Boatbuilding

By Brooks Townes

n even 50 wooden commercial shboats got hauled out in Washington’s Port Townsend boatyards this spring. Most of them were down to Puget Sound from Alaska, many as old or older than their owners.

One that checks all of those boxes was the bright red 56-foot seiner Indiana, built in 1917, in one shery or another all of her 104 years, that was nearly derelict when Marty McCallum bought her 33 years ago. He’s her fourth owner. The second-generation commercial sherman knew what to look for in old wooden boats, saw potential, and he could a ord her.

He nicked along shing her that rst season. He’s shed her every season since, and made improvements in every o -season. In June, the Indiana was about to steam north again, once more better equipped for seining Prince William Sound’s pink salmon.

In 1988, because the Indiana was a ordable without a loan, McCallum had money for upgrades that might have gone to pay o a lender for a modern metal vessel. His boat’s con guration and gear are now up to date after this fourth extensive round of work in Port Townsend’s Boat Haven. She’s seen a lot of smaller upgrades under

Elizabeth Becker photos Delays in getting materials during the pandemic meant the projects continued into summer — a oat in Port Townsend’s Commercial Basin.

McCallum’s pay-as-you-go plan, many done in Alaska. But this time, the boat was out of the water for seven months because of a ta y-pull getting materials during the pandemic

The big jobs in PT have been spread over years, so still no banker owns a piece of the Indiana. Healthy pink runs in Prince William Sound have certainly helped, and they show no sign of slacking. McCallum, who grins remembering several three-broom days, said he’d be happy if anything over 30 million sh come into the sound: Alaska sh biologist Jeremy Botz said 50 million sh were expected this year. As of press time, the region had seen more than 64 million.

Blocked up stem to stem with the newer, also red, also wooden seiner the Wonderland, the Indiana this year got a new coach roof, including framing to support the new top house (her rst), plus new galley joinery and equipment, several new Douglas r planks forward, a new toilet.

Removing the last piece of her original gear — her rusty old windlass — was a momentous change.

“It has been working reliably for the last 30-plus years. Original equipment, it would be 104 years old, still operating but losing features; [it] doesn’t freewheel, clutch doesn’t work, but the hydraulic motor whines the gear in and out,” McCallum wrote on the boat’s Facebook page.

“This is a new era, [with a] top house, self-pursing winch, combined with an earlier installed Marco power block, a sliding boom,” he said, adding that the only original piece on the boat now may be the keel.

During earlier big jobs, the Indiana was shortened some 8 feet — to 56 — which incidentally put her within limit-seiner rules. A new stem, forefoot, framing and planks forward got rid of several bad timbers. But then she trimmed down by the stern, so in 2014, McCallum replaced her hold, reducing its capacity to 21,000 cubic feet, now plumbed for refrigerated

Shipwright Dave Thompson prepares the new windlass for hoisting aboard.

The Indiana’s ancient windlass was the last piece of her original gear. Door hardware from 1917 tells the Indiana’s age. It still works just fi ne.

seawater. With the new hold snugged up to the engine room bulkhead, there was room aft for a new 800-gallon fuel tank.

Knowing the new hold, fuel tank, a new, lighter main engine, and now the new coach roof and top house a ected trim and stability, McCallum contracted with local designer Antonio Salguero of nearby Coastwise Marine Design, who applied his laser and CAD programs.

“He got her spot-on,” said the skipper.

It’s costly to ship to Alaska all the heavy gear, parts and other things a full-service boatyard needs, plus it’s cold working

New planks are clamped up to take the shape of the hull before being fastened in place.

outside. The choice for big jobs is often to steam south to Puget Sound — plus McCallum lives only 15 minutes from the Port Townsend yard. Also, it would be hard to nd another with so many marine trades in one place capable of handling just about any job on any kind of vessel under some 300 tons of any material, but especially on traditional wooden vessels. Few other yards let you do your own work or pick and hire your own help.

This year the Indiana had plenty of company in Port Townsend’s Boat Haven: Shannon Meehan, in charge of haul-out scheduling, said in May there were 29 larger shboats and power-scows hauled, 14 of them wooden, and of the 38 smaller commercial boats, including McCallum’s, 36 were wooden.

Local marine trades employ some 400 people and provide 20 percent of the county’s tax revenue, according to an economic impact study completed by international port specialist Martin Associates three years ago. The study was commissioned by the Port Townsend Marine Trades Association when it appeared gentri cation could mean the end of the boatyard.

Voters and civic leaders were surprised by the Martin report, by the robust health and contribution of local maritime enterprises. E orts hostile to the trades ceased, and a revamped Port administration fostered practices that brought even more business to the yard and trades even before this year and last — both banner years for the yard and trades apparently in part because of the pandemic.

Since commercial shermen are vital

Boat carpenter and sheep-shearer Gensy Stone shapes a piece for the new galley. food suppliers, repairing their boats was declared “essential business” early in the pandemic, said retired local shipwright Diana Talley who remains active in the trades association. A number of Alaska canneries and processor vessels became covid-19 spreader hot-spots and closed midseason last year, making it a good time to get major boat work done.

“The yard [has been] at about 95-98 percent occupancy all year,” Talley said, with Alaska boats representing most of that state’s sheries on the hard through spring with more tied to work docks.

With so much work competing for craftspeople, McCallum had a local-boy and repeat-customer advantage in nding the right people for his many jobs, the Indiana again blocked up next to his friend Dave Thompson’s shop.

A dean of local shipwrights, Thompson knows the appropriate freelancers and companies for whatever the task, McCallum noted. Fortunately, all those boats in the yard meant people working on Indiana could nd other work while waiting for materials this year, so the Indiana didn’t lose them and McCallum did not have to pay them for make-work.

Planks got replaced and caulked by independent contractor J Galloway. Shipwright Erik Falstrom of Compass Woodwork ripped out the old galley and built a new one. Carpenter Davee Bolt insulated and paneled out the new top house.

Metal fabricator and welder Dylan Mackay grabs the long-awaited tophouse door.

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Second-generation fi sherman and longtime husband of the F/V Indiana, Marty McCallum is getting a bottom-painter’s tan. “Alan Kats did the new roof top and y bridge replacement, after that I had Antonio Salguero do the design and stability work for the top house. Dylan MacKay did the tting and welding,” McCallum

Back in the water, it took a couple days for the planks to make up and the pumps stop after seven months on the hard.

said. “The metal was precut by Alaska Copper and Brass using Antonio’s lofting program.” Electronics were the work of Joe Smith of Ocean Systems from the other side of the sound.

The Indiana is a “state boat,” McCallum said, explaining that near the end of World War I, our federal government wanted to boost food production, improve the wartorn economy “and provide jobs for returning soldiers — and there was all this highly skilled labor and excellent timber in the Northwest.” Plans for a typical Northwest seiner of the time were drawn up and supplied to several regional builders, each boat to be named for a state. McCallum believes 42 were built by Puget Sound yards. His and maybe three others — the Wisconsin, Vermont and Kansas — survive with their original names.

The Indiana was built in Tacoma almost entirely of “beautiful old-growth r,” her skipper said, though he isn’t sure which yard — information lost in the mists of time along with her designer’s name, though he knows she was rst shed by one Tony Anaich.

A sheet from Tacoma builders Barbare Brothers dated 1917 called for “a typical Puget Sound salmon seiner of 22 tons displacement measuring 65' on deck with a 16' 6" beam, an 8' hull depth and a 6' draft fully loaded” — or what the designer considered fully loaded. He didn’t count on McCallum’s practice of plugging the hold with pinks until the work deck’s nearly awash.

Plan and pro le drawings from the era show a long, low, narrow hull, a ush deck, low bulwarks, a small boot-heel pilothouse well back, a net platform on her stern and a skylight over the foc’s’le. The Indiana’s original house was replaced in 1965 with one of similar layout, a bit larger and now without the boot heel roo ine. The boats were to be shed with sheer-leg, tackle and double-drum winch by a crew of nine. Now she’s shed with four with a lot more complicated gear.

The design called for Douglas r over double-sawn Doug r frames, and a 2,500-cubic-foot hold. State boats were to carry 3,000 gallons of fuel, 400 gallons of water and be driven by an 85-hp unspeci ed engine.

McCallum said he replaced a Detroit 8V71 in 2014 with a digitally controlled 330-hp John Deere 6165, burning 5.5 gallons per hour instead of the Screaming Jimmy’s 8.5 gpm. It’s considerably smaller and lighter than the Detroit but still drives through the same 514 Twin Disc gear.

Among her modern electronics is a Raymarine Axiom chart plotter with Real Vision 3-D sonar — “a game changer,” McCallum said when it came aboard in 2017; now there’s a repeater in the new top house — at 74, McCallum was tired of being cold on an open bridge — along with port and starboard joysticks, throttle, shift, and redundant electronics on each side.

The Indiana’s crew are mostly old friends now. McCallum considers them family, but for four or ve years in her earlier days, he said the crew was literally family. His wife, Rosemary, worked the deck and cooked.

“She’s a wonderful boat cook. We’re noted for being a good restaurant,” he said, recalling many raft-ups. His son Sam was on deck from age 5 or 6 hanging out, then he ran the deck from around age 12, and Sam’s sister Monica was the ski driver beginning when she was 13.

“She was a good ski driver,” he adds. His grandson Cyrus has also shed with the family; all have become successful adults..

Name a West Coast shery, and chances are Marty McCallum worked it — salmon and halibut in Southeast, herring on San Francisco Bay, some Dungeness crabbing. He skippered a power-scow as a young man and owned a 38-foot aluminum gillnetter.

McCallum said he began seining pinks in the sound in 1978, then grins recalling hauls when he had to call the buyboat over to vacuum his catch o so he could keep going, making sets while the sun shined.

Brooks Townes was an editor for National Fisherman in Maine 45 years ago and is now retired in the Paci c Northwest.

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➜ Thursday \ Nov. 18 10:30 AM – 11:15 AM ➜ Main Stage

Join us for a state of the industry update where panelists discuss the recent developments to U.S. O shore Wind and the e ects they are seeing on the commercial shing industry. We will discuss the multiple o shore wind projects across the nation, as well as the di erences between oating and xed wind farms, and how these may a ect shing operations.

➜ Thursday \ Nov. 18 11:25 AM – 12:10 PM ➜ Main Stage

As the Biden administration’s Assistant Administrator for Fisheries at NOAA, Janet Coit is excited to work with the shing industry and other partners to ensure resilient marine sheries in the United States and strengthen our seafood industry. This presentation will focus on rebuilding sheries where necessary, and protecting and conserving endangered and threatened marine resources and their habitats. Among Coit’s priorities are ensuring the economic and environmental resiliency of our coastal communities by providing the seafood industry with the critical resources needed for generating greater demand for U.S. seafood. Her agenda includes expanding the domestic seafood supply, leveling the playing eld on trade, and modernizing for a more e cient seafood supply chain. Priority issues include climate change, the future of o shore wind energy, and the order to conserve at least 30 percent of our lands and waters by 2030.

Join representatives from three maritime workforce and professional development organizations as they discuss programs they have been putting into place to help nd, train and retain enthusiastic workers in the maritime industry. We will discuss initiatives that will help younger generations set themselves up for success building a career on the water.

➜ Thursday \ Nov. 18 1:50 PM - 2:35 PM ➜ Main Stage

This session will discuss what the industry learned from the Scandies Rose and Destination losses, and how we are moving forward with updated rules and regulations pertaining to vessel stability to improve safety and increase survival during a capsizing. Attendees will learn about stability checklists, understanding your stability report, stability requirements, main causes of instability in F/Vs and much more.

➜ Thursday \ Nov. 18 2:45 PM – 3:30 PM ➜ Main Stage

Panelists discuss the latest updates with the Pebble Mine project, as well as permanent protections against the project.

➜ Friday \ Nov. 19 10:30 AM - 11:15 AM ➜ Main Stage

Over the last three years, Sector Anchorage has acted on an initiative to prioritize awareness, outreach, education, and training as it pertains to the overall USCG Arctic Strategic Outlook, known as Arctic Shield. Sector Anchorage developed the Marine Safety Task Force as a solution to the many operational challenges within the unique area of responsibility. The multimission nature of this program required signi cant collaboration with di erent entities of the Coast Guard, stake holders, native communities, and civil air patrol. The $1.1 million operation resulted in an increased number of commercial shing vessel exams. During 2020, examiners were able to complete 450 exams, beating their 2018 record. In this presentation Coast Guard personnel will present the work the men and women at Sector Anchorage have done to enhance safety in the areas such as Bristol Bay, Naknek, Kotzebue, Port Moller, and more. In addition, Coast Guard personnel will share plans for FY22 and inform folks on how they can help to make this mission a success.

➜ Friday \ Nov. 19 11:25 AM - 12:10 PM ➜ Main Stage

Trash, particularly plastic waste, is having a major e ect on the ocean, our environment and ultimately our livelihoods as shermen. Now hear from some of the companies that are taking big steps toward reducing pollution in the ocean.

➜ Friday \ Nov. 19 1:00 PM - 1:40 PM ➜ Main Stage

The potential for growing seaweed in Alaska is immense, and recent interest by shermen and processors has led to hundreds of people attending training workshops and the submission of dozens of new aquatic farm lease applications. This is a predictor of signi cant future growth of the industry as the cumulative e ect of increased private sector interest grows. If all of the new applications for seaweed farms are approved, the acres under production will have increased from zero in 2015 to approximately 2,500 in 2021. To achieve Alaska’s potential for a new seaweed industry, more buyers of seaweed are needed. However, new buyers must identify prices, demand and markets that are a match for the species, product forms and cost structures that Alaska can produce. In order to address this bottleneck for industry growth, the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation, with grant support from the Paci c States Marine Fisheries Commission, partnered with McKinley Research Group and other key industry stakeholders to assess current and potential new markets for Alaska seaweed in order to enable industry growth. Join us to hear from a panel consisting of AFDF, McKinley Research Group and other experts about the Alaska seaweed industry, including its growth, market potential and how we are helping industry foster its development.

➜ Friday \ Nov. 19 1:50 PM - 2:35 PM ➜ Main Stage

This panel will convene to discuss mammal and gear interactions, changing research and regulations, and emerging tech solutions.

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➜ Friday \ Nov. 19 2:45 PM - 3:30 PM ➜ Main Stage

Since 1994, the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation has hosted and organized the Alaska Symphony of Seafood, an annual competition for commercial-ready, value-added products made with Alaska seafood. The Symphony encourages companies to invest in product development, helps them promote those new products and competitively positions Alaska seafood in national and global markets. Product development is critically important to the entire Alaska seafood industry and the shing communities that depend on it. Innovative products position the industry to remain competitive and relevant to consumers. Covid-19 demonstrated how important it is to respond to shifting consumer demands. The increase of quality at the point of harvest improves quality all the way throughout the supply chain. This allows more value-added potential, because the quality can support additional processing and diversi cation of products. The Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association and AFDF work together to support and promote the development of more valueadded products coming out of Bristol Bay. AFDF is proud to announce the 2021-22 1st Place Winners of the Alaska Symphony of Seafood, exciting changes to the event and collaboration with our major sponsor, BBRSDA. The 202122 Symphony will feature Salmon and White sh product categories in addition to Retail, Food Service and Beyond the Plate. In addition, special awards categories will include: Grand Prize, Seattle People’s Choice, Juneau People’s Choice and the Bristol Bay Choice.

Please note that the schedule is subject to change. Check the website or National Fisherman app for regular updates.

n 1975, the editors of National Fisherman began a tradition of calling attention to a class of sheries leaders. Although our Highliners are shermen, this honor is in recognition of their dedication to improving the future of our shing communities.

We also reserve the occasional honorarium for someone who may not have been a commercial sherman but whose dedication to the industry and shing families be ts the honor of a Lifetime Achievement Award. This year, that distinction is reserved for Jennifer Lincoln for her literally life-saving work at the National Institute of Safety and Health Center for Maritime Safety and Health Studies Alaska o ce — by way of Indiana.

Julie Decker, of Wrangell, Alaska, is the longtime executive director of the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation — but that’s just one of the many hats she wears. Decker also shes the F/V McCrea with her husband and partner, Gig Decker.

Jerry Dzugan is nationally recognized as the executive director and safety trainer extraordinaire for the Alaska Marine Safety Education Association out of Sitka. Dzugan has shed commercially in Alaska, but his focus for decades has been changing the way commercial shermen think about safety and training.

Ben Platt is the owner and operator of the F/V Miss Heidi and founder and executive director of the California Coast Crab Association out of Crescent City, Calif. He established the group to voice the concerns of the local Dungeness crab eet as legislative and activist groups threatened the livelihoods of the coastal communities that rely sheries.

Join me in congratulating these Highliners for a job well done. — Jessica Hathaway

1975 Joe Easley, Spuds Johnson, Nels Otness 1977 Oral Burch, Adolph Samuelson, *Wayne Smith, Dr. Dayton L. Alverson 1978 Dan Arnold, John J. Ross, Larry Simns 1979 Louis Agard Jr., Bart Eaton, Barry Fisher 1980 Kenny Daniels, Joe Novello, Rick Savage 1981 Gordon Jensen, Ralph Hazard, Konrad Uri 1982 Richard Miller, William Sandefur Jr.,Gabe Skaar 1983 Dave Danborn, Bruce Gore, John Maher 1984 Dick Allen, Paul Pence, James Salisbury 1985 Oscar Dyson, Mike McCorkle, Rudy Peterson 1986 Jake Dykstra, Richard McLellan, Bill Moore 1987 Al Burch, Earl Carpenter, Einar Pedersen 1988 Frank Mirarchi, Sonny Morrison, Louis Puskas 1989 Nat Bingham, Pete Knutsen, Francis Miller 1990 Arnold Leo, Fred Mattera, Mark Taylor 1991 Ron Hegge, Rick Steiner, Tony West, Clement V. Tillion 1992 David Cousens, Julius Collins, Jim McCauley 1993 John Bruce, Snooks Moore, Jimmy Smith 1994 Tim Adams, Nelson R. Beideman, Joseph Testaverde, Angela Sanfilippo 1995 Michael McHenry, Dennis Petersen, Gary Slaven 1996 William Foster, Robert Smith, Diane Wilson, U.S. Rep. Gerry Studds 1997 Jim Bassett, Mark Lundsten, Pietro Parravano 1998 Bill Amaru, Felix G. Cox, Gary Nichols 1999 Wayne Moody, Jay Stinson, Ray Wadsworth 2000 Scott Keefe, Patten D. White, Richard Neilsen Jr. 2001 Ginny Goblirsch, Jamie Ross, Tim Thomas 2002 George Barisich, Russell Dize, Luis Ribas 2003 Dan Hanson, Chris Miller, Arne Fuglvog 2004 David Goethel, James Ruhle Sr., Tony Iarocci 2005 Wilburn Hall, Bill Webber Sr., Bill Maahs 2006 Vito Giacalone, David Karwacki, Jim Lovgren 2007 Dave Bitts, Eric Jordan, Kaare Ness 2008 Rodney Avila, Tilman Gray, Craig Pendleton 2009 Linda Behnken, Kevin Ganley, Joel Kawahara 2010 Bob Evans, Jim Odlin, David Spencer 2011 Larry Collins, Dan Falvey, Bill Webber Jr. 2012 Dewey Hemilright, Kevin Wark, Wayne Werner 2013 Robert Heyano, Robert Hezel, Jerry McCune, Brian Rothschild 2014 Martin Fisher, Ida Hall, Russell Sherman 2015 John F. Gruver, Kathy Hansen, Jeremiah O’Brien 2016 Robert T. Brown Sr., Ben Hartig, Carl “Sonny” McIntire Jr. 2017 Bob Dooley, George Eliason, Bruce Schactler 2018 Ryan Bradley, Kristan Porter, Bob Jones 2019 Dick Ogg, Heather Sears, Jack Schultheis 2020 Bonnie Brady, Jerry Fraser, Frank Patti Sr.

By Jessica Hathaway

It’s been almost 30 years since Julie Decker made her rst summer run to Alaska from Chicago to work as a patcher for Alaska General Seafoods in Ketchikan. She went back to Chicago for the winter. But she would nd herself in Ketchikan again the next year at age 22.

This time she was back as a graduate — both from Northwestern University and from cannery work. Decker walked the docks, determined to nd a spot on a boat. She worked as a greenhorn deckhand on a gillnetter, and that was it. The pull of Alaska was too strong to resist.

She came back to crew on the same boat the following summer after spending the winter in her hometown of Detroit, waiting tables, teaching English and working at a domestic abuse shelter. That experience seemed almost prophetic when she found herself on deck with an abusive captain.

Realizing she was stuck on a boat in remote area with her assailant, she was determined to nd a safe exit. When the boat was unloading at the tender, she called the captain of another gillnetter to pick her up and take her to Wrangell. That gillnetter was Gig Decker, and as luck would have it, he was looking for a deckhand.

“The rst time I saw her on the back deck, I could see that she was hard-working and focused. Then, when I met her,

Continued on page 38

By Kirk Moore

For anyone who believes in an orderly universe, Jerry Dzugan’s path from the South Side of Chicago schools to teaching shing safety in Alaska could be an inspiration.

“When I came up here in 1978, I thought this was the kind of place I was looking for,” recalled Dzugan, who had been teaching in his hometown’s public schools since 1971. “Sitka was the place I wanted to move to.”

Dzugan, 73, stayed in the city until 1979, after that rst trip had crystallized a plan. Over the next few years he built a new life in the north, working at shing, surveying and construction — and with local emergency medical technicians.

His experience teaching led him into training rst responders on land. Meanwhile the Alaska Marine Safety Education Association was organized in the early 1980s, seeded with grant money from NOAA as part of a Coast Guard outreach e ort to improve shing vessel safety.

Dzugan was recruited to AMSEA’s board of directors, and then as its executive director. Over the coming years, AMSEA grew to put 24,000 people through its training programs, and became a go-to model

Continued on page 40

By Paul Molyneaux

She never saw the ocean until she was 18 years old, but Jennifer Lincoln has established a strong bond with the sea and the commercial shing industry.

“When I was in college, I went to Alaska for a summer internship,” says Lincoln. “It was only supposed to be that summer, but I met my husband. He was stationed there in the Air Force. We met in 1990 and got married in ’91.”

In 1992, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health opened a eld o ce in Alaska, and Lincoln began her career safeguarding the lives and health of shermen.

“Part of my job was to read the newspapers and keep track of all work-related deaths in Alaska,” says Lincoln. “I knew that shing had the most deaths. And as an epidemiologist, I was looking for patterns related to those injuries. I come from a small town, and a lot of those values translate to the shing industry. I understand that the desire to do this work, shing, is generational, much like farming, and I wanted to look at this in ways that were relevant to shermen.”

Lincoln looked at more than just numbers. She analyzed injuries and fatalities as they related to sheries

Continued on page 42

By Nick Rahaim

Just when you think you know someone in the commercial shing industry, they’ll oor you with a backstory that seems straight out of a Hollywood movie. For Benjamin Platt, 59, Crescent City-based commercial sherman and president of the California Coast Crab Association, this backstory actually includes Hollywood.

A climate-related spike in reported whale entanglements in Dungeness crab gear put California crabbers in the crosshairs of governmental regulators and environmental organizations in 2015. Since that time, Platt has taken a lead role in pushing back against draconian demands of litigious NGOs while also getting shermen and women to change their practices on the water to mitigate potential e ects on migrating whales. He has also been an outspoken voice, giving interviews and penning opinion pieces that have been published in a variety of media outlets, including the San Francisco Chronicle.

Through this advocacy, Platt has become one of the most recognizable names in West Coast sheries. But few know he’s also an accomplished artist and musician who worked in Hollywood set design as a painter and was the bassist for the Bottom

Continued on page 44

Continued from page 36

she was friendly, interesting and different. She enjoyed fishing and being in Alaska, yet we could talk about any topic. There was something mysteriously attractive about all that,” says Gig Decker.

They finished the season together, harvesting salmon, then diving for cucumbers and urchins. After learning the cucumber and urchin dive fishery, the pair began working to set up the Southeast Alaska Regional Dive Fishery Association from their home port of Wrangell. In 1999, Decker became the association’s executive director, which garnered the experience of guiding an organization through early growing pains.

Since then, Decker has dedicated her onshore time to promoting the interests of fisheries stakeholders and fishing communities.

“Julie has always been dedicated to her family and community, and this shines through in her advocacy for Alaska’s fisheries and a bright vision for future generations and our coastal communities,” says longtime friend, commercial fisherman and Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute board member Tomi Marsh, of Ketchikan.

In 1999, the Deckers married on Valentine’s Day and welcomed their son, Sig, that year. Their daughter, Helen, was born in 2001.

In 2006, Decker joined the staff of Wrangell Seafoods, which was formed to take over the local seafood plant in the hopes of retaining the community’s vital processing capacity. The hurdles proved to be too high for an independent, fledgling company, and Trident Seafoods purchased the operation in 2009-10.

Soon thereafter, Decker served on the board of the nonprofit Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation. She was hired as the development director in 2011 and became executive director in 2014, a position she still holds.

“Julie sees the larger picture in the many hats she wears, not only in the benefits for industry and the environment, but the socioeconomic benefits for coastal Alaska communities,” says Riley Smith, deputy director of the foundation. “She really cares about people, relationships and family, and it really shows.”

The foundation has been integral to the evolution of the seafood industry through research and development since its founding in 1978, including the Alaska Mariculture Initiative in 2013.

Under Decker’s leadership, that initiative led to the creation of the Alaska Mariculture Task Force by then-Gov. Bill Walker in 2016. Decker became the chairwoman of the task force in 2017. Their work produced the Alaska Mariculture Development Plan, which projects a $100 million-dollar Alaska industry in the next 20 years.

“One of her greatest strengths that I’ve observed is her ability to bring the right people together to address common needs and move forward shared visions,” says Jeremy Woodrow, executive director of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute. “Whether she is at the head of the table or not, she’s always a leader in the room. Our industry needs more people like Julie who are always looking to improve what we have and not settle for just ‘good enough.’”

The Deckers have carried on the traditions of a fishing family in Southeast Alaska. Their kids grew up on the family boat, F/V McCrea, fishing in the summers. Sig attended the University of Southern California, and Helen went to the University of California at San Diego.

In the summer of 2020, both Sig, 21, and Helen, 19, were seining on the F/V Vigilant with family friends. On a stop-off in Petersburg, they and two other crew members died in a car accident on the island. The other passengers were Ian Martin, 29, of Petersburg, and Dennis Lord, 37, of Elmira Heights, N.Y., who were fishing on the seiner Magnus Martens.

The news rippled through the industry, causing an outpouring of support. In a summer studded with pandemic-related fears and coronavirus precautions onboard, a tragedy like this seemed almost unimaginable.

“Julie and Gig will always be the most amazing parents,” says Marsh. “They would come to my boat, passing Sig and Helen over the rail. The deaths of Helen and Sig are painful, but the support of community from all over exemplifies how much good work and respect Julie has built over the years and that these values of family and community that Julie and Gig hold dear are real and long-lasting.”

The accident propelled an existing plan for the Wrangell Mariners’ Memorial. Naturally, the Decker family had already been leading the way on arranging funding, planning and siting for the project, with Gig Decker serving on the board since 2017.

Everyone in the industry knows Julie Decker, but not because she’s self-promoting. In fact, it’s the opposite. She is tirelessly committed to promoting the work and ingenuity of those around her.

Helen Decker; Nina Schlossman of Global Food & Nutrition; Julie Decker; Sen. Lisa Murkowski; and seafood marketing consultant Pat Shanahan at the 2018 NOAA Fish Fry in Washington, D.C. With the kids seining on the F/V Vigilant for the season, the family gathered during a break between commercial openers. Gig, Helen, Sig and Julie Decker posed for a family snap in Wrangell on Father’s Day 2020.

Julie presents Keith “Corky” Singleton and Alaska Leader Seafoods with an Alaska Symphony of Seafood award at Pacifi c Marine Expo in 2019.

“Julie is also the most gracious host and friend, she is always thinking of others, not in a self-serving way but because she likes people and their quirks,” says Marsh. “She can see connections and potential, and links people together because she knows they have common goals or will just enjoy each other. The table at Julie and Gig’s is always open with good food, drink, conversation, and laughter.”

Decker’s natural penchant for bringing people together in collaboration has bene ted the industry as a whole.

“Julie Decker is a constant source of support and advocacy for Alaska’s seafood industry and our story of sustainability,” says Julianne Curry, Public A airs manager for OBI Seafoods.

Through the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation, she took the reins of the Alaska Symphony of Seafood, which celebrates innovation in product development from Alaska’s commercial sheries. Under her guidance, the annual competition has focused global attention on Alaska, seafood products, and innovation, including the introduction of a

Julie and Gig Decker met gillnetting for salmon. They raised their kids on the boat, fi shing together in the summers.

new category called Beyond the Plate, promoting utilization of byproducts, which provides more value from the resource.

“We are incredibly lucky to have Julie opening new doors for seafood product development to expand beyond traditional markets for Alaska seafood,” Curry says. “I’m incredibly grateful for all she has done to increase the value of Alaska seafood.”

And the admiration is mutual.

“I am grateful to know and work with incredible people, in a wholesome industry that deserves to be celebrated, not only for the superior food it supplies to the world, but also the embodiment of traditional values of family, hard work, responsibility to one another, and prudence for the environment,” says Decker. “The evolution of the seafood industry to integrate new opportunities in ways that bene t us all is the next challenge that I look forward to.”

Jessica Hathaway is the editor of National Fisherman.

Continued from page 37

for fishing communities and advocates working to save lives off their own coasts.

That started when one of AMSEA’s safety instructor courses attracted someone from the NMFS observer office in Seattle, Dzugan recalled.

“I realized this is not just an Alaska thing,” he said. “This need exists everywhere.” Now AMSEA instructor training sessions routinely bring in students from other states, “and then people started coming from other countries,” said Dzugan.

When Congress worked on the 1988 Fishing Vessel Safety Act, Dzugan was tapped to be an adviser. With other advocates, he argued that mandatory safety training was needed. But there was heavy resistance in the industry, and Dzugan saw one reason why.

“I realized they were shooting it down because they had no access” to training programs and resources, he recalled. “We realized we need to bring everyone in.”

As AMSEA’s training programs and reputation grew, its influence spread to other coasts. After a disastrous January 1999 when four East Coast sea clamming vessels sank and took 10 lives in 13 days, the knowledge and experience of AMSEA was one of the first resources the industry and Coast Guard reached for.

The Coast Guard convened its Commercial Fishing Vessel Safety Task Force, drawing on government, industry and safety consultants from around the U.S. coasts. The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, which pioneered the nation’s first individual transferable quota management system — in part to improve the surf clam fishery’s bad safety record in the 1980s — questioned if the system was safe enough.

A safety surge ensued: More training and emergency drills for fishermen, Coast Guard vessel safety examiners walking the docks, new emphasis on properly maintaining life rafts, survival suits and emergency position locating beacons.

The pandemic forced cutbacks in the instructor training schedule, but “when

Alaska Marine Safety Education Association

There is more widespread acceptance of the need to spend time and money on safety equipment and training, but training sessions show there is still a strong need for education.

we’re up and running, we do about 100 classes a year,” said Dzugan. Average class size now is around five, down from 10, apof new crew coming up,” Dzugan noted. Now, with disruption from covid-19 and economic conditions, the industry is re-

— Jerry Dzugan, ALASKA MARINE SAFETY EDUCATION ASSOCIATION

parently a function of both saturation — some 18,000 in Alaska have been trained — and fewer people in the industry.

“In the 1980s and ’90s there were a lot

Alaska Marine Safety Education Association porting problems recruiting, he added.

On the positive side, “there seems to be more of a safety culture among younger people,” said Dzugan. “They like it (training) because it’s hands-on and a group activity.”

During a National Transportation Safety Board online roundtable discussion on fishing safety Oct. 14, 2021, Dzugan talked about the other, long-term positive changes he’s seen.

“There has been a sea change in the attitude of fishermen compared to 30 or 40 years ago when I started fishing,” Dzugan told the group. “It has not been a revolution.”

There is greater acceptance of the need to spend money and time on equipment and training, but training sessions show there is still a strong need for education, he said.

Fishermen “score about 60 percent before the test on simple basic items” about safety knowledge, Dzugan said. “So

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there’s something like a 30 percent basic shortfall.” After training and nal testing, scores come up to 90 percent and better, he added.

“Jerry, we’re in a at spot when it comes to reducing” vessel casualties, said Morgan Turrell director of NTSB’s O ce of Marine Safety.

Dzugan responded that the Coast Guard should use more of its existing authority for checking vessels. He said one good example had been new e orts in Alaska to check and weigh crab pots — which is showing the gear often is heavier than expected, with all the implications for vessel stability.

It has been more than 40 years since Jerry Dzugan is a constant presence at Pacifi c Marine Expo’s conference sessions in Seattle, including Dzugan left the classroom, to now advis- this safety session in 2019. ing federal safety agencies. Even at the start, there was a shing connection.

Back in Chicago in 1979, Dzugan had told his department chairman, Earl Je rey, of the decision to move north. Dzugan was astonished when Je rey told him Sitka was a good place. Je rey had worked in Alaska, shing during his college years, and gave him the name of a Native Alaskan captain, Moe Johnson, he had shed with and knew well.

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motorcycle, “my prized possession,” arrived in Sitka. Soon he was making connections, walking the docks, and then shing. The rst sherman he met was Moe Johnson.

Years later AMSEA was holding threeday kids’ shing safety workshops for teachers from Native villages, when Dzugan got a call from a teacher on Prince of Wales Island asking about the program. He asked the man’s name.

“It’s Earl Je rey,” the teacher said.

“Wow, that’s such a coincidence, that was my former department chairman in Chicago.”

“I know. I’m his son… I know all about you.”

The younger Je rey told Dzugan how his father had gone right to work in the Chicago school system after college to support his family, “and his dream was always to be in Alaska.”

“I said, ‘You’re living your father’s dream.’”

“Exactly.”

And now, Dzugan added, “his father comes up every year.” Kirk Moore is the associate editor for National Fisherman.

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and vessel types, so that solutions could be tailored to the realities of how vessels and crew work.

“I don’t believe in one size ts all,” she says. “I didn’t know shing, but I knew how to listen. It struck me when I went to a meeting of researchers and shermen, and there were people there who wanted to focus on dermatitis and crab asthma. I said this is an industry where almost everyone knows someone who has died in the last three years. We have to talk about what matters. If you’re talking to crabbers, you talk stability. If you’re talking to Bristol Bay gillnetters, you talk about man-overboard and how not to get tangled up in the gear.” Lincoln notes that while everyone hears about the major sinkings like the Destination or the Scandies Rose, crew members who fall overboard or su er career-ending injuries don’t always make the news.

“We need to move down the scale of severity and talk about the important things at the right time,” says Lincoln. “For example, I went to a meeting of the Fishing Vessel Advisory Committee, which advises the Coast Guard on safety regulations, and there was a guy there, Jimmy Ruhle, from North Carolina, and he was really mad. We were talking about PFD research and he said, ‘Why don’t you give these life jackets to us, and let us tell you what we think?’”

Lincoln listened to Ruhle (also an NF Highliner), and combined her statistical research with what shermen tell researchers about what will work for a crewman on deck. In addition to Alaska, Lincoln now works nationally, and her work inspired another pilot project to prevent man-overboard incidents in the Northeast lobster shery, called Lifejackets for Lobstermen.

“One of the great things that came out of that PFD research was that a company

NF File Photo

Capt. Jennifer Lincoln speaking at Coast Guard Capt. Chris Woodley’s retirement and testifying during the NTSB Scandies Rose hearings.

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called Kent Safety Products came up with a vest, called the Rogue Vest, based on the information NIOSH collected from shermen,” she says, adding that she would rather see vessel owners require life vests that work for their vessels and sheries than see a life jacket mandate at the federal level.

She has also voiced concerned with how regulations can contribute to vessel loss, noting that some boats may take excessive risks to establish catch history prior to a shery being rationalized, or managed through individual shing quotas.

“It might be useful to have someone knowledgeable at the table when regulators are making the rules,” she says.

In addition to her work in Alaska and in other parts of the country, Lincoln is also recognized internationally. She has served on an Expert Consultation to the FAO on how sheries management a ects safety. She is also leads the organization of the International Fishing Industry Safety and Health Conference (IFISH).

While many shermen appreciate Lincoln’s work, she’s no stranger to industry pushback.

“I was at a trade show and a sherman got mad at me because I suggested requiring safety training,” she recalls. “I can statistically demonstrate a decline in injuries from safety training. So he and I talked, and in the end he agreed that a free, eighthour safety training course was something he wanted.”

She notes that safety training should also be refreshed.

“If you took a course in the 1990s, you should update that, because technology and methods change.”

While shing remains a dangerous occupation, NIOSH statistics show a general decline in fatalities and injuries. Lincoln has earned her recognition by being part of that positive change, and she is quick to point out that one of the key factors is that shermen’s attitudes toward safety are changing.

“I was talking to an older sherman in Alaska,” says Lincoln. “And he thought it was because his generation of shermen got older, they started families and they became more concerned with safety.”

However we came to be here in the midst of changing attitudes about safety, we’re lucky to have leaders like Lincoln who support the industry with compassion for the people who are out there on the boats in all kinds of weather.

Jennifer and her colleague Ted Teske walking the docks in Dutch Harbor enrolling participants in the NIOSH PFD study.

Paul Molyneaux is the Boats & Gear editor for National Fisherman and the author of “The Doryman’s Re ection.”

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Continued from page 37

Feeders, a notable band in the 1990s Los Angeles punk rock scene. But the excesses of the rock n’ roll lifestyle left him homeless on the streets of LA with a drug and alcohol addiction. A near-fatal stab wound in 1997 left him temporarily disabled, but also put him on the path to recovery and a second chance at life.

“I’m often reluctant to publicly talk about the depths of my addiction and my time living on the streets,” Platt says. “But I got lucky. I got a second chance. We all know people struggling with addiction in this industry. So if even just one person sees there is hope from my story and gets the help they need, then it’s worth it.”

Newly sober, Platt was fishing out of a plastic kayak for live rock cod. Fast forward two decades, he now owns the 58-foot F/V Miss Heidi and fishes for Dungeness crab in California, Oregon and Washington; salmon in California and Oregon; pink shrimp in Oregon; and albacore tuna wherever the schools might take him.

Platt spent his early years in Claremont, Calif., where his father, Buzz Platt, coached water sports at the Claremont Colleges, even having some swimmers make Olympic teams, Platt says. His father was also a veteran of the Korean War, but in the politically divided times of the 1960s, he took the side of students protesting the Vietnam War and was fired in 1969. He moved his family north to Point Arena, where he took up sheep herding, carpentry, and other odd jobs before settling on commercial fishing the following year.

Platt began learning the trade salmon trolling with his father in 1971 when he was 9 years old. As he grew, he spent more time on boats and in different fisheries. When his senior year of high school came around, he stopped going to classes altogether to fish Dungeness crab on the California coast. He did end up graduating through continuation classes and was accepted to Humboldt State University where he studied art for four years, but kept fishing to support himself through college.

“I wanted to be a comic book artist, but instead I became a sign painter,” he says with a chuckle.

Platt started a sign painting business in Eureka in 1985. This was before digital design and high-quality screen printing took over, so business was good. But in 1988, at 26 years old, he aspired to be a rock star and moved to Los Angeles to pursue the dream.

He formed the Bottom Feeders with three others and took the stage name “Ben Halen.” The group got signed by a record label, cut albums, and took their irreverent punk rock on tour through the United States with Platt on the bass. But they remained underground and couldn’t live off their music alone.

After another stint sign painting, Platt landed a job as a scene and sketch artist in the film industry, working on mostly music videos and commercials. Over the years, he was an artist working on sets of some of

the 1990s top musicians, including Michael Jackson, Lenny Kravitz, Rod Stewart and Paula Abdul, he says. He even traveled to Martha Stewart’s Connecticut home to install a mural of the Venus de Milo on the bottom of her pool. He also worked on the sets of commercials that appeared during the Super Bowl.

There was a dark side to the glamor of being a punk rocker in Hollywood. After years of maintaining work even with his excesses, his drinking and drug use got out of control. He would find himself out of work, and soon after out of the band in 1997. For nearly a year he lived on the streets of LA, in and out of jail, always looking for the next high. But one night a fight broke out in the alley where he was living, and Platt was stabbed through his back left shoulder and left arm, severing a main artery, he says. Typically, no one called 911 in those situations, with most wanting to avoid police at all costs.

“I thought I was going to die. I thought I was going to bleed out right there,” he says. But someone on the street made the emergency call and stuck around. Paramedics were able to get him to the hospital for live saving-treatment.

When he was healthy enough to be discharged, Platt was checked into a drug rehabilitation center in Mendocino County near his family.

“LA just about killed me. I had to get the hell out of there,” he says. The stabbing also caused nerve damage, rendering him unable to play bass. But as he recovered from his wounds and addiction, he was able to get day passes to leave rehab and go fishing with his dad. He still had limited use of his left hand, but the fine motor skills needed to bait hooks and run fishing gear acted as physical therapy and allowed him to slowly regain his strength and dexterity.

“Fishing really helped me,” he says.

Shortly after Platt was released from rehab, his father got sick and died suddenly in 1998. He was able to avoid falling back to drugs and alcohol through this time of grief. He took over his father’s 16-foot aluminum skiff to fish live rock cod out of Fort Bragg, but that sank after it took on water getting too close to a reef in a large winter swell. So, he started commercial fishing out of a kayak for almost a year before upgrading to a Boston Whaler. In 1999, he upgraded to a fiberglass salmon troller and started entering new fisheries.

For the next decade he would fish hard, save, and invest his income into larger boats and fishing permits, expanding his business. He purchased the F/V Sea Star, a 47-foot wood boat, in 2010. Then he bought the 50-foot Seeadler in 2018 but continued to fish the Sea Star until the new boat came out of the Fashion Blacksmith boatyard at 58 feet long and 24 feet

— Ben Platt, F/V MISS HEIDI

Platt bought the 50-foot Seeadler, then had her lengthened, sponsoned to 58' x 24' and renamed at Fashion Blacksmith in Crescent City, Calif.

in beam in the fall of 2019, renamed the Miss Heidi. It’s the last boat he’ll own, he says.

Through the years of building his operation, he also moved around the California coast, from Fort Bragg to Half Moon Bay in 2011, then to Bodega Bay in 2015, having bought a house inland near Santa Rosa. When the Miss Heidi was launched, Platt and his wife, Heidi, made another move to Crescent City, where they are now based.

And while he bounced around fi shing ports, he still maintained a growing presence in fi sheries politics. When his father passed, Buzz Platt was the president of the Salmon Trollers Marketing Association of Fort Bragg and was its representative at Pacifi c Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. He was also a member of the Pacifi c Fishery Management Council groundfi sh advisory panel. Ben Platt said it was through his father that he learned the value of being engaged in fi sheries management and advocating for the interests of fi shermen.

In 2006, Platt fi rst took a leadership role, acting as the spokesman for the Salmon Trollers Marketing Association of Fort Bragg in a lawsuit they attempted to bring against the federal government for diverting Klamath River water to farmers and ranchers, resulting in mass salmon die-off s. Those die-off s resulted in a complete closure for one season and heavy restriction for two, he says. From that time, he became active with PCFFA, staying involved in a variety of West Coast fi sheries.

When the Dungeness crab fi shery started making headlines for whale entanglement, Platt became one of the most outspoken defenders of California crabbers, and was critical of the legal settlement agreed to by the Center for Biological Diversity, California Fish and Wildlife, and PCFFA. Seeing the need for an organization run by crabbers and for crabbers, Platt was among a group of fi shermen who launched the California Coast Crab Association in 2019 to advocate full time for the fi shery. In his current leadership role, Platt has led the charge to inform the public that crabbers do not pose a threat to recovering whale populations. He

Platt started commercial fi shing from a skiff and a kayak. Today, he runs the 58-foot Miss Heidi, named for his wife.

also helped launch a coastwide lost-gear clean-up at the end of the fi shing season.

“If we can’t save Dungeness crab, the whole of our fi sheries won’t survive,” he says, referring to the economic clout Dungeness crab has in northern California. Platt witnessed the fall of timber and groundfi sh and saw how the industrial loss led to economic decay and social plight in small coastal communities. “I can’t bear to see that again,” he says.

While he’s pushing 60, Platt doesn’t see himself slowing down anytime soon, there’s still many fi sh to catch, battles to be fought, and bridges to be built.

Nick Rahaim is a writer and commercial sherman based in Monterey, Calif. Check out his website, outside-in.org, and follow him on Twitter and Instagram @nrahaim.

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346

Peoples Bank 1221

Performance Contracting Inc 750 Petro Marine Services 709 Platypus Marine, Inc. Port of Bellingham Port of Newport Port of Port Angeles Port of Seattle 501

530

2600

Port of Toledo 501

Port Townsend Shipwrights Co-op 538 PPG Protective & Marine Coatings 534 Propspeed 930 Propulsion Systems, Inc. 1206 PTLX Global 1221

Puget Buoy Puget Sound Coatings Pump Industries Inc PYI Inc. 1158

904

1106

807

R.W. Fernstrum & Company 1306 Radar Marine Electronics Inc 314

RAIN

MacGregor USA Inc. Rasmussen Equipment Co Wire Rope and Rigging Ravn Alaska

Raymarine Inc REDE Rescue Systems LLC RESOLVE Marine Group Rhotheta International Inc. 1168

939

441

444

1245

506

4315

603

Rice Lake Weighing Systems 4233 RINA 947

Roxtec

Rugged Seas LLC Rutter Inc. 2605

442

749

Ryco S3 Maritime LLC. 511

1449

Safeguard Technology SafetyNet Technologies Ltd Samson Tug & Barge 812

727

4319

Schae er’s Specialized Lubricants 1450 Schottel Inc 1211

Scurlock Electric LLC 620

Sea-Mountain Insurance

Seatronx 653

1128

Seattle Fishermen’s Memorial 549

Seattle Marine & Fishing Supply Co 315 Seattle Tarp, Inc. 427 Port of Seward 4217

Sherwin-Williams 610

Ship Electronics Inc ShipConstructor USA Inc 949

1010

Ships Machinery International Inc 724 Simplex Americas LLC 515 Simrad - Navico 508

Sinex Solutions 811

SI-TEX Marine/Koden Electronics 1132 Slumber Ease Mattress Factory 521 Snow & Company 401 Sound Propeller Services 638 Southern Coast Fisheries 913

Spar Power Technologies 1162

Spears Manufacturing Company 527 Spencer Fluid Power 1234 Spurs Marine Manufacturing Inc 1139 Stabbert Marine & Industrial LLC 805 Strapack Strongback Metal Boats StrongTree Products Sure Marine Service Inc 1200

Suspension Systems Technologies 1166 Tacoma Diesel and Equipment Inc 1426 Technical Marine & Industrial 431

Tech-Roll 514

FLIR Systems Inc. The Conservation Fund 1245

4229

The Mary Conlin Company Inc 448 Thoma-Sea Marine Constructors LLC 1204

Thorp Equipment Inc Thrustmaster of Texas Inc 1009

Thundercat Marketing Thundercat Marketing Thyboron Trawldoor Titan Fittings Torqeedo Training Resources Limited Maritime Institute 1107

Transport Products and Service Enterprises, Inc. TriCab USA

TRIM-LOK, INC. TWG Tulsa Winch - LANTEC and Pullmaster Brands 1213

Twin Disc Inc. 1215

U.S. Navy 4115

University of Alaska Southeast 4127 United Fishermen of Alaska 4125

United Tribes of Bristol Bay 4325 USCG Recruiting O ce SEATAC 251 Seaspan Shipyards 907 Vision X Lighting 621 Mar Wear 911

W&O Supply 1001

Wager Company 234

Washington Machine Works 229 Washington Maritime Blue 2500 Washington Sea Grant 504 Washington Trollers Association 328 WCT Marine & Construction, Inc. 842 WEG Electric Corp. 1008 WESMAR - Western Marine Electronics 931

West Coast Insulation

West Coast Waterjet Western Group (The) Western Mariner Magazine Western Maritime Inc 1449

1449

1152

Whistle Workwear 3005

Whittier Seafood 4225

Wiehle Industries 729

Wilkes & McLean, Ltd 350

Wilson Rogers & Associates 1172 Wingate Marine LLC 1131 Woods Hole Group 1243 Wooster Products Inc 409

Work Wear, Inc Wrangell Port & Harbors XTRATUF 1221

4314

ZF Marine 1021

By Paul Molyneaux

n every fishery and on every boat, captains have some electronics that are their go-to for making a safe and profitable trip. Owen Smith had a close call with his 80-foot scallop boat Relentless late this past summer. He managed to keep his electronics safe, including his favorites.

Heading out for an 11-day trip on Aug. 29, a saltwater intake line broke and quickly flooded the engine room. Luckily he was only four miles out from Barnegat Light, N.J., and managed to get the boat back to his dock, where he beached her with no major losses.

“I have two Olex bottom builders,” says Smith. “Down here it doesn’t matter so much. But in New England, where you have rocky bottom, up in the Nantucket area you’ve got sand dunes, and up in the channel you’ve got all that crazy stuff on the bottom, the

Owen Smith relies on a suite of electronics, particularly his two Olex bottom builders, to keep the Relentless on the scallops and out of the rock piles.

The Olex bottom builder is something Smith doesn’t like to be without, and that’s why he has two. He has one connected to a Furuno GPS, the other to a Northstar GPS. “One is 12volt, the other is 24-volt,” Smith says. “We’re doing the redundancy thing, so if we lose one, we still have the other.”

Smith also likes to have two systems because he has noticed that position coordinates of wrecks and other hangs can vary, depending on the GPS.

“There’s something about their internal calculations,” he says. “If somebody gives you numbers for a wreck and they’re using a Furuno system,

When scalloping on hard bottom, Owen Smith runs two Olex bottom builder machines, this one with a windplot and Furuno Navnet 3 overlay.

The scalloper Relentless has seen many electronics upgrades in her 43 years fishing out of Barnegat Light, N.J.

— Owen Smith, F/V RELENTLESS

those numbers might be dead on if you have a Furuno system, too. But if you’re using the Northstar set-up, you might be off as much as a quarter mile.” Smith keeps both Olex systems running all the time, reading soundings from a Furuno 293 sounder and another transducer that is connected to his Furuno Navnet 3.

“We really like them, when you find a little hole or a neat looking little groove you can say, oh they’re hiding there. I remember a couple of times in that Nantucket area, you can sneak in

Jake Smith Owen Smith

Owen Smith loves that the Olex has the ability to roll into 3-D so he can maneuver through rockpiles like these near Nantucket. and find places where there’s a lot of scallops.”

Smith actually picked up on the bottom mapping idea from a 2002 NF article, when the Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, scallopers were pioneering the technology. Almost 20 years later, few scallop boats are without a bottom building system.

For Ronald Dufrene, who fishes his 103-foot shrimp boat Mister Jug out of Lafitte, La., the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico offers little in the way of topography, but plenty of obstacles in the form of wrecks and decommissioned oil rigs turned into reefs.

“We like our Furuno split-beam color sounder,” Dufrene says of his Furuno FCV 295 sounder. “It’s got 200 and 50 kc. We have P-Sea WindPlot for navigation, two Furuno radars. I got a Lowrance side-scan sonar. It’s actually made for a bass boat. I’d like to get a bigger one. StructureScan, it’s called. It shows a lot of stuff on the bottom.” Dufrene makes two-week trips that take him, and his crew of three or four, all over the gulf, and he has a satellite phone and satellite TV. “Can’t do without that Direct TV when we’re gone from home so long,” he says.

Dufrene, whose little community was swamped by Hurricane Ida in early September, helped his father build the Mister Jug in 1980 and has fished the boat since then. He knows the bottom and could probably fish blind.

“After 42 years, you could point at a spot on the map, and I could tell you the depth of the water,” he says.

The two devices Dufrene really counts on are his P-Sea WindPlot for keeping him off the wrecks and rigs to reefs, and his split beam sounder.

“The sounder actually sees activity on bottom,” he says. “If we see some activity, we’ll slow down and make a little sample try with a small net.” Dufrene catches mostly white shrimp and brown shrimp, landing anywhere from 40,000 to 60,000 pounds per trip.

Since 2015, Dufrene has been required to have AIS on his vessel and he

For more than 40 years, Ronald Dufrene has fi shed the 103-foot Mister Jug, which he helped his father build in 1980. Dufrene uses a Lowrance StructureScan to avoid wrecks and old oil rigs, fi shing out of Lafi tte, La. Dufrene with his grandson in the wheelhouse of the Mister Jug, Dufrene’s two boys went shrimping with him when they were young.

is not too happy about it.

While Gulf of Mexico hurricanes pile a lot of bad weather into a single punch, in the Bering Sea the challenges are ampli ed by foul weather so frequent people just have to get used to shing in it. TJ Durnan runs the Alaska Spirit for O’Hara Corp., and his wheelhouse has a suite of electronics that would rival a NASA rocket.

“It will look like that when it’s done,”

— Owen Smith, F/V RELENTLESS says Durnan. “You know the history of the Alaska Spirit, right?” The O’Hara Corp. bought the 230-foot, 47-year old dragger in 2017 and has been upgrading the vessel every year.

“The wheelhouse is next,” says Durnan. “But right now she’s still that 1960s style, and everything is sort of patched together.” While the con guration awaits a modern wheelhouse, Durnan has all the electronics he needs to nd sh and avoid bycatch.

“It’s a pretty standard trawl complement, really,” says Durnan. “The heart of it, obviously, is the sh nders. Our primary sounder is a Simrad ES80, that’s a split beam. It’ll do a biomass calculation for you, but for most of what we sh for, which is sole, they are not very sounder friendly.” According to Durnan, the at sh that he mostly targets lack swim bladders and are close to bottom.

“Even at 1.28 milliseconds, you still have like a 4-inch dead zone, so two sh or even three can mark as one sh. So what you see as a 42-centimeter sh could be two 30-centimeter sh overlapping. It’s really most accurate when we are targeting Paci c ocean perch, or Atka mackerel. But I rely on that one more than any other.” Durnan’s ES80 can send pulses between 200 and 50 kHz, or lower, and he monitors each frequency on its own screen.

— TJ Durnan, F/V ALASKA SPIRIT

While he has pretty much gotten skilled in analyzing what he’s seeing, Durnan admits he has gotten fooled.

“The big boner in the Bering Sea is getting a big bag of Pacific ocean perch instead of pollock, because that comes off the directed fishery quota. I was thinking, who can’t tell the difference between pollock and POP, but then I went out and did the same damn thing, because they’ll present almost the same as pollock. But you know, for the most part, we have a good idea what we’re looking at.”

A few other machines vital for catching fish and reducing bycatch are the Alaska Spirit’s net monitoring and bottom building systems. On the net monitoring, Durnan has been working

When he skippered the Constellation, TJ Durnan used SmartCach video cameras to reduce bycatch. TJ Durnan brought the SmartCatch video system from the O’Hara boat Constellation to the company’s Alaska Spirit when he took over running her.

with a California company called, SmartCatch, which makes a video monitoring system that can help reduce bycatch.

“We were the first to implement that in Alaska, on the Constellation,” says, Durnan, who ran O’Hara’s Constellation prior to taking over the Alaska Spirit. “I brought all that equipment with me to the Alaska Spirit. It’s amazing what the video will show you compared to the acoustic net monitor. That’s the big promising thing down the road for bycatch reduction.”

In addition, Durnan works some hard-bottom areas in the Gulf of Alaska and the Aleutians, and uses a couple of bottom building programs.

“Our main system is the ECC Globe System,” says Durnan. ECC, the Electric Chart Company, sells bathymetric charts and the Globe terrain building systems. In addition, Durnan has an Olex bottom building system for backup.

On the crew comfort side, the Alaska Spirit has satellite internet that its 50-person crew can access at various times of day.

There is still a world, and captains all around the U.S. coasts are using their preferred tools to catch the fish that feed it.

O’Hara Corp.

Durnan now runs the Alaska Spirit, and is looking forward to a comprehensive electronics setup in the new wheelhouse. Paul Molyneaux is the Boats & Gear editor for National Fisherman and author of “The Doryman’s Reflection.”