal: Pan-seared Alaska cod with minted pea purée. WINTER 2016 / NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS

FISHERPOETS The More You Eat the More You Make BY GENO LEECH Geno Leech lives between Cape Disappointment and Dismal Nitch in Chinook, Wash., with his wife, Joanne. His new book, “Waterlogged,” will be available at this year’s FisherPoets Gathering, Feb. 26-28 in Astoria, or visit www. inthetote.com for details.

You may be a mud-sucker on a dredge down in Calcasieu or bouncin’ around in a Bristol Bay beer can like a kangaroo Rollin’ the rails under in the Shelikof Or workin’ up in Red Dog on the Justine Foss Fringe benefts? Step up to the plate… The more you eat, the more you make

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You may be a set-netter up in Nushagak or pullin’ albacore tuna on a down-hill tack If your share ain’t comin’ of the top and you’re more or less workin’ for three hots and a fop’; Take the bull by the horns, throw ’em on your plate; The more you eat, the more you make Don’t be bashful, belly up to the trough Be it Cape Blanco or the Pribilofs You may be a Gypo tow-boater with a tandem tow or on a Central Gulf Freighter on the roll and go Man, stuf your cake-hole, deck-load your plate. The more you eat, the more you make Two splits and a lift in the Willapa deep only sleep you’ve had is standin’ on your feet The weather’s turned sour, the skipper’s half-baked The frostin’s done melted right ofa’ your cake Can’t plug the boat? Keep pluggin’ your plate. The more you eat, the more you make Globetrotter or troller, high seas high risk Spent half your life wallowin’ in the ditch Ain’t got a 401-K or retirement plan, but you’ve got a knife and a fork and a bone-in ham and make sure to lick both sides of your plate. The more you eat, the more you make.

OUR TOWN

NEWPORT, ORE.

QUICK LOOK at

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Newport, Ore.

Lori tobias

POPULATION About 10,000

By Lori Tobias

Kaatey tey Jacobson

hen Bob Jacobson landed in Newport in June 1967, he found a port with a fshing feet of mostly small wooden vessels participating in about four fsheries. “Some fshed for Dungeness crab, and there were a half dozen draggers around that time, and the draggers were generally larger than the rest of the feet,” said Jacobson, the frst Marine Extension Agent in the country and the Oregon State University Marine Extension Agent for nearly three decades. “There were, at the most, 100 boats in the entire feet, with most of them being combination vessels that fshed salmon, tuna and crab.”

B b JJacobson, Bob b here with h i h his hi daughter d h Katey, says Newport has seen a lot of feet changes in the last 30 years.

Dungie pots stacked high on Newport’s bayfront.

Fifty years makes for a lot of change, and few places is that more evident than here on the central Oregon coast. Today, Newport has one of the most diverse economies anywhere on the Oregon and Washington coasts, says Kevin Greenwood, general manager of the Port of Newport. There are the traditional resource economies: fshing, timber and tourism, plus an international terminal for shipping. But what really sets the city apart is its growing research and education component. The Port of Newport is home to Oregon State University’s Hatfeld Marine Science Center, NOAA’s Pacifc Marine Operations Center, and in August 2015, the federal government moved its entire marine operations to Newport. It now also boasts the largest commercial fshing feet and in total value generated by fshermen is now the number one port in Oregon. It provides moorage for roughly 250 commercial fshing vessels, of which 200 are flled by local vessels. The balance is temporary moorage from out of town boats. In 2014, fshermen landed 127 million pounds of seafood worth almost $53 million. “Newport is number one on the Oregon coast in Dungeness crab,” says

BOATYARD Port of Toledo. LOCAL PROCESSORS Trident Seafoods Pacifc Seafoods Bornstein Seafoods SHIPS SUPPLY AND HARDWARE Schiewe Marine Supply Englund Marine Supply WHERE FISHERMEN GO FOR COFFEE… Schiewe Marine Supply Barge Inn … AND A BEER Barge Inn Port Dock One Bay Haven Newport Steak and Seafood Greenwood. “It’s a certifed sustainable fshery, and it’s our biggest fshery. We’re number one in commercial chinook salmon, again a sustainable fshery. We just passed Astoria as number one in whiting, and we are number one in albacore tuna, sablefsh and Pacifc shrimp, as well. Again, these are all sustainable fsheries and well managed at the state and federal level. It says a lot about how well the fshermen have worked with the agencies to ensure that this industry thrives for generations to come.” Given that it was seafood that frst drew Newport its accolades from the WINTER 2016 / NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS

outside, its rank as one of the Oregon coast’s most successful commercial ports should come as no surprise. But there was a time when the central Oregon coast was considered a wasteland, too isolated and untamed to be of any use to white settlers. Instead, the government moved some 4,000 Native Americans from the Rogue River, Umpqua, Shasta, Tututni and Modoc tribes to the area, where members of the Alsea,Yacona and Siletz Band of Tillamook tribes had already settled. By 1860, word had spread far and wide of the succulent oysters being harvested by Native Americans east of Newport’s Yaquina Bay, and crews from San Francisco and beyond rushed for their share. But only 10 years later, the oyster once said to have been featured on the menus of some of New York’s fnest restaurants, had fallen victim to overharvesting. Even so, Newport’s bayfront grew. In 1866, soldier Sam Case claimed 160 acres at the entrance of Yaquina Bay.

“The History of Benton County 1885,” describes Newport as a town of 250, two hotels — the Ocean House and Bay View — four general stores, one hardwood store, a newspaper, meat market, restaurant, brew- The Newport Fishermen’s Wives worked to preserve ery, two barbershops the local Coast Guard rescue helicopter when federal funding cuts threatened to remove it. and three public halls. Summers found visitors from the Wil- cation, location, location,” says Greenlamette Valley catching trains to Yaquina wood.“We are right smack in the middle City, then boarding the steamer for a of the state on the coast, and we have a ride downriver to the bay. very quick transit to the ocean from the By the 1920s, Newport was the place docks — only 30-40 minutes. You also to be, but in the 1930s and ’40s, blackouts can look at the amenities. We need to and other wartime fears drove tourists improve our docks, but the facilities we away. And yet, Newport rebounded and have for the fshing feet are very comcontinued to grow. Much of that, partic- petitive to other ports, and we’re very ularly as it relates to the thriving fshing close to downtown Newport. So if you industry, might be attributed in part to need to go shopping, or get gasoline, it’s that oft-repeated real estate mantra. very easy to get of of your boat and get “Sometimes, it really is a case of lo- downtown.”

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NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS / WINTER 2016

Newport FishermeN’s wives

OUR TOWN

Ken Mccay

port can claim, Greenwood says. “This is a facility where if you are a small fsherman, and for whatever reason, you are unable to get a price or sell to one of the big processors, you can work with one of the small local buyers to of-load your product. We have about a half dozen local buyers, and they basically have desks on our public facility. They work out a pricing arrangement with the fshermen, and they can come and use the public hoist.We have two hoists, two cranes and forklifts, and we can help those small fshermen work directly with buyers and these buyers have retailers, like Portland restaurants. That’s a really unique set-up on the Oregon coast. It diversifes what is available here and provides more options for the fshermen.” Newport is also unique in that it is home to the Newport Fishermen’s Wives, the only truly active chapter of its kind on the Oregon Coast. Formally established in the 1970s, it is the second oldest in the country, coming in behind the Fishermen’s Chapter in Gloucester, Mass., formed only months earlier. Their mission is threefold — safety, seafood promotion and supporting the fshing families, says Jennifer Schock Stevenson, president of the chapter. Born and raised in a fshing family here, Schock Stevenson and her husband, Jon Stevenson, are continuing the tradition with Jon also earning his living aboard a trawler. “So much of our community fnancially is based on fshing,” she says. “Fishermen invest in their community. It’s something, if you grow up in it, you have immense pride. Jennifer Schock You are so Stevenson, Newport proud of the Fishermen’s Wives people in it and the people involved.You’re all running the same business. But you are diferent and competitive and still supportive. At the end of the day everyone is proud of what they do, and they want to help each other out.” Lori Tobias is a freelance writer and editor in Newport, Ore.

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SEASON FORECASTS

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Outlook

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ALASKA FISHERIES

ALASKA TANNER MACKIEWICZ Tender operator for Alaska’s Sitka and Togiak herring on the 95-foot Deco Bay out of Bellingham, Wash.

Sitka, not having all the people in town. “There were very few tenders there last year, I can’t pull a number off the top of my head, but you know, a quarter of the tenders that are normally there and half the seiners, or less than half, so town was just super quiet.”

goes I’ll be lucky to crest 20. I think the ball park fgure is closer to 17.5, if not 15, but it’s always a good time up there. That’s why I do it, because I enjoy it. “I’m concerned about ocean health. My big primary concern is overall ocean health. We’re looking at calcifcation of the ocean, we’re looking at warmer weather, warmer waters… I’m curious how the next fve to 10 years are going to pan out.” Brian Robbins

“I think the summer is looking rather bleak. I imagine as far as the crew share

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“Number one, the price. I think that’s on everyone’s mind. How much more can it drop? Other than that I’m pretty confdent in the boat and the crew. “I’m excited about the prediction. There’s going to be a lot of fsh, and that will make it easy to fsh. I’m excited to get my second season going and have everything run a little smoother. It went pretty well last year. There weren’t too many big surprises. “I’m looking HERRING forward to going after it a little harder this year.” JAson Volberding

42' Stormi Gayle

JOE TROTTER Owner and operator of the Barnacle, a 32-foot Bristol Bay salmon gillnetter out of Naknek, Alaska

AmAndA JohnsTon

AMOS ELIAS Deckhand on the 56-foot Southeast Alaska salmon seiner Cape Flattery out of Juneau, Alaska

— Pat Shanahan GENUINE ALASKA POLLOCK PRODUCERS Joe TroTTer

“Sitka is always fun. I love going there in the springtime. The quota is up a little bit, and maybe we’ll get some fsh. Maybe we won’t get very much. It’s the biggest roll of the dice anywhere. We’re tendering, though, so it’s a little more stable than the guys seining. “Sitka is supposedly going back to a competitive fshery. The co-op fshery didn’t work out quite well, I guess. From all the talk going around, it seems like it really hurt the town of

”

Deco Bay tender

SALMON

SEASON FORECASTS

“

— John McManus GOLDEN GATE SALMON ASSOCIATION

”

TRENT MATTHEWS Deckhand on the 54-foot Secure, an offshore Oregon Dungeness crab boat out of Port Townsend, Wash.

WASHINGTON OREGON CALIFORNIA FISHERIES

Outlook

WEST COAST

JESSE LONG Owner of the Obsession, a 39-foot squid light boat out of Ventura, Calif. “For the boat, it’s been the roughest [season] I’ve seen yet, that’s for sure. We’re just making ends meet really. The price is actually up. We’re at $700/ton. There just hasn’t really been any fsh this year. It’s pretty bad. “The last year that we had this El Niño, which is what’s screwing up our squid, it was bad for a couple years in a row. We’re expecting next year to be slow as well. “[The season] resets in April. I think we’re about a quarter of the way through the quota, maybe. We’re not even going to come close to catching it this year and then what’ll happen is it’ll just reset and whatever we didn’t catch we lost.”

Doug FeTzer

Salmon fshermen and their families will pay a price for water allocation decisions made by others that decimated winter run salmon in the Sacramento River the last two years in a row.

“[The fshery] was supposed to open December 15, but due to El Niño, warmer waters made the algae bloom like crazy, and it puts off this domoic acid. So the PCC levels in the crab were a little higher than normal, so they had it closed. I think California is still closed down because of it, but Washington and Oregon opened up on January 1. “It’d just be nice to make some money and be friends with everybody when it’s all said and done. Everybody getting home safe and back to their families — it’s pretty much the biggest thing I’m looking forward to.”

“The warm weather we’ve had the last couple years has been hurting the ocean stocks, so hopefully Oregon has a better harvest. Puget Sound is doing pretty well. It seems like the inside waters didn’t get affected as much. “The best thing about the urchin fshery is that it’s accessible. It’s a little hard to get into because there aren’t a lot of permits, but people can actually get into it. You can’t get into shrimp down here. It’s really hard to get into crab. Seining. All these things are huge muscle fsheries… It’s just a really fun fshery. It’s nice to not have to go to Alaska to fsh, and it’s a good entry-level lucrative fshery for younger guys down here. DoMinic Moceri

TrenT MaTThews

KAEGAN GUDMUNDSON Deckhand diving for Oregon and Washington sea urchins

DUNGENESS CRAB

SQUID

URCHINS

WINTER 2016 / NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS

COMFORT ZONE

Ben L. Evridge is a blogger (www.pillarcreekequipmentllc.com), author of “Practical Boat Mechanics,” and co-author of “Diesel Mechanics.” He can be reached at pillarcreek@outlook.com.

BY BEN L. EVRIDGE

Ben evridge

hile plumbing the Netted Dreams, a combination gillnetter and shrimper that was built last spring at Maritime Fabrications in La Conner, Wash., it came time to install the seacocks, some of which had direct-mounted valves inside the boat. Operating the handles on these large valves is awkward because of their placement down low in the engine room. Considering the orientation of a valve handle, and its arc of travel, is vital for ease of use. It will also help crew members avoid shoulder injuries. Tanner Smith, the boat’s owner, used a method I wasn’t familiar with. He installed the valves tight to the fttings before fnalizing the “clocking” of the fttings in the hull, as follows: After the hole was cut and the area cleaned, I waited outside of the hull with the fabricated “key” and large adjustable wrench. These were for holding the fttings from turning when it was time to tighten the valves to the stems and the lock nuts to the hull. I coated the sealing surfaces with 5200, pushed the ftting through, inserted the key and engaged the wrench.

Meanwhile, Tanner loosely installed the hull washer and lock nut. He left it loose, so we could later rotate the complete assembly in the hull. Next, he applied pipe thread sealant to the male end and turned the valve onto the stem. I held the ftting from turning while Tanner tightened the valve. After experimenting to fnd the best position for the valve handle, he tightened the through-hull ftting lock nut. What most of us do is install the through-hull ftting, tighten it down, then put the valve on and tighten that, hoping we can rotate the valve far enough to conveniently turn the handle. From an ergonomic standpoint when having to turn the valve handle, Tanner’s method is much better.

Ace in the hole saw A hole saw constructed of thin spring steel is indispensable for upgrading and maintaining boats. It is easy to overlook the important capabilities of this tool. The frst is adaptability; that’s a vital quality when the ideal sized saw is not available. For example, say a 2-inch hole in the hull or bulkhead needs to be opened up to a larger size. It’s possible to cut a hole larger than 2 inches with a 2-inch hole saw by squeezing the saw into an oval shape. Everything the oval saw cuts is still round, including the resultant plug. Secondly, the plugs the saw cuts out are useful when an existing hole must be plugged or made larger. It’s quick and easy to make a perfectly sized plug for inserting into an old opening, which proThe key keeps the seacock’s through-hull ftting vides the center for cutfrom turning when tightening the valve down. 14

NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS / WINTER 2016

ting the bigger hole. The quarterinch pilot bits most hole saws use are brittle and subject to breakage. Kodiak fsherman Leo Kouremetis showed me how to avoid this hassle. He replaces the pilot bits in his saws with qua r ter-i nch rod from a hardware store. It can bend, but it will not break. Just cut it to length An oval saw will cut a round shape. and grind a fat place on its shank to help the saw’s set screw grip better. Ben evridge

Shop secrets and shortcuts

Don’t freq out Marine generators on fshing vessels depend on constant frequency, or speed, to efciently produce power. Many older generators need periodic adjustments to the engine-speed governor to maintain the frequency of 60 cycles per second, the North American standard. When a frequency meter breaks on the fshing grounds, the boat’s multimeter, also known as volt/ohm meter, may provide a frequency read out for verifcation. Some do, and some don’t. However, if a test meter isn’t available, check the speed of the generator by comparing the speed of two clocks. You need an AC-powered clock that plugs into a wall outlet wired for 120 volts, and a wristwatch. With the generator online, the plugin clock will be in step with the wristwatch during a two or three-minute time trial, if the generator’s frequency is 60 cycles per second. If the plug-in clock is faster than the wristwatch, reduce the speed of the generator engine slightly. If the clock is a few seconds slower than the wristwatch, increase the speed

ON THE HORIZON

The other survival suit Mark Scheer practices commercial and admiralty law in Washington and Alaska with Williams Kastner, a full-service frm. He serves on the board of the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation, is a former president of the Northwest Fisheries Association and has worked in the seafood industry for more than 30 years.

BY MARK SCHEER

ecently a friend and fsherman asked me what seemed like a very simple question: “How do I protect myself from getting sued?” Unfortunately, short of staying tied to the dock, it is a complicated question that requires a multifaceted answer. It’s all under the heading of risk management. The upside is that a risk management analysis, like a cost analysis, is just good business and the savings, both short and long term, go right to the bottom line. Most vessel owners and operators are engaged in that never-ending exercise of looking for ways to make their fshing operations more efcient. They upgrade vessels and fshing systems to enable them to catch more fsh faster, more efciently and at a lower cost. Some audit their vessels for energy usage and install, modify or replace systems to minimize energy usage, saving

fuel costs. All of this analysis and remediation is necessary because, in this era of ever increasing costs and static or dropping ex-vessel prices, maximizing efciency is not just good business, it may be the diference between your fshing business’ success or failure. By

your vessel to limit risk to your personal assets. Each of these topics is vitally important. Collectively, they should be part of every owner or operator’s business planning and analysis. Risk management, when properly and comprehensively implemented, can result in more proft. Careful planning can reduce risk, lower costs and increase profts. Crew claims are a signifcant risk to the vessel and owner. Nearly any injury or illness while in the service of the vessel can give rise to an obligation to pay maintenance, cure and unearned wage. These obligations of the owner cannot be waived or limited by contract. They are expensive, and multiple claims can

“Crew claims are a signifcant risk to the vessel and owner. Nearly any injury or illness while in the service of the vessel can give rise to an obligation to pay. the same token, risk assessment, modifying systems, processes and behavior can also increase proft. These columns over the last year have focused on ways to limit risk for yourself or your company. The topics have included crew contracts, vessel construction, refts, fnancing, review of insurance coverages and how to own

”

increase premiums, or if coverage limits are inadequate, can be fnancially devastating. Mitigation of this risk requires comprehensive crew contracts, with medical, prior claim and physical capability disclosures to reduce the potential for claims. It may be that injuries are an inherent Continued on page 21

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Call or email Harbormaster Lon White 907-486-8080 or lwhite@city.kodiak.ak.us Visit kodiakshipyard.com

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MAKING THE RULES

Sierra Golden is a seiner deckhand and freelance writer living in Seattle.

BY SIERRA GOLDEN

Jeff Golden

hen I was just a couple years old, my parents and several former deckhands turned close family friends took my brother and me on a jet boat trip up the Unuk River. We cruised grassy wetlands and took short breaks along the way to explore and fsh. Trout in hand, we traveled farther upriver and disappeared into the woods. Then, the jet boat broke down. It rained all day and all night. We stayed in an empty cabin with nails pounded through the door like spikes for bear deterrent. The bunks were mouse infested, and we had to sleep in our clothes. It was a long night, but the next day one of the adults made a spare engine belt with a piece of line, and we made it safely down the river. This story is part of my family lore. It’s the type of story that gets told every few years at family gatherings and that never gets old. It’s a story of adventure, wilderness and wildness, and nature’s absurd bounty and beauty. The Unuk is the centerpiece of the stunning Misty Fjords National Monument, one of Southeast’s top fve king salmon producers, and home of an important eulachon subsistence fshery; yet just 19 miles upstream, Canada is

A Golden family photo taken on a trip up the Unuk River in the 1980s.

NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS / WINTER 2016

Jeff Golden

The frst rapids on the Unuk River as they were in the 1980s.

permitting the KSM mine. It would be one of North America’s largest gold and copper mines, and it would need two earthen dams — each larger than the Hoover Dam — to contain toxic waste. This Canadian mine and at least fve others are or would be operating in watersheds of key salmon rivers that fow into Southeast Alaska, putting the adventure, wilderness, wildness, bounty and beauty of Southeast at risk. Given that Southeast’s tourism industry depends on the area’s pristine beauty and brings 10,200 jobs and nearly a billion dollars to the area; given that healthy salmon and trout populations contribute more than $986 million to the region and account for an additional 7,000 jobs; given that wild salmon have fed the people of Southeast for more than 9,000 years; given that we’ve seen both the Mount Polley dam in British Columbia and the Bento Rodrigues dam in Brazil have catastrophic failures in the past two years, I don’t think that’s a risk we can ignore. Alaska Gov. Bill Walker and B.C. Premier Christy Clark signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Nov. 25, 2015, that outlines projects on which the state and province will work together, including workforce development, transportation, emergency management and, most importantly, protection of transboundary waters. This is a good frst step — or at least it sounds good.

In terms of transboundary issues the MOU commits Alaska and British Columbia to creating a Bilateral Working Group on the Protection of Transboundary Waters and to creating a Statement of Cooperation as to that group’s responsibilities and structures. At press time, the statement was in draft form. The problem with both the memorandum and the statement is that they are nonbinding. The MOU states, “This Memorandum of Understanding and Cooperation shall have no legal efect; [nor] impose… legally binding obligation enforceable in any court of law or other tribunal of any sort… It may be amended at any time by agreement between the signatories and may be terminated by either upon written notice to the other.” That’s like getting married with vows that say, “I will love you and honor you until death… well… actually just until I decide I don’t want to anymore.” If Alaska’s pristine beauty, bountiful f isheries and cultural heritage are something we truly want to love and honor, we must protect them with the highest enforceable means. It’s not enough to have an Sierra’s brother trout MOU with fshing in the Unuk. British Columbia. The U.S. Department of State needs to invoke the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 and refer Southeast’s transboundary mining concerns to receive federal review through the International Joint Commission. Federal involvement from both Canada and the United States is the only way to ensure a thorough and impartial review of the region, and ensure that whatever mining projects are brought to completion are held to the highest possible standards — protecting people, livelihoods and cultures on both sides of the border. leslie Golden

Don’t marry a memorandum

THE LONG HAUL

The Investor murders: In search of the untold story

BY BRITTANY RETHERFORD

he fshing community has experienced more than its share of tragedy, but no single event compares to the mysterious murders of eight people aboard the F/V Investor the night of Sunday, Sept. 5, 1982, in Craig, Alaska. For several years, I’ve been researching this story, trying to piece together clues that may reveal what happened, as well as develop a better understanding of the long-term efects of this kind of traumatic event on small communities. I never knew the victims, but their names have become as familiar to me as my closest friends. They included a young fshing family — Mark, Irene, John and Kimberly Coulthurst — and their four teenage deckhands, Dean Moon, Jerome Keown, Chris Heyman and Mike Stewart. At the time of their deaths, Irene was pregnant, and John and Kimberly were just 4 and 5 years old. “Who kills little kids for Chrissakes?” one Craig resident asked back in the 1980s. The sentiment rings true today, as people try to formulate theories about what kind of monster was responsible. No one but the killer (or killers?) knows for sure what happened, but it is believed they were all shot with a .22-calibre weapon sometime between 11 that night and 5 the following morning. The 58-foot Delta Marine Washington purse seiner, described as “a Rolls Royce among battered Buicks,” was then motored to a cove at Fish Egg Island. It was set on fre the afternoon of Tuesday, Sept. 7. In 1984, Alaska State Troopers arrested a former deckhand, John Peel, framing the incident to the media as a case of workplace rage that resulted from “an explosion of emotion.” Peel was acquitted in 1988 and

has maintained his innocence ever since. No one else has ever been arrested, and the case is considered to be “Closed by Arrest and Trial,” by the state troopers. To remember the event and the lives lost, I compiled a traveling photo memorial exhibition, “Lost At Sea: Remembering the Victims of the F/V Investor Murders.” The exhibit is funded in part by a grant from the Alaska Humanities Forum and is scheduled for several venues in Alaska, Washington

Courtesy the Coulthurst family

Brittany Retherford is an independent journalist and historian in Alaska. Learn more at www. brittanyrethorford.com

Five-year-old Kimberly Coulthurst with her family before they were murdered at the dock in Craig, Alaska.

and Oregon. The opening reception, held at Water Street Café in downtown Craig on Dec. 5, was warmly received, though, to be honest, I have found some people — and not just those in Craig — to be uncomfortable with being reminded of the tragedy. “Some things should just be let go,” one person said. I’ve heard rumors that the Investor was a “drug boat,” and contributed to the raucous drug and alcohol-fueled bar life that made Craig particularly notorious. One woman who came to the reception, however, scribbled an anonymous note on one of the cards I’d set out for people to share memories or questions: “When are we going to have a chance to put these people to rest?” Some people I’ve met during my research have asked if I’m a relative of a victim, a cop or a lawyer. I am none

of these. I heard about the story from my friend, photographer Brian Wallace, as a newspaper reporter for the Juneau Empire. I have continued to follow it while working as an anthropologist for the state of Alaska and earning a masters in northern history from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. In the process of researching, I’ve learned that for family members and friends of the victims, there has been no meaningful resolution or closure (if that’s even possible in this situation). The “Lost At Sea” exhibition is designed as a way to acknowledge the tragedy, promote a discussion about loss and healing, while also keeping the story alive. Questions remain to be answered. While the country has been besieged by mass shootings in the past few decades, the Investor story has slipped between the cracks, more than once left out of lists of similar events generated by editors using data to try to understand the trend. There are too many unanswered questions with the Investor case. It’s too complex. Among them: What gun was used? Were they all shot? Why did it take so long for Troopers to arrest a suspect? Were drugs involved? Was there more than one killer? Though some people believe this is a tragedy that should be left alone, I’m committed to continuing the search for truth. I’m hoping the fshing community will join me, both in remembering the victims of one of Alaska’s deadliest shootings, and also in the pursuit for answers. If you have any information or want to share memories, please get in touch. I can be reached at (907) 799-5652 or at baretherford@gmail.com. You may also join the Facebook group page, www.facebook.com/ groups/lostatsea1982, where you will receive updates on my research and the latest exhibition schedule. The exhibit will be at the Blessing of the Fleet in Blaine, Wash., on May 1. It ran through Jan. 31 at the Ketchikan Public Library, and Feb. 26-28 at the FisherPoets Gathering in Astoria, Ore. On Jan. 26 I held a discussion and presentation at the Ketchikan Pubic Library. I am currently scheduling venues for Bellingham and Sitka, as well as other venues in Alaska and Washington. WINTER 2016 / NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS

ON THE HOMEFRONT

Lori French is the founder of Faces of California Fishing in Morro Bay.

By LORI FRENCH

ou might remember the show Desperate Housewives? Well we’re creating a slightly less glamorous crabber’s version. Unless you have been under a rock, you have probably heard that we crab fshermen on the West Coast are having a small problem with domoic acid — a.k.a. demonic acid — in our crab stocks, which has led to an unprecedented closure of the season. Our House, like many others has been hit hard by this little Bloop of Nature. I thought I’d let you know some of the desperate measures the desperate crabbers have taken. My desperate measures started on the plane trip from San Francisco to Seattle. Normally I take some vacation time from the paying job to head up to Bodega to hang out at our buyer’s dock. I take pictures, try to make myself useful and try not to get in the way. From Bodega Bay, I head up to Seattle for Pacifc Marine Expo and then head back to Bodega and home. This trip has become a highlight of my year. Well this year with the crab closure looming, I was feeling extremely guilty about spending money, even though I had a speaking engagement at Fish Expo. I was feeling guilty, that is, until I met E.J. the American Express salesman at the airport. Somehow E.J. talked me into upgrading my Virgin America fight to the more legroom seats. I don’t really need the extra legroom at 5’ 2’’, but I was considering it research for longer fights for my Old Man of the Sea. He’s 6’ 5’’. Well it turns out that when you upgrade they don’t charge you for your suitcase, so in the end this upgrade cost me $14. Once on the plane, E.J. continued 18

NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS / WINTER 2016

Christmas in our house. To my favorite mother-in-law: a Seward harbormaster pen with fashlight. My brother-in-law is getting a foating keychain thanks to Alaska Sea Grant. The Old Man of the Sea is getting a Crowley Tug hat. My sister-in-law is going to be the proud owner of Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute recipe collection. (Actually, they are really very nicely done.) Christmas on the cheap, that’s how I roll. Now in the rafe drawings department, I did quite well. I won a work vest from Stearns courtesy of the Seattle Fishermen’s Memorial. And then the prize of prizes, someone gifted me an Emergency Damage Control Kit bucket. Fist pump score! I don’t want to scare the exhibitors, I normally am not a total freeloader, and I’ll be back to spend money. With my Christmas shopping completed, it was time to head back home to the ranch and reality. Back home, the true picture began to set in. Things are looking a bit grim. I have two very bored crabbers on my hands and one employed computer engineer who’s working out of his bedroom, but that’s an entirely diferent story. On the frst morning we were all at home, the Old Man of the Sea was looking out our bedroom window at my

to teach me the wonders of Virgin Air. There is this little menu thing on the back of the seats where you press buttons and food and drink just magically appear at your command. This is great! E.J. then enlightened me to the Amazing World of Stock your Hotel Room courtesy of Virgin Air. I ordered enough snacks to cover the week in Seattle and Bodega, thus eliminating the need for one meal a day. Who cares if I had gummy bears for lunch? They were free. Drinks? Oh yeah! I was stocking up on Honest Teas when I hit upon the idea of Christmas Shopping on Virgin Air. I’m not really a drinker, but somewhere between take-of and landing E.J. showed me how to order doubles. Those little bottles would make great Christmas presents for my Tall One Sons. Genius! Well the idea was genius, except the little bottles came with the lids of and again, I don’t really drink. This was a bit of a problem, so I used some creative thinking and poured the whiskey into an empty water bottle to be disposed of later. E.J.’s came with the lids on for some reason, so he transported his of the plane. Well this was a learning adventure. Turns out E.J. was heading to Fish Expo, too. I took E.J.’s lessons to heart when I hit Fish Expo. This year I was going Christmas shopping the California crabber way. If it was free it was gonna be a present for someone. Contests? You bet, enter me. Who knows? Maybe someone The Old Man of the Sea has taken to tending to the would get a nice iPad for chickens since the crab season has been delayed.

Lori French

The desperate lives of West Coast crabbers stuck at home

ON THE HOMEFRONT chicken coops, “Well at least we have 105 dinners out there.” I reminded him “gently” (translation: keep your hands of of my birds!) that we needed my girls to lay eggs, as my egg business was now providing groceries. I’ve entered a brave new world, as have many of my fellow Super Glamorous Fishwives; How do you keep these guys entertained? I’ve been assigning honeydo jobs as fast as I can. When my back

convincing my little white dog that he is her best friend, not me. I went to my favorite source of information — Facebook — to fnd out how other crabbers were coping. It looks like honey-do lists are breaking out all over. Boat projects, gear work, next year’s gear work, sitting on the couch with the kids and watching TV, decorating the nursery for the expected new baby, more boat work, more gear work for other fsheries, more TV and play-

ing with the kids. Basically everyone is in a wait and more wait mode, trying to do their best with the frustration of the entire mess. All I can say is, “Hang tight guys. You are crabbers and you’re tough in a tough situation.” When we do open up: Good luck and fsh safe! In the meantime, I had to cancel my plans to attend our editor’s invitation to a Victoria Secret Panty Party, although that might have made the Old Man of the Sea smile. Maybe next year, Jes.

“All I can say is, ‘Hang tight guys. You are crabbers and you’re tough

”

in a tough situation.’

steps to the clothesline broke, they were fxed that morning. Grandma’s deck needed replacing, done. Thank God we have an avocado orchard and a couple of cows.There are always things to do in the orchard. And God bless the heifers when they broke the creek fence and wandered over to the neighbors. It took the Old Man of the Sea at least four hours to repair the fenceline. They’ve reworked all the leftover crab pots in the barn. I’ve discovered that apparently they can watch sports all day. (They are not happy about this fact either.) Tall One #1 — our architect turned commercial fsherman/ deckhand has designed a new backyard to the clothesline area and has been tearing that area up. He’s been surfng, sleeping and drawing t-shirt designs in an efort to generate income. The dogs across the road come over every morning now, as they have fgured out that he will play catch with them for an hour. Good times, let me tell you. The Old Man of the Sea has taken to my chicken egg business. I get frequent text updates during the day, while I’m at work, informing me how many eggs have been laid, his breeding plan for the day, how many dozens have been sold, which hens he likes and which should be turned into soup. I even caught him reading my hatchery catalog. This crab closure has got to end soon, I mean these are my hens and Tall One #1 is

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YOUNGBLOODS

Samuel Hill is National Fisherman’s associate editor.

BY SAMUEL HILL

had never heard about the Lower 48 before sitting in on the Alaska Young Fishermen’s Summit. It made me realize how far away from home I was. Not only am I a Lower 48er, I’m a Mainer, which put me a little over 4,000 miles away from the land of lobsters. I’ve only been working with National Fisherman since last summer and admittedly still a greenhorn in the commercial fshing industry. Coming straight out of college with a background in journalism, I’m used to jumping in and learning fast, so I was ready to get a crash course in Alaska fshing and fy back to the East Coast knowing it all. Boy, was I wrong. I think I walked away with more questions than answers. This fshing industry is far more complex than the average person would think, especially in Alaska. It’s a shame some people think of the trade as a simple “catch fsh, sell fsh” routine

and ignore the brain power that has to go into maneuvering through the slew of federal and state regulations in place. Fishing might be the oldest profession, but it sure has gotten harder. The fshing culture in Maine is a proud one, but I grew up in the woods, where my neighbors spent more time hunting and mudding than out on a boat. I can’t The summit’s 2016 graduating class poses for a photo remember the last outside the Alaska State House in Juneau. time I had a lobster roll (which is practically treasonous, so On top of taking notes on the event don’t share this article with any of your for a feature in the magazine, I wanted New England buddies). to get something out of it personally. Point is, I’m a little removed from I have too many friends experiencing the day-to-day fshermen’s world. wanderlust to take a trip to Alaska and I couldn’t point to Alaska’s fshing only come back with a magazine article. boundaries out on a map, don’t know Luckily, with fshing advice comes life that market price for blackcod of the advice, and I was able to pick out some top of my head, and I use Twitter. I general words of wisdom between onhad never been to a conference where point notes about permit leasing and Twitter wasn’t an important tool (shout vessel insurance. out to @AKYFS for trying). Continued on page 35

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Samuel Hill

A young not-quite-fsherman’s summit

On the HORIZON Continued from page 15 part of a dangerous business. However, prudent hiring practices can lessen the risk by confrming applicants are physically capable of the very demanding work or have pre-existing injuries. All of these are factors in considering whether to hire a crewman. Nonetheless, before including new procedures, questions or disclosures in your application or interview materials, I recommend prior review by an experienced attorney to confrm that the proposed application does not violate federal, state or local employment law as against public policy or other legal requirement. Risk of injury can be reduced through training, equipment and operational changes. It’s well established that comprehensive and regular safety training, equipping crew on deck with PFDs and hard hats can reduce the

prospect of injury. Another proven method for reducing the risk of claims is a comprehensive review of the operations on the vessel and, with an eye toward safer operation, ascertaining if there are ways to modify how and where the crew performs its tasks. The goal is to assess where accidents happen or might happen and make changes to make those locations safer. There are a number of very capable groups that can assist you in that assessment and training. Most notably among them is the North Pacifc Fishing Vessel Owner’s Association, which is based at Fisherman’s Terminal in Seattle. Reducing or eliminating injuries will reduce claims, particularly over an extended period of time, and can reduce premium costs. Those savings can drop right to the bottom line. Indeed, often, if an owner can document and provide evidence of all of the things they have done and are doing to make the operation safer, many underwriters

will consider those items when establishing premiums. Discuss these issues with your broker. Ask them what you can do to reduce risk and premiums. Finally, because the risks cannot be eliminated in fshing, sufcient insurance coverage and limits protect the business from a devastating claim. Comprehensive review and assessment of insurance coverages and limits can also provide savings on premiums or better protect companies from fnancial ruin in the event of a catastrophic event. Reducing risk and lowering costs go right to the bottom line of your fshing business. Take the time to develop comprehensive crew contracts, train and retrain your people, and work on making your operations safer. It is nearly always less expensive to prevent an accident or illness than it is to fx it later. Good luck to all in the 2016 season. And be safe. It’s just good business.

WINTER 2016 / NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS

GEAR SHIFTS

DON’T BE SO SHALLOW Furuno

Tracing the evolution of sonar and sounders from ancient Egypt to modern fsheries Furuno introduced the frst commercial echo sounder in 1948.d

BY EV COLLIER

Simrad FiSherieS

eafarers have wondered about the mysteries below the method except it used piano wire — high-carbon, high-tensile waterline since humankind’s frst seagoing ventures. strength steel — rather than large-diameter hemp rope. The Tomb paintings from ancient Egypt in 1800 B.C. show Thomson Sounding System was three times faster and an ora man standing on the bow of a large vessel while der of magnitude more accurate than using a rope line. Many sounding with a long, slender pole. variations of sounding with a wire line were introduced over More than 3,000 years later, in 1521, Ferdinand Magellan re- the next 50 years, and the method was widely adopted as a corded taking soundings with a weight attached to a rope some standard for hydrographic depth measurement. 530 miles of the coast of Chile.That turned out to be not such a bad idea. The lead line — a chunk of lead with a hollow in Sounds abound the bottom flled with wax to show the seabed’s composition Would you believe Leonardo da Vinci invented the echo was attached to a rope marked in fathoms by colored pieces of sounder? It’s ftting, in fact, as it sometimes seems he invented cloth — served us well for many years. everything else. In 1490, da Vinci wrote, “If you cause your ship However, Magellan, after lowering up to 750 fathoms (4,500 to stop, and place the head of a long tube in the water, and place feet) of line, found no bottom and gave up. the other end of the tube to your ear, you will hear ships at great Excessive depth was not the only limitation of the lead line. distance from you.” Now that’s a pretty good start. It only detects gross bottom features and Eventually someone took da Vinci’s only in a single location. It was also an quote to heart. In 1826, Daniel Colladon agonizingly slow process; the vessel had and Charles Sturm measured the speed to slow or come to a complete stop, and of sound in the waters of Lake Geneva it defnitely lacked in accuracy. That can in Switzerland. The two got into separate be attributed to the efect of surface and boats 10 miles apart. One struck a church subsurface currents and the relatively bell held underwater and simultaneously large cross-section of the hemp soundignited gunpowder above the surface.The ing line. These problems were largely other, 10 miles away started a timer at the overcome in 1870 when Sir William fash of the gunpowder and stopped it Thomson, also known as Lord Kelvin, when he heard the sound arrive using a developed the Thomson Sounding Syslong tube to listen underwater. They caltem. culated the speed of sound in water at Simrad’s frst commercial echo sounder The Thomson Sounding System came out in 1951. It was based on a 1,435 meters per second, a number that was similar to the rope line and sinker Norwegian military design. is very close to today’s standard. 22

NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS / WINTER 2016

NOAA PhOtO LibrAry

In 1901, the Submarine Signal Company was formed in Boston to develop equipment for underwater signaling and detection. Reginald Fessenden joined the company in 1910 and soon thereafter developed a 1-kHz underwater transmitter capable of transmitting sound signals over a distance of 50 miles and a receiver to detect the signals. In 1914, with the start of World War I, the focus shifted to submarine and underwater obstacle detection. Attention didn’t return to hydrographic applications until after the war, with the commercial fshing community starting to take notice of the developments. That included the frst practical depth sounder by the Submarine Signaling Company in 1923. Invented by Herbert Dorsey, the Dorsey Fathometer, was capable of measuring depths from 3 to 900 feet, was accurate to within 3 inches and could make measurements within a millisecond. The display was a neon tube on a rotating disc. Then in 1935, Oscar Sund, a scientist with the Norwegian Institute for Marine Research, had an echo sounder installed on the institute’s 79-foot research vessel, the Johan Hjort. For the frst time it was possible to see concentrations of spawning cod in thermocline water at 39 to 43 degrees Fahrenheit. Developments in fshfnding electronics were interrupted by the advent of World War II in 1939, where the focus shifted back to antisubmarine warfare. The years following World War II were a period of rapid growth and development for scientifc, commercial and recreational sounding. Furuno introduced the frst commercial fshfnder. It was designed by a very young Kiyotaka Furuno in 1948, who, in the process of developing the sounder, frequently got tossed over the side by angry captains when his machine failed to produce huge catches. Simrad introduced its frst commercial echosounder in 1951, and six years later Lowrance came out with the frst fshfnder for the recreational market. Kelvin-Hughes developed the frst commercial side-scan sonar in 1960, and two years later, Simrad’s EC series echo sounders were the frst solid-state devices. Later in that decade General Instruments Corporation introduced mul-

H b Herbert D Dorsey with i h hi his D Dorsey Fathometer. A fashing light indicated depths from 3 to 900 feet..

tibeam sonar technology in the Navy’s sonar array sounding systems. In the 1970s, Simrad transitioned from paper chart recorders to full motion electronic screen displays and also brought out the frst microprocessorbased echo sounder, the EK500. The following decade saw the introduction of the powerful digital signal processing technology and the use of forward scan-

ning in Simrad’s SX202 sonar. At this time, side-scan sonar became available. It had been developed by the Navy in 1959 but was not released for commercial use until the 1980s. The 1990s gave birth to CHIRP (compressed high-intensity radar pulse) techniques. In the past decade or so, it would be difcult to name the two or three most important technological advances in sonar and sounder technology. Included in the mix would be further developments of CHIRP, along with side-scan, forward scan, synthetic aperture and beam-forming techniques. Plus there have been advances in supporting technologies, such as multifunction displays with extraordinary resolution, broadband and smart transducers and networking techniques. All have contributed to making fsh fnding easier and a lot more productive. Ev Collier owned a marine electrical installation business. He wrote “The Boat Owner’s Guide to Corrosion.

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BOATBUILDING O

ALL GILLS, NO FRILLS Bellingham yard answers the call for a more affordable Bristol Bay boat BY MICHAEL CROWLEY

f a Bristol Bay fsherman wants to spend the money, he can pack a lot of power into a 32-foot gillnetter, up to about 1,000 hp, and get on step with a load of fsh. The quest for horsepower has been a trend in Bristol Bay. The beginning of another trend — though at the other end of the speed scale — may have started at the end of the summer in Bellingham, Wash. That is when Strongback Metal Boats completed a new 32' x 13' 10" Bristol Bay gillnetter. The boatyard’s Pat Pitsch doesn’t refer to it as a trend; he calls it a prototype Bristol Bay boat. In this case, that’s not a futuristic, cutting-edge design with the latest electronic gizmos and an interior to make a yacht designer envious. It’s a return to an earlier time. “It’s 24

NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS / WINTER 2016

a basic generic workboat,” says Pitsch, that harkens back to the 1970s, long before the superfast, extremely fancy gillnetters, some of which cost close to $1 million. The hull lines for Pitsch’s prototype are not that much diferent from boats currently fshing in Bristol Bay. However, the inside of the boat is diferent. There’s not a bit of wood, just a basic aluminum interior that’s sprayed with Raptor Liner, the same stuf that goes over a truck bed. That coating comes in handy at the end of the season when a fsherman can Under construction for the 2016 Bristol Bay season are the second and third of Strongback Metal Boats’ Fly Bridge models.

walk into the boat with a fre hose and wash everything down. There’s a small Dickinson diesel stove for heat and no shower. In addition, there’s not a top house, only a fy bridge. The impetus behind the design was the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corp., in Dillingham, Alaska. The corporation’s task is promoting economic growth for members of its 17 communities, all of which are along the Bering Sea.

INSIDE Strongback Metal Boats’ new Fly Bridge model runs easily at 28 knots with a 425-hp John Deere and a 18-inch Traktor Jet.

THE ROW-D WARRIOR • Builder: Strongback Metal Boats, Bellingham, Wash. • Designer: Strongback Metal Boats • Owner: John Vukas, Federal Way, Wash. • Dimensions: 32' x 13' 10" • Material: Aluminum • Wheelhouse plating: 1/8 inch hull plating: 1/4-inch bottom, 3/16-inch sides Strongback Metal boatS photoS

• Deck plating: 0.160 inches

The group turned its attention to the Bristol Bay gillnet feet, looking to get a number of residents in its communities into competitive and efcient boats. In the process, the corporation would help people purchase a boat with down payment assistance and interest subsidies. “They wanted a really inexpensive but turnkey refrigerated deck boat to get some of their residents back on their feet,” says Pitsch. “They don’t

need a spiral staircase going up to a top house.” The 32' x 13' 10" design built at Strongback Metal Boats seems to have met the cost criteria. “It’s 25 percent — at least — cheaper than the typical Bristol Bay boat,” he says. Besides the no-frills interior, a couple of design features helped keep the cost down. The 32-footer is not as wide as the gillnetters with a 15-foot beam that usually go out the doors at Strongback Metal Boats, and it’s not a

• Stem: 3/4 inch • Keel: 1/2 inch • Longitudinal frames: 3/16 inch • Transverse frames: 3/16 inch • Bulkheads: 3/16 inch • Power train: 425-hp John Deere 6090 with an 18-inch Traktor Jet — M.C.

top-house gillnetter. “It’s a conventional fy-bridge model,” says Pitsch. “You are only doing one interior. When doing a top house, you’ve got two interiors to do. You’ve got to fnish of the bottom and fnish of the top. There’s a lot to that. It’s like building two diferent houses.” Of course, without a top house, it takes fewer hours to build the boat. A high-end top-house gillnetter can take close to 4,000 hours, says Pitsch. Whereas, there’s a goal of 1,600 hours for the fy-bridge design. That’s start to fnish. After building the frst three boats, Pitsch says they are “under 2,000 hours and getting better each time.” Initially the design called for a traditional shaft and prop, and Pitsch had to convince the Bristol Bay group that water jets were the smart choice. “If you want to be competitive [in BrisStrongback Metal Boats’ new gillnetter has lines that are very similar to gillnetters built in the 1970s. WINTER 2016 / NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS

BOATBUILDING

The new gillnetter design has less beam than the typical Bristol Bay boat, but should pack 12,000 to 13,000 pounds of salmon.

“

All of a sudden people were building really fancy

boats, and the price got up there. Now they want

”

some inexpensive boats.

tol Bay], why would you want to use a prop?” he says. The list of potential problems with a prop-driven gillnetter includes the boat hitting the bottom, which could easily result in a bent shaft, damaged rudder and loss of fshing time, waiting for the boat to be repaired. “You want a boat that’s not going to break, and you don’t want to spend money on that maintenance,” says Pitsch. “It’s proven that guys with jets are more productive.” After making his argument to the corporation, he gave them two prices: a boat with a prop and a boat with a water jet. The prop boat was cheaper by about $20,000. In the end that wasn’t a big enough savings to outweigh Pitsch’s argument for the more competitive gillnetter powered with water jets. No fancy woodwork here, aluminum fnished off with Raptor Liner keeps cost and maintenance to a minimum.

NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS / WINTER 2016

— Pat Pitsch, Strongback Metal Boats

In keeping with the idea of reducing costs to deliver an afordable boat, there’s not a massive amount of horsepower. The 32-footer has a 425-hp

John Deere 6090 hooked up to an 18inch Traktor Jet. Its top speed has been 28.5 knots and 13.5 knots with 8,000 pounds aboard. The gillnetter should pack 12,000 to 13,000 pounds of salmon, which will be chilled with a 7-1/2-ton RSW system from Integrated Marine Systems. Strongback Metal Boats built the anchor winch, net reel and level wind. Pitsch says the level wind is “fairly unique.” It’s an auto level wind that au-

tomatically goes back and forth as the drum turns. The 32-footer, which Strongback Metal Boats is now calling it’s Fly Bridge model, was sold to a member of one of the corporation’s communities, but just before the boat was to be put on a barge and shipped to Alaska, the deal was canceled. “It was at the last second,” says Pitsch. The problem was last season’s “horrible price for fsh” in Bristol Bay. “They aren’t wealthy people. When the price went to hell, they weren’t able to do it.” Since then, that frst 32-footer has been sold, along with a second boat and a third, though the last boat was modifed from the original design concept. The frst boat, named the Row-D Warrior, went to John Vukas of Federal Way, Wash. The second boat is for Michael Auble from Glenn Allen, Alaska. It also has the 425-hp John Deere and 18-inch Traktor Jet. Taran White in Sand Point, Idaho, has the third boat but chose to go with a 750-hp Scania D13 matched up with a prototype jet from Hill Innovations, the 20-inch H1500. In the past, Strongback Metal Boats built a top-house boat for White’s father, but the son “wants a generic, simple boat,” says Pitsch, though with a lot of power. Lynn Hill, who designed the original Traktor Jet designed the Hill Innovations jet. Looking back at the run up to designing the more afordable 32-footer, Pitsch says, “I kind of started the whole thing with the top-house boats and then all of a sudden people were building really fancy boats and the price got up there. Now they want some inexpensive boats.” On a trip to Dillingham to meet with the Bristol Bay group, Pitsch came across a gillnetter that was similar to the boats he was building in the 1970s. “It was very similar size-wise and everything” to the boats he is building now for Bristol Bay. “Basically we’ve come full circle,” he says. That certainly applies to the frst three 32' x 13' 8'' gillnetters. Whether the “build simply, nothing too fancy idea” is a trend is too early to say. There are still plenty of fshermen who favor the high-horsepower top-house

model. An example is the Bristol Bay gillnetter Strongback Metal Boats will start building at the end of April for the 2017 salmon season. This will be the larger 32' x 15' hull. Its owner, Jef Burwell of Glen Allen, Alaska, is not going to be limited by a 425-hp John Deere. He is going with a pair of 500-hp Cummins 8.3QSC engines matched up with twin Ultra Jet 340HT water jets. Still, he is borrowing a feature from

66’ SHALLOW DRAFT TENDER

the three Fly Bridge model gillnetters. Though Burwell’s boat is a top-house design, it shouldn’t be as expensive as the typical top-house design, as the interior will be fnished in the same fashion as the fy-bridge boats. “It will be 99 percent aluminum and Raptor Liner,” says Pitsch, “instead of having the fancy mahogany interiors.” Michael Crowley is the Boats & Gear editor for National Fisherman.

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CREW LIFE

Homer’s seine alley shop lives on by giving its customers the best in products and politics

Employees Jordan Stober and Jessica Marx complete some basic line hanging at the shop.

STORY AND PHOTOS BY EMILIE SPRINGER

have my own, admittedly childish, reminiscence of Homer, Alaska’s seine alley. My frst time there was in 1994 — a venue with a single long lane. I was 15, new to the scene and likely nervous about tying everything right. Crew movement and efciency then was not nearly as swift as I see it now. I was introduced to the shop with my dad, likely working on 28

NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS / WINTER 2016

gear for a summer salmon seiner preparing for a season in Prince William Sound. The crew then was surprisingly patient with a slow and shy highschool girl. And I remember Dan Moran, the original shop operator. He was tolerant of my scarcity of skills and taught me many of the net knots I still need today: a bowline, a clovehitch, how to quickly mend a hole in the net. Moran started the seine alley busi-

ness in 1984. The frst name was “Just Knots, Mostly We’re In Seine.” Matt Alward, subsequent owner, explained Moran’s frst work in the fshing industry in general. Dan Moran was originally from Ballard, Wash. He went to Ballard High and was a fshing boat deckhand in the “old days”— somewhere around late ’60s. “Back then, deckhands were expected to do all the net work in the seasons they were hired for,” Alward explains. In addition to early deckhand work, he started working for Lummi Fishery Supply in Bellingham specifcally for net gear work in about 1974. He worked there for a couple years and then moved to a position with Redden Marine. He was in Cordova in 1984 and then on to Homer 1985. The original Just Knots was directly connected to Homer’s Gear Shed (Redden) and became independent several years later. What started as a mostly local client base grew pretty big pretty quick. “Dan was always more interested in teaching deckhands than skippers,” Alward explains. “He didn’t have the patience for the skippers.” On Jan. 1, 2007, Just Knots switched to Bulletproof Nets and Alward started running the establishment.

Matt Alward changed the shop’s name to Bulletproof Nets at the top of 2007.

CREW LIFE

Each net construction plan is based on the client’s fshery and top concerns.

Sounds and terminology are detailed; a methodical rhythmic ensemble including dialogue and crew communication with other sounds from the shop. It takes a dedication of time to achieve familiarity with the trade. There is relatively low turnover in employees, but both Alward and Campbell encourage new interests and motivation even from folks who don’t know the gear when they join the crew. “Work here is a good way start looking for a winter deck job. You have to

Jessica Marx

Alley cats Inside, the business seems cluttered, but only to an outsider’s eye; gear material is stored strategically. On the white walls, there are notes, names, phone numbers, outdated reminders, seiner doodles all over the middle shelves and walls of the shop. Middle shelving holds labeled gear, line and twine. There are two construction alleys. Marine charts are posted around the walls of Kodiak, Prince William Sound, Gore Point. On the walls are gear promotions: “Asano: Stainless Steel Products from Japan”— the poster shows images of all the products, rollers, heavy-duty blocks, shackles, choker hooks, wire rope; a Marco Global fyer, Sato products. There is a seine gear catalog or two, a large stack of 2016 Cook Inlet and South Central Alaska tide tables and a pile of old Pacifc Fishing and National Fisherman journals sitting on the one central desk with a single chair. For the crew, this is a standing occupation. There are distinct details of how work functions here. There are tools, needles, “hangers,” Sharpie markers, web twine of various sizes 18, 21, 24, 36. Diferent sizes are necessary for varied sections of the net. A vital piece of hardware in the shop is a needle winder; the shop has four of them, and the sound of loading needles is constant. Crews set needles on the machine and fll them with twine, the

size depending on the project at hand. Employees are casual and appear to complete tasks with nonchalance — there is not necessarily evidence of an organized task list, but the conversation is communal, and the hierarchy of staf seems calm. In the fall, fshing down time, there are typically about 12 to 14 employees on varied shifts. In the summer, the count goes down to about fve or six, and the shop is closed for part of July and the entirety of August. This is salmon season, and many employees themselves are serving boat time during these months. “If I’m not fshing, I’d rather be attending to my own boat than working on someone else’s net at the dock, so I will charge a lot,” says Alward who seines in Kodiak on the 53-footer Challenger. “I can do it if someone needs me, but I have my own boat, too, and I want to be on it.” However, if there is an emergency or critical need during the summer season, co-owner Josiah Campbell, who does not run his own fshing operation, is available to alley and fll an order to be shipped to the feld. Campbell is originally from Cape Cod in Massachusetts. His frst fshing job was on a salmon drift boat in upper Cook Inlet. Then he took a job with Alward on the Shrike seining in lower Cook Inlet. “I started here at the seine alley in the winter of 2007 or so — back then I was at the very bottom, flling needles. “It’s really hard, it’s really challenging — you have to understand that nobody is good at it right away — the learning curve is steep.” Despite a prevailing unpretentious attitude, the business does not run without a tangible learned skill set. There is no way a rookie could join the fastpaced crew without substantial familiarity with nets, knots and accurate physical labor skills. You have to know how the net is built and the ability to visualize much more than what you actually see. Lingo familiarity also requires a seasoned approach. “The work here is on-the-job training. Newest crew members will strip nets and fll needles. Then they move up the line to learning lacing skills and hanging,” Campbell explains.

Shoshanna Wichita and Chris Gordan, two of the shop’s super sewers.

be self-motivated at the seine alley,” Campbell says. Starting wage at the alley is typically $14 an hour. “It’s easy to give up — you have to be really exact with skills and eforts — anything that goes wrong, we will hear about it. Fishermen are really good at talking about what goes wrong.” A clientele of productive and professional fshermen demand access to high-quality gear. Contemporary net dynamics require exceptional product strength and reliability to be both functional and seaworthy. The technology and mechanics of what the facility offers are a perfect example of vocational trades success. The work that happens behind the scenes to create and support higher efciency in the industry when the gear is at work is a domain away from what to expect in terms of fsheries management from a policy and WINTER 2016 / NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS

Chris Gordon works to splice and repair an older net that a client has sent in for some regular maintenance.

government perspective. The equipment and gear services that Bulletproof Nets provides are a practical necessity to transitions in industry participation and success. The maritime industry is critical to community identity and sustainability in coastal Alaska, but there is often a communication gap between policy and reality. Alward has made recent efforts to bridge that distance by bringing

together broad components of education, science, industry behavior and what this group means for sustainability. He has growing roles with Alaska fshing organizations like the United Fishermen of Alaska and North Pacifc Fisheries Association. His outreach through those organizations is an efort to link fshermen to trade to policy — a communication gap that needs attention.

What began as a business by a talented individual loyal to local Homer vessel needs transitioned to a supportive mentor relationship between Moran and Alward. It has blossomed into an opportunity for a larger geographic array of fshermen with net development aspirations. The folks who run Bulletproof Nets have ambition and eforts beyond local seine repair. “We are starting to experiment with new techniques for gillnet gear, and we have marine retail. And boat retail in general, not just nets,” Alward explains. The largest client base remains Homer, but clients from other Alaska fshing communities — Cordova, Valdez, Kodiak, Sand Point, Sitka, Petersburg — can always put their gear on a ferry or trailer. “Bulletproof Nets does work on fve

NETWORKING

eine gear minimizes direct handling from the harvester by trapping fsh without physically entangling them. From a historical perspective, many features of gear construction have changed very little over centuries of use. Contemporary mending needles are one example — look at an image of an old mending needle, and you’ll see about the same thing available today. What has changed are features like vessel power and capacity, engine and deck equipment. Net construction needs to stay aligned for the transitions. Line fber strength and general capacity has modernized with a transition from cotton to nylon to HMWPE (high molecular weight polyethylene), better known under as Spectra, Dyneema or Plateena. “Fishermen are trying to purse faster. In general, the more sets you can get out the better, you want to do as many sets as you can. Gear is tougher, boats are bigger. Pinch haulers for the purse line are now operating on over 70 percent of vessels,” explains Bulletproof Nets co-owner Josiah Campbell. Line material through Japanese facilities is available without break points; strands (also called yarns) are constructed so they compose the entire length of the line necessary, and this is not available from any U.S.

NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS / WINTER 2016

marketer. In order to approach h use of international materials for Alaska based nets “we received samples, Taston — line l made by Ishida Manufacturing in Japan. Then we had a few clients willing to test new lines and scrutinize how the gear behaved in real time use. Once we got positive feedback on the test efforts, we were able to adjust production logistics and construction qualities and make improvements to ft gear needs.” Overall, a salmon seine needs to be sturdy; it is hauled on one end by the seiner and the other by a tow skiff. This creates more pressure than typical in a seine fshery like herring or tuna that is more likely to be caught in an immediate round-haul rather than a timed set. So the salmon net takes more design to tow, purse and withstand the weight of fsh from the water to the fsh hold. Gear construction also depends on the individual fsherman’s tactics and skills. “Some guys will take a chance and go straight into a rock pile, running gear as hard as they can; others will never leave an easy line-up — those choices obviously impact what the gear will need,” Campbell explains. “The way we construct nets depends on individual needs.” — E.S.

CREW LIFE to six herring nets a year, but it really depends on the status of the fshery, and herring is down right now. We’ve done some experimental work with pollock seines, too.”

cess of the nets constructed at Bulletproof make the business a component of successful fsheries, part of the net that holds the industry together. The seine alley crew ofers enduring sup-

“You have to be really exact with skills and efforts — anything that goes wrong, we will hear about it. Fishermen are really good at talking about what goes wrong.” — Josiah Campbell, BULLETPROOF NETS

Alward, Campbell and a few other crew members plan on work-based travel in early 2016 to help with net facilities outside of Alaska. “We’re looking into options on the Pacifc Coast and Sea of Cortez. We’ll defnitely be headed to Silver Bay in Sitka in February and Bainbridge in Washington at the Net Systems facility this spring, too.” The practical and technological suc-

port, which enables a fsherman to thrive independently on the water, his gear constructed to withstand the physical environment of the occupation. The leadership at Bulletproof is reaching out to support the culture of fshing by connecting and representing its often stubborn, persistent and individual participants with policy shifts. Fishermen need the support of strong, dependable

J d Strober Jordan St b mans th the “ “needle dl nook,” a tool used to reload needles.

gear and policy leaders. They fnd both at Bulletproof Nets. Emilie Springer is an anthropology Ph.D. candidate at University of Alaska at Fairbanks, focusing on cultural components of fshing.

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WINTER 2016 / NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS

REFRIGERATION The crew of the netter Sumo on the Naknek Line in Bristol Bay, where chilled fsh fetches a bonus.

BY MICHAEL CROWLEY

NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS / WINTER 2016

12 the previous month. Most of these are 7.5- to 8.5-ton units. But now with warmer waters, bigger salmon runs and the fact that many boats are being built with a larger fsh hold capacity, “guys really need more power,” says Ness. So Integrated introduced 10-ton RSW systems in November at Seattle’s Pacifc Marine Expo. The frst 10-ton RSW system is going on a gillnetter being built at Mavrik Marine in La Conner, Wash. This is a diesel drive unit, though both electric and hydraulic drives are also available. It will be mounted in the lazarette and split into two units, which, says Ness, “is something new. Usually everything we do is self-contained.” The chiller and condenser will be on the starboard side and the engine, pumps and compressor on the port side. There are a couple of benefts to Splitting an IMS RSW system makes it easier to install and saves space.

splitting the RSW system into two parts and mounting them on their own skids. It is easier to install, and there’s a better weight distribution port and starboard. The diesel drive alone weighs 870 pounds. Granted, an RSW system seems costly at frst glance: “22 grand to 35 grand, depending on how they are set up,” says Ness. But he would argue that an RSW system could be paid of in

InTegraTed MarIne SySTeMS

sk any fsherman who tried to make a go of it last year in Bristol Bay, and they will tell you the price stunk. “They’ve been used to getting $1.28 average over the past fve years. Last year it was 50 cents,” says Kurt Ness at Integrated Marine Systems in Seattle. The only folks who saw a bump in that price were those with chilled fsh. Processors paid an extra 15 cents a pound — a little less than a quarter of the total dock price with the chilledfsh premium. Ness fgures it makes good sense to outft a Bristol Bay gillnetter with a refrigerated seawater system. He says there are 1,900 permit holders in the bay and about 1,450 boats. Probably 600 to 650 boats are equipped with RSW systems. That leaves roughly 800 fshermen missing out on that bonus. Integrated Marine Systems is helping to slowly whittle that number down. In January they sold nine RSW units and

TexT.

RSW and slurry ice systems net a chill premium

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SAFETY a new RSW system.” A new RSW system should be good for 10 to 15 years, but they don’t know what the status of 507 and 404A will be in 10 years, says Ellefsen. Environmental legislation could afect the legality of Freon systems. “But with ammonia, you are 100 percent certain you are good to go.” Normally, Teknotherm’s RSW system runs water through the inside of the shell and tube chiller. That’s what is

Teknotherm’s prototype DX RSW system uses ammonia for a refrigerant.

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two years — even at today’s low fsh prices — depending on how much fsh is caught. “I talked to one guy,” Ness says, “who made $700,000 of his RSW system in the last 20 years. He catches a lot of fsh and gets a lot of bonus dollars.” If a fsherman is still reluctant to ante up the money for an RSW system, Ness says eventually they won’t have much choice. He expects processors to be requiring RSW in a few years. “So you might as well get onboard now and earn that return on your investment.” Teknotherm in Seattle is also developing a new RSW system that will work for boats from gillnetters to larger crabbers and longliners. It’s the DX chiller system that uses ammonia instead of Freon 507 or 404A. “We look at any charge with Freon as not good,” says Teknotherm’s Jan Ellefsen, “especially if investing in

ust how safe is a boat’s refrigeration system from the uncontrolled escape of potentially toxic refrigerant gases? That may depend on what boat you are talking about. “Some companies have strict guidelines to follow, and they know their operation and maintenance,” says Teknotherm’s Jan Ellefsen. He mentions the American Seafoods’ boats that Teknotherm recently converted to ammonia refrigeration. “They send guys to training, and quite a few of the chief engineers had experience with ammonia.” But “others don’t really care so much.” Ellefsen fnds some boat owners “going as cheap as possible… The willingness to invest in proper equipment might not be there all the time.” Highland Refrigeration’s Lars Matthiesen points out that once a refrigeration system is on a boat “you don’t have to have a license to run it.” As a result, accidents do happen, but “they are kept at a very low profle.” He adds that people have been asphyxiated because of Freon. “That happens, but it’s not talked about.” Ellefsen knows of one incident where a crewman was asphyxiated because he went into a compartment where R22 had been leaking. “He went down there and there was no oxygen left,” and he died. “That was a lack of training, a lack of maintenance.” To avoid such accidents, Matthiesen thinks fsheries companies “have to raise their standards of crew education” regarding refrigeration. “We have to grab hold of it as an industry before it becomes a problem, else we will have regulations” coming at us. — M.C.

WINTER 2016 / NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS

REFRIGERATION the fllets being white, they are translucent because the freezing time was shorter. “You can take it down to 32 degrees in a matter of about 25 minutes,” says Matthiesen. That reduces the freezing time by about 30 minutes, which means that most of the other stuf in the fsh — cheeks, stomach, liver, tongue — can be saved. In addition, “freezing that fast means you can get more through your plant,” says Matthiesen, “and you are using

HigHland RefRigeRation

called a fooded application and “is an efcient way of doing it,” Ellefsen says. The new DX (or direct expansion) system runs the water on the outside of the tube and the refrigerant on the inside of the tube. The beneft of this design, says Ellefsen, “is that the water does not freeze up as easily. It’s more forgiving for ice buildup.” He says Teknotherm’s DX system with ammonia “is the frst one I know of that’s been developed for the fshing industry.” So far, only a prototype has been built. Ellefsen hopes to have it on a boat this spring or summer. A diferent type chilling process that West Coast and Alaska fshermen have been slow to adopt but has been readily accepted by longline cod and hake processors in western Canada is slurry ice. Highland Refrigeration in Seattle has been equipping Canadian boats

Highland Refrigeration’s slurry ice system on the 184-foot longliner Northern Leader.

with their slurry ice system. Immediately immersing fsh in slurry, with its ice crystals throughout the water, results in a better product. That’s opposed to immediately heading, gutting and freezing the fsh. “Slurry ice chills the fsh faster,” says Highland Refrigeration’s Lars Matthiesen. “It makes the parasites get away from the cold and go into the guts, instead of the fllets.” When the fsh is flleted, instead of 34

NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS / WINTER 2016

less refrigerant, so it’s energy efcient.” The reasons Canadians use slurry ice “is they have to have the highest quality because they are competing with Icelandic fsh, and Icelanders have used slurry ice for years.” He says the few Americans using slurry ice “don’t want to talk about it because they have an advantage.” Michael Crowley is the Boats & Gear editor for National Fisherman.

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YOUNGBLOODS Continued from page 20

Sam Hill’s frst trip to Alaska found him taken with this view of the Gastineau Channel near downtown Juneau.

for some light reading), but I feel like there’s a lot to take away from each new lesson.

Samuel Hill

Do what you love, no matter what. Not many people become fshermen for the money. If they did, chances are they didn’t make it very far. Sure, a handful of highliners pull in the big bucks, but you should never let money completely dictate what you choose to do with your life. Fishermen fsh because, well, they like to fsh. The seas might not always be calm this route, but if you’re lucky, you can make a living doing something you’re passionate about. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. No one is born on this Earth with an innate expertise in anything. Knowledge isn’t magically gained, it’s earned, and you have to be humble enough to admit you don’t know everything if you ever want to learn anything. Most people have been in your shoes at one point or another and will be willing to lend you a hand. Don’t be afraid of sounding dumb, you’re just inexperienced, and the only way to get experienced is to put efort into learning. Be nice to people. Whether you’re trying to get a new loan, looking to market your catch to your community or convincing a legislator to swing their vote your way, you’ve got to be kind to people. Your character is important. Show people you’re committed and treat them right — they’ll do the same for you. Work hard and be consistent. A common theme at the summit was believing in yourself and putting in the work. Don’t leave the hard work for the other guy and expect to reap the benefts. That’s not how life works. You can’t wish yourself into success; you’ve got to put in the work. Whether it’s testifying for your fshery, expanding your operation or taking a big risk, you’ve got to take that on yourself because no one else is going to do the work for you. Set a goal and focus on the little steps and problems you need to overcome to get there. I learned a lot about Alaska fshing during my three-day stay in Juneau. It’s not something that you can learn overnight ( Jes recently handed me a 400page book on sockeye salmon research

Alaska is clearly a special place with a lot to share, so I hope this isn’t my last time visiting the last frontier.

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

Kodiak Shipyard ................................. 15 www.kodiakshipyard.com

Alaska United / GCI............................ 21 www.alaskaunited.com

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

Dock Street Brokers ........................... 20 www.dockstreetbrokers.com

MER Equipment ................................. 10 www.merequipment.com

Foss Maritime Company .................... 34 www.foss.com

NET Systems Inc ................................... 8 www.net-sys.com

Fremont Maritime Services ................ 23 www.fremontmaritime.com

Petro Marine Services ........................ 11 www.petromarineservices.com

Fusion Marine Technology, LLC ......... 11 www.fusionmarinetech.com

Satellite Technical Services ................. 31 www.satellitealaska.com

H & H Marine Inc ................................ 12 www.hhmarineinc.com

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

Harris Electric Inc................................ 33 www.harriselectricinc.com

Vigor Industrial ................................... 27 www.vigorindustrial.com

Highland Refrigeration ....................... 19 www.highlandref.com

WESMAR - Western Marine Electronics .. 8 www.wesmar.com

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

WINTER 2016 / NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS

IN FOCUS /ALASKA SALMON

A cannery worker at the Icicle Seafoods plant in Petersburg, Alaska, pumps out the hatch on the seiner Tradition, based in Gig Harbor, Wash. PHOTO BY JOSH ZIRSCHKY / www.joshuazirschky.com

NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS / WINTER 2016

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