North Pacific Focus 2015 Winter Edition

WINTER EDITION 2015

Presented by

OUR TOWN: KODIAK

EMERALD

ISLE FILE

BOATBUILDING \ SKIFFS A FAMILY SET FOR LIFE THE LONG HAUL \ KINGS SALMON AND SENSIBILITY

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Cheryl ess

WINTER 2015

sierra Golden

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FEATURES COLUMNS

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INCREDIBLE SHRINKING RADAR

COMFORT ZONE NIOSH works for you.

16 ON THE HORIZON Beware building pitfalls.

Charlie ess

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DEPARTMENTS 2 PILOTHOUSE LOG 4 INDUSTRY WAYPOINTS 6 TIDINGS 7 CALENDAR 8 SEASON FORECASTS 10 OUR TOWN 34 FO’C’SLE LIBRARY ALSO

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Radars have gotten smaller, lighter and more powerful, but with improved clarity.

26 GAME, SETNET, MATCH A pair of Alaska salmon fishermen build fiberglass skiffs and a life together.

ON THE HOMEFRONT Fishing folks gather online.

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Highlights from the nation’s largest commercial fishing trade show.

YOUNGBLOODS Canadian mines pose threat.

21 MAKING THE RULES Discharge fight must go on.

DO YOU KNOW EXPO?

33 AT THE HELM After 25 years in Dutch Harbor, Tom Enlow takes the reins at UniSea.

22 THE LONG HAUL King salmon need our help.

Cover: The trawler Elizabeth F in Kodiak, Alaska.

Cheryl Ess photo

AD INDEX IN FOCUS

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PILOTHOUSE LOG

ROYAL FAMILY S

pring salmon projections are drifting in, not unlike the snow outside that’s ambling out of a pearly bank of clouds, covering the tops of 3-foot drifts with a fresh coat.

Yes, it can be hard to think about spring runs in a winter wonderland. And some days it can be hard to think of anything else. That’s when you know you’re getting close. At the head of the season, the kings pave the path for the runs to come. Emilie Springer’s essay on page 22 about the future of king salmon reminds us that the stakeholders in the battle over diminishing chinook returns would fare best if they could start to think along the lines of consensus. Muddling the debate are arbitrary and dubious attacks on gear types, like the setnetters in Upper Cook Inlet have been facing again over the last year.

But there are bright spots, even in the dark of winter. The experimental pollock seine fshery in Kachemak Bay being one of them. It’s the second of its kind, the frst having taken place last year in Kodiak with the mission of testing inshore waters for a state-managed pollock fshery. Seining also allows bycatch kings to be released alive. But let’s not count out the prevailing fshing methods just yet. The captains and crews of Bering Sea pollock trawlers are using more sophisticated methods to avoid bycatch, like Simrad’s FX80 trawl sonar and camera that provides real-time video of your haul. If you see a load of kings, you can release them while the net’s still in the water. Wesmar’s BioLight lures salmon out of a hole in the trawl net by mimicking jellyfsh, a delicacy among kings.

The Bering Sea is not only full of fsh, it’s also flling

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

up with new, more efcient boats. On page 16, columnist and attorney Mark Scheer warns of the pitfalls of JESSICA HATHAWAY fnancing and building Editor in chief a new boat. Before you set out to source the cleanest gear and a top-tier engine, make sure you’re keeping the path to fsh permits clear.

Fishing cleaner has long been our mission, and keeping fshing in the family is an age-old tradition. On page 26 North Pacifc Bureau Chief Charlie Ess tells the story of falling in love with a woman and her boat and the evolution of a family skif. Sierra Golden’s Youngbloods column on page 20 urges us all to sign a petition to secure future salmon runs for the generations to come.

Finally, we come around to our own family. Check out an excerpt and review of John Pappenheimer’s new novel “Fast Hands” on page 34. For those who may not remember, Pappenheimer founded Alaska Fisherman’s Journal, the predecessor to this quarterly. Look for more stories from the good ole days in our next edition of the Pilothouse Guide, coming your way soon!

www.divbusiness.com

Jerry Fraser Jessica Hathaway G. Lincoln Bedrosian Michael S. Crowley Laura Lee Dobson Leslie Taylor

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North Pacifc Focus, Winter 2015, Vol. 1, 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.

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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

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

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The Alaska Marine Safety Education Association took to the road this winter to offer workshops for fshing vessel safety programs outside the state. Group members headed frst to Vancouver, British Columbia, at the end of January to teach methods of instruction and risk-assessment workshops for trainers and advisers with Fish Safe BC. The Fish Safe program, designed by fshermen for fshermen, strives to promote ownership of safety aboard fshing vessels. AMSEA representatives then headed to Cleveland in February to deliver the group’s frst-ever drill-conductor class there for Great Lakes fshermen.

• Walmart expanded its oferings of wild Alaska seafood with the Alaskan, a 100 percent Alaska seafood brand supplied by Trident Seafoods, to the retail giant’s Alaska and Washington stores. Fourteen new items, featuring Alaska cod, salmon, rockfsh, sole and crab, debuted in Walmart’s Alaska

AlAskA MArine sAfety educAtion AssociAtion

INDUSTRY WAYPOINTS

Columbia River

AMSEA held vessel-safety workshops in Vancouver, British Columbia.

supercenters and 20 more stores in Washington in January. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who advocated the merits of carrying Alaska seafood at Walmart, says the announcement “is great news for Alaska, our seafood industry, and Walmart’s customers, who will get the opportunity to consume the best seafood out there.”

• An NFL championship wasn’t the only thing at stake when the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks squared of

in the 2015 Super Bowl. It turns out seafood was on the line, too. Washington Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell had a friendly bet with their Massachusetts colleagues, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey. The Washington lawmakers put up oysters from Taylor Shellfsh Farms in Shelton, Wash., and beer from Pike Brewing Co. in Seattle,

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while the Massachusetts senators ofered a clambake from Woodman’s in Essex, Mass., and Boston’s Samuel Adams beer. The game went down to the wire, but the Patriots’ victory meant oysters and beer would be bound for the Bay State.

• The Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association is partnering with the salmon documentary “The Breach” on the flm’s national tour to educate Americans about Bristol Bay’s sustainable sockeye fshery. Association representatives attended the Palm Springs International Film Festival in January and spoke at screenings of flmmaker Mark Titus’ documentary about why salmon runs have declined in the Pacifc Northwest. Audience members attending the three showings of the documentary received cans of Bristol Bay salmon provided by Vital Choice Wild Seafoods and Organics. The can’s label also includes a link that enables recipients to share the flm, which was named Best of Fest, with friends.

• In January, NMFS announced that it has approved the second round of fsheries disaster aid payments, totaling $12.9 million, for Alaskans afected by low salmon runs in 2012. Of that total, $7.5 million will be used largely for salmon disaster research and restoration in the YukonKuskokwim Delta and Kenai-Cook Inlet regions to determine the causes of the king salmon run failure and develop

equipment modifcations df i that h t could uld help prevent future failures. The Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region will receive $6.4 million, and the KenaiCook Inlet region gets the remaining $1.1 million. Direct payments to

Cook Inlet commercial salmon buyers afected by the low runs will total $700,000. The Pacifc States Marine Fisheries Commission will distribute the funds.

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TIDINGS

Bristol Bay Aleutian Islands

NEWS FROM THE WEST COAST & ALASKA

Juneau

Columbia River

Clackamas

Fishermen fght to stop Pacifc Seafood acquisition s January ended, U.S. District Court Judge Owen Penner denied Pacifc Seafood Group’s motion to dismiss Oregon fshermen’s lawsuit to prevent the Clackamas, Ore., processor from acquiring or gaining control of Ocean Gold Seafoods.

Pacifc Seafood announced that it was abandoning plans to acquire Ocean Gold but also fled to have the fshermen’s suit dismissed, arguing that the case was moot. Penner denied that motion and another one to eliminate a temporary restraining order requirement

that the company produce the Ocean Gold transaction documents.

The fshermen assert that the purchase would expand Pacifc Seafood’s monopoly over the groundfsh, whiting

Commissioner selection spurs fsh board shake-up

board. Walker appointed one of the commissioner candidates not interviewed, Roland Maw, executive director of the United Cook Inlet Drift Association, to fll the vacancy.

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am Cotten was named commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in January, but concerns about the candidate interview process for the post triggered a shake-up on the Alaska Board of Fisheries.

Cotten, a lifelong Alaskan, a state legislator for 16 years and former member of a variety of fshing-related boards, was named acting commissioner in December. He was one of several candidates vying for the permanent post but the only one the joint boards of fsh and game interviewed. That prompted House Speaker Mike Chenault (RNikiski) to write to Gov. Bill Walker requesting a review of the interview vetting process.

Walker subsequently expressed concerns about the process to Karl Johnstone, the fsh board chairman, and told Johnstone he would not be reappointed when his term expired in June.

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San Joaquin Delta

SuSan ChamberS

Oregon fshermen want Ocean Gold Seafoods to remain independent.

NOAA rejects bid to create Aleutians marine sanctuary

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n late January, NOAA rejected a proposal to establish an Aleutian Islands Marine Sanctuary that could have restricted fshing and inficted economic harm on the region’s fshing communities.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and several environmental groups submitted a nomination in December to create a 554,000-squaremile sanctuary. The Aleutians East Borough Assembly unanimously passed a resolution opposing it in early January.

“The NOAA national sanctuary nomination process clearly states that ‘every nomination starts at the community level’; however, the Aleutians East Borough is not currently aware of any

and coldwater shrimp markets.

“We want to get a court order that as a matter of antitrust law prohibits that acquisition,” said Portland, Ore., attorney Michael E. Haglund, representing the fshermen.

A preliminary injunction hearing was set for March 5.

local support from local regional communities, tribes or local groups for this nomination,” the resolution states.

NOAA agreed, noting in a letter to PEER that the group didn’t demonstrate support for the nomination from a breadth of community interests.

Richard Steiner, of PEER’s board of directors, said the organization is undeterred by the decision. “We cannot have

nOaa

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An Aleutian Islands sanctuary would have covered 554,000 square miles.

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a viable national marine conservation strategy that continues to ignore Alaska,” said Steiner, a retired University of Alaska professor of marine conservation.

Bill aims to shrink EPA ability to protect Bristol Bay fsh

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wo out-of-state senators introduced a bill in January that sockeye salmon proponents say would severely curtail the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to protect Alaska’s Bristol Bay from large-scale mining in the region.

Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and David Vitter (R-La.) are sponsors of S. 54, the Regulatory Fairness Act of 2015. It would alter Section 404(c) of the Clean Water Act by limiting the period durJoe Manchin ing which the EPA can restrict or prohibit fll activities for any proposals that would have unacceptable adverse effects on fshery areas.

David Vitter “This bill undermines strong science and the thorough public process that Alaskan fshermen

overwhelmingly support,” said Bristol Bay fsherman Katherine Carscallen, the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood development Association’s sustainability director.

Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd., the Pebble Mine project’s sole owner, is challenging in court whether the EPA has the authority to use 404(c).

Court of appeals upholds water rights for Calif. salmon

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he Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in December upheld a 2009 salmon biological opinion that determined that pumping San Joaquin Delta water to irrigate crops would harm salmon populations.

The appeals court, overturning a lower court decision, ruled that Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta water managers must limit the amount of water that can be diverted to other water rights holders south of the delta.

In his opinion Judge Richard Tallman wrote, “People need water, but so do fsh.”

The Golden Gate Salmon Association applauded the decision.

“The court ruling makes clear that it’s legal and right to limit the siphoning of northern California water because that

MARCH March 15 87th Annual Blessing of the Fleet Fishermen’s Terminal, Seattle (206) 787-3000 www.portseattle.org

March 17-20 Alaska Board of Fisheries Meeting Sheraton Anchorage Hotel & Spa 401 East 6th Ave. Anchorage, AK www.adfg.alaska.gov/index. cfm?adfg=fsheriesboard.main

March 21 Annual Blessing of the Fleet Newport Historic Bayfront Contact: Newport Fishermen’s Wives P.O. Box 971 Newport, OR 97365 (541) 574-5555 www.newportfshermenswives.com

water is needed by salmon and other wildlife,” said John McManus, the association’s executive director.

Washington harvesters pan Columbia salmon policy

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olumbia River salmon management policy that promotes recreational fshing over commercial harvests aren’t working, Washington fshermen told the state’s Fish and Wildlife Commission during a January public hearing.

The hearing was part of an annual review of Columbia River restrictions Oregon and Washington adopted in 2013.

Fish buyer Robert Sudar of Longview said the reforms, which include pushing gillnetters from the river’s main stem and allowing the use of previously prohibited seines, are misguided.

“There’s no conservation beneft from a gear switch. None of the things in the policy are holding up,” Sudar said.

Fisherman Vern Forsberg of Ridgefeld, Wash., who for four years has participated in experiments to see if seines are a viable alternative to gillnets, told the commission that seining would only be worthwhile during the peak of the season.

“Guys aren’t going to be out there. It won’t pay,” Forsberg said.

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APRIL 11-12 Bodega Bay Fisherman’s Festival Westside Park, Westshore Road Bodega Bay, CA info@bbfshfest.org www.bbfshfest.org

May 7-10 Vigor Seattle Maritime Festival Lake Union Park Seattle, WA (206) 448-7660 www.seattlepropellerclub.org

May 21-25 Kodiak Crab Festival Downtown Kodiak, Alaska Kodiak Chamber of Commerce 100 E. Marine Way Suite 300 Kodiak, AK 99615 (907) 486-5557 www.kodiak.org

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WINTER 2015 / NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS

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SEASON EA FORECASTS The 2015 Sitka herring quota is half 2014’s 16,333 tons.

Outlook: ALASKA Klas stolpe

Weak yen plays strong role in shaping 2015 forecast

BY CHARLIE ESS

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s the sun began its long summer arc that signifes the crescendo of commercial fshing in Alaska, herring, salmon, pollock, Pacifc cod, halibut and blackcod feets readied their gear for what they hope will be a lucrative year ahead.

Already in the preamble of their seasons, many fshermen were eyeing currency exchanges, primarily the Japanese yen to the dollar.The yen plays a big role in establishing the confdence of buyers and the ex-vessel prices they ofer for herring, blackcod and pollock surimi.

In 2012, exchange rates hovered at 81 yen to the dollar, giving Japanese buyers more buying power for U.S. products.

By April 2013 the yen had weakened to around 98 to the dollar, and last year the yen averaged around 102.

The devalued yen correlates with exvessel price drops for herring harvested at Sitka and Togiak. In Sitka, prices have fallen from $600 per ton in 2013 to $180 per ton last year. Togiak seine-caught herring has fetched $125 per ton in recent years, but the price fell to $50 per ton last year.

Still, buyers are interested in the 2015 herring fsheries, including Togiak, where this year’s quota has been raised to 20,309 tons for seiners and 8,704 tons for gillnetters.

“As far as participation, I haven’t heard any company say they wouldn’t buy,” says Tim Sands, an area management biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, in Dillingham.

In April Sitka herring seiners will fsh

HERRING

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BLACKCOD

on a 2015 quota of 8,712 tons.

The lowest quota seen in more than a decade, it’s about half of the 2014 ALASKA FISHERIES quota of 16,333 tons.

Blackcod is another yen-driven fshery. The total allowable catch and ex-vessel prices for blackcod both rose slightly in 2014. The TAC increased from 21.81 million pounds in 2013 to 23.67 million pounds last year.

Despite weakening exchange rates with Japan in the last couple of years, production levels have fallen with demand, and ex-vessel ofers climbed from highs of $5.25 for 7-ups in 2013 to $6.75 in 2014.

Moving blackcod inventories through Japan’s distribution chain can prove nothing short of dicey when you consider that a single 40-foot container load has been purchased at ex-vessel values of around $300,000. Add to that shipping, cold storage holdings and other fees, and confdence begins to wane in dockside ofers.

“Sablefsh supply will be similar to 2014 with a very small increase in harvest limits of 0.5 percent [in Alaska] and a 9 percent increase of Washington, Oregon and California,” says Bob Alverson, general manager of the Fishing Vessel Owners’ Association in Seattle. “The demand will be as strong as it was in 2014,” he adds, with the caveat that the yen to dollar in January was 119 compared to 105 during the same period last year.

“This could cut into prices in 2015,” he says.

Pollock surimi markets also fuctuate with currency exchange rates. Pollock quotas this year have been raised from

POLLOCK

PACIFIC COD

1.26 million metric tons last year to 1.31 million metric tons.

The Japanese food industry has begun buying surimi of higher grades to offer new product lines to customers. In a comparison of surimi volumes from January through June of 2013 and 2014, U.S. surimi exports to Japan tallied up to 25 million and 30 million kilos.

In January, Pacifc cod fshermen began setting pots, dragging their trawls and jigging their jigs on quotas of 240,000 metric tons in the Bering Sea and another 9,422 metric tons from the Aleutian Islands in 2015. That’s up from 246,897 and 6,997 metric tons in 2014.

The Gulf of Alaska quota was slightly down, at 61,519 metric tons from the 64,738 metric tons of 2014. Early ex-vessel ofers as the pot-fshing feet splashed its gear hovered around 35 cents per pound for fsh delivered to Kodiak, while they fetched about around 27 cents at Sand Point and other ports to the west.

Alaska marks the apex of its summers with the onslaught of salmon. This year, Bristol Bay could generate a harvest of 38.5 million sockeyes. Last year’s forecast of 16.9 million fsh was nearly doubled when it materialized.

Catch predictions for the fve harvest districts include forecasts of 18.3 million for the Naknek-Kvichak District, nearly 11 million at Egegik with another possible harvest of 6.1 million in the Nushagak.

This year, Fish and Game is calling for a potential harvest of 58 million pinks in Southeast, which is well above the 10year average of 40 million.

Charlie Ess is NPF’s North Pacifc bureau chief.

SOCKEYE SALMON

PINK SALMON

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Columbia River kings fetched $4.10 a pound in 2014.

Outlook: WEST COAST SuSan ChamberS

Columbia salmon access fades; shrimp fortunes remain strong

ticularly for Oregon and Washington. In 2014, 59.1 million pounds of shrimp worth $29.3 million were landed in he advent of nicer weather — on Oregon, according to the Oregon Trawl Commission. land at least — usually signals the Veteran shrimper Nick Edwards, owner of the Carter WASHINGTON start of the West Coast pink shrimp and Jon, says more than 90 vessels landed upward of 89 OREGON salmon seasons. million pounds in all three states — a record for the CALIFORNIA The king salmon seasons, both ocean last 40 years, at least.

FISHERIES troll and Columbia River gillnet fsherEdwards attended the International Coldwater ies, open in the spring, just as tourists bePrawn Forum’s industry meeting in Paris last year and gin to hit the coasts and cities. Spring king notes prices could be strong again in 2015 since the globsalmon is a favorite of many chefs and restaual shrimp supply is tight. Roughly 30 percent of the West rant customers.

Coast production goes to Europe now, Edwards says.

In 2014, the average ex-vessel price for kings — both ocean The main competition for West Coast pink shrimp, Pandaand river, all year — was $4.10 a pound, up from $3.93 in 2013. lus jordani, is Pandalus borealis, a similarly sized coldwater shrimp During peak times of the summer ocean fshery, prices were as found in northern Atlantic waters. However, the closure of the high as $9 a pound.

Gulf of Maine fshery for two years running and cuts to the CaThe Columbia River gillnet fshery is undergoing ramp- nadian fshery helped the West Coast seafood industry continue down eforts to move gillnets of the river’s main stem to of- developing the European market. channel areas. Last year was the frst year that the joint efort be“We’re still at status quo, only limtween Washington and Oregon to limit commercial fshing on ited by processing infrastructure,” KING SALMON the Columbia, at Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber’s behest in 2012, Edwards says. was fully implemented. The efort has yielded mixed results.

The value of the harvest (spring, summer and fall fsheries) Susan Chambers is a freelance fsheries PINK SHRIMP on the main stem in 2014 was $3.8 million, according to Salmwriter based in Coos Bay, Ore. on For All: “2014, like 2013, demonstrated that successful commercial fsheries can achieve harvest and conservation goals in a cost-efective manner via careful management of gillnets and tangle nets,” the salmon industry advocates say in the updated report, released in January.

The 2014 returns of 242,600 upriver spring chinook adults were higher than both the forecast and the 10-year average. It was also the ffth-highest return since 1980, according to Oregon and Washington departments of fsh and wildlife.

This year, the forecast is similar to yet higher than the 2014 prediction: 232,500 adults in 2015 compared with a forecast of 227,000 last year. That could mean another good season for gillnetters, but access will continue to be a problem, as gillnet42' Stormi Gayle ters will be required to spend more time in tributaries and less in the Columbia.

Now accepting orders for hulls, Salmon For All cites 2014 as an example of why management changes hampering gillnet fshing won’t work. “Had the kits and complete boats.

2014 gillnet fshery been confned to only the of-channel arWe offer twelve models from 25' to 47' eas,” the group’s report states, “enormous harvestable surpluses 932 U.S. Route 1, Steuben, Maine 04680 of upriver chinook would have been left and yielded no benPhone: (207) 546-7477 Fax: (207) 546-2163 eft to consumers, fshing communities or to state revenues.” www.hhmarineinc.com Pink shrimp, though, is bringing in substantial revenue, parBY SUSAN CHAMBERS

Brian Robbins

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OUR TOWN

GooGle Maps 2015

KODIAK, ALASKA

By Jerry Fraser

T

hat Kodiak is one of America’s quintessential fshing communities should come as no surprise. It is located, after all, on the largest island in Alaska, a state whose vast breadth and towering mountains evoke the scope of its marine and other natural resources.

The island’s frst white settlers were Russians, who arrived in the 18th century and were primarily trappers. The Russian explorer Stephan Glotov “dis-

covered” Kodiak in 1763, by which it is meant that he came upon the place and made note of it. After all, the Alutiiq, subsistence fshermen and whalers who lived of the land as well, had beaten him there by nearly 7,000 years. A handful of Alutiiq still live on Kodiak, and their language is now taught at Kodiak High School in an efort to preserve it.

The Russian occupation took a dreadful toll on the sea otter population, so much so that by the time of the Alaska purchase in 1867, the Russians them-

selves had imposed limits on the numbers of sea otters taken and were rotating areas where trapping occurred.

Unfortunately, the Americans who came to Kodiak hadn’t witnessed the decline. Conservation measures were abandoned, and the remaining sea otters were obliterated.

The Americans had little choice but to turn to the sea for a living.

In the days since, Kodiak vessels have landed a variety of species — salmon and crab, halibut, pollock, founder and other groundfsh, as well as rockfsh, scallops and shrimp.

Cod were abundant southwest of Kodiak Island at the time of the purchase, and Kodiak’s Karluk River was one of the most prodigious sockeye producers in the world. First one cannery was built, then another and another. Eventually salmon canneries proliferated throughout the archipelago.

If the abundance of salmon was good news for the archipelago’s two-legged residents, so too, did it delight fourlegged residents in the form of Ursus arctos middendorf, a.k.a. Kodiak bears, one of only six species of land mammal inhabiting Kodiak as a matter of nature’s course. Like grizzlies, Kodiaks are a distinct species of brown bear, and they are

Cheryl ess

St. Paul, one of Kodiak’s two harbors, which together house 650 slips primarily for the region’s commercial fshing boats.

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QUICK LOOK at

Cheryl ess

Kodiak, Alaska

AP70

POPULATION 6,130 HARBORS The city’s two harbors — St. Paul and St. Herman — can accommodate 650 vessels, the majority of which are commercial fshing vessels that ply the waters of the Gulf of Alaska for pollock, cod, crab, blackcod, halibut, sole, salmon and scallops.

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arguably the world’s one, the Kodiak Marilargest carnivore, detime Museum says, pending on the metrics knows what led king one uses when comcrabs to show up near paring them with polar Kodiak. But show up bears. they did, and in a state Although the sockknown for the abuneye boom would evendance of its waters, tually wane, salmon king crab was a bonanstill sustain Kodiak za like no other. bears, which number From the 1940s to about 3,500 throughthe early 1980s forout the archipelago, tune-seeking wouldmaking them almost be crabbers, some exas thick as the tombperienced fshermen, Th i settlement l iin K di k ffounded d d iin 1784 b i The f frst non-native Kodiak,

by R Russian stones in the Haynes- Grigory Shelikhov in the island’s Three Saints Bay. many more starry-eyed ville Woods, for those dreamers, headed to of you familiar with the Dick Judkins hunters and others who have survived Kodiak from the lower 48 states to cast country classic set in Maine. maulings over the years. Last fall, a fsh- their lot at sea.

For the most part the boars are loners, ing vessel just ofshore called in a Coast A college student and aspiring vetother than when several of them may be Guard helicopter to airlift a hunter who erinarian from Tennessee named Chuck working a salmon run. The sows often had been attacked by sow after he and Bundrant worked his way up from wharf travel with their cubs. Fatal encounters his partner shot a deer along the beach. to wheelhouse and eventually launched with Kodiak bears are extremely rare, a As salmon waned, the 1940s saw the Trident Seafoods. factoid that brings cold comfort to the dawn of Alaska’s king crab fshery. No Spike Walker is a deep-sea diver,

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the early 1980s, fortuneseeking would-be crabbers headed to Kodiak to

”

cast their lot at sea.

roustabout and logger who made his way to Kodiak to spend nine seasons on the back deck of crabbers before putting pen to paper and writing “Working on the Edge.” Written in 1993, it is perhaps the most insightful book ever written on commercial fshing.

Thousands of others, some well known, most not, passed through Kodiak much the same as young and restless Americans passed through St. Louis more than 150 years ago, determined to wring a life out of the vast frontier west of the

Mississippi River.

Today the Kodiak feet comprises fewer vessels — and fshermen — than it once did. For better or for worse, fshery managers here, as elsewhere, have taken over the business and are committed to “rationalizing” feets to a size that ensures that not one extra fsh will ever be caught. Whether this is a sensible creed for an industry the premise of which is catching fsh is a matter of some debate.

But in many respects the fsherman’s job in Kodiak is the same as it ever was.

On one hand, there are windy days, cold nights, and always, uncertainty about the regulations, from Steller sea lions to halibut quotas to “crab ratz.” On the

Cheryl ess

“

From the 1940s to

The trawlers Pacifc Ram and Elizabeth F head out of Kodiak, bedecked with bald eagles.

other there are lucid skies, fsh fipping on the deck, and quiet steams home on tranquil, moonlit nights.

Jerry Fraser is the publisher of North Pacifc Focus.

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O COMFORT ZONE

Reducing risk, one person at a time Jennifer Lincoln is an injury epidemiologist and director of the NIOSH Alaska Pacifc Offce. She not only loves to catch fsh, she particularly enjoys cooking the catch!

By JENNIFER LINCOLN

I

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’ve been working with National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health to improve safety in the commercial fshing industry since 1992. At that time, the industry was coming into compliance with new commercial fshing safety regulations and programs, such as the dockside safety exam. It was a year in which 79 U.S. fshermen died, and 23 were in Alaska.

Since then, the fshing industry has experienced a signifcant decline in the number of fatalities and in the fatality rate — particularly in Alaska.

The NIOSH Commercial Fishing Safety Research and Design program has been monitoring fatalities and working with the industry, the U.S. Coast Guard, marine safety training partners and a variety of others to develop ways to reduce risk on fshing vessels. NIOSH specializes in providing data to understand where and what hazards exist. We provide data to the fshing industry about the hazards and develop solutions with them — incorporating ideas we learn from fshermen. Some of our most successful projects have been the result of discussions with fshermen, including the development of the E-Stop for capstan winches, conducting the PFD study in 2008-2009, and the trawl winch guarding project that’s now being done in the Gulf of Mexico.

In the early 1990s I quickly learned two lessons. The frst was that feets of fshing vessels are very diferent from each other (seiners vs. longliners vs. crabbers, for example). In order for our research to be useful to fshermen, we needed to answer questions specifc to particular feets. We have to provide information that is relevant to them and their operation. If they think the hazard or risk is another guy’s problem, our information won’t mean anything to them personally, and it won’t motivate a change in behavior.

The second lesson was that safety decisions are made in the wheelhouse. We have to provide solid and persuasive information to vessel owners and operators to help them make decisions that improve safety and protect themselves and their crew from getting hurt or killed.

Hazards have been reduced and overall, safety has improved since the early 1990s. Most recently, from 2000 to 2013 the number of fatalities in the U.S. fshing industry has been reduced by 24 percent. However, there is still room for improvement, since commercial fshermen have one of the highest work-related fatality rates in the country. In 2013 it was second only to loggers.

If we could get fshermen to do just one thing, it would

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be to find a comfortable personal flotation device and wear it every day while working on deck. A PFD is one piece of gear that would save dozens of lives each year if worn consistently by all fishermen. That’s particularly true among fleets with the highest number of fatal falls overboard: the Gulf of Mexico shrimp fleet, the New England lobster fleet and Alaska salmon gillnetters. PFDs would also be effective in saving lives in the West Coast Dungeness crab fishery, since rapid capsizings lead to most of the fatalities in that fishery. These sudden events don’t allow time to don immersion suits, launch a raft or make a mayday call. Crewmen need to already be wearing flotation when the emergency arises.

Ultimately it’s the fishermen who need to make the choice to wear a PFD. NIOSH has no authority to make fishermen follow our recommendations. As safety scientists, we strive to find ways to make safety choices more appealing to fishermen. We provide data specific to each fleet as well as relevant, science-based information to let the professional fisherman decide to establish a PFD policy or buy the gear.

Many fishermen have approached me saying they had no

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NIOSH’s Paul Anderson (left) conducts a PFD attitude and MOB risk survey with trawl fishermen in Dutch Harbor.

idea that their fleet had such a high number of fatal falls overboard compared to other fleets. When we were distributing PFDs to fishermen to evaluate the comfort of the devices, on almost every vessel, someone on the crew would comment that he had no idea there were comfortable PFDs. Fishermen have thanked me and my staff for working to reduce the risks of on-deck injuries.

We count successes in improving safety in the fishing industry one life at a time. On Jan. 2, 2015, at 11:05 p.m., a crewman from the crabber Cerulean fell overboard while climbing a stack of crab pots in Alaska waters. Unlike 198 fishermen since 2000 who died without wearing a PFD when they fell overboard, this crewman was wearing a PFD. The PFD kept him afloat and bought him time. The crew reacted quickly. Several kept their eye on the crewman in the water while the captain steered the vessel back around so he could be pulled from the water. He was back on board within minutes. SUCCESS! — One person at a time.

What are your safety success stories? Share them with us on Twitter.

Follow us @NIOSHFishing or visit our website at www.cdc.gov/ niosh/topics/fishing.

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ON THE HORIZON

Fleet dreams, hired funds Mark Scheer is an attorney with Young deNormandie, P.C., in Seattle and has been involved in the fshing industry in Alaska and on the West Coast for nearly 30 years.

By MARK SCHEER

A

new era in boatbuilding is upon us.

It has been decades since the owners of the Pacifc and North Pacifc feets have seen the amount of new construction that is being planned right now.

Boatyards that have been focused on refts and rebuilds are gearing up for new construction. Several innovative fshing and processing vessels are already built and launched. More are under construction, and many more are on the drawing board or being discussed in boardrooms.

We can reasonably expect a signifcant number of the vessels in the Pacifc feets to be replaced in the next two decades.

This surge in construction is occurring for a number of reasons. The feet is generally very old, so when the Vessel Safety Act of 2010 is fully implemented, compliance may be impossible or not cost efective for many existing boats.

Most vessels plying the seas were repurposed from other trades and do not use current fshing and processing technolo-

gy, or are limited by their size and layout fully utilize harvested fsh to maximize their value. Until recently, fuel prices have been at historically high levels, and many vessels are not as fuel efcient as they could be. Innovative new designs incorporating modern efcient power plants can substantially reduce one of the single largest expenses. And fnally, rationalization, allocated quota fsheries, changes in regulations and consolidation have made it feasible for a larger, more efcient, purpose designed vessel to take the place of several smaller or less efcient vessels with the intent to harvest more fsh at a lower cost per pound.

In nearly every case, fnancing the design, construction or reft of the vessel is an essential element of the project.

In addition to domestic institutional fnancing, a number of programs may be available to the prospective vessel builder, such as Capital Construction Funds and grant programs like the Fisheries Finance Program. (Read more about these tools in On the Horizon, NPF Winter

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Some owners are looking at foreign fnancing, design and components for their new vessels.While there is certainly a place for foreign investment in fshing vessel construction and fnancing, you must tread carefully, as federal law imposes strict rules and limitations. Should you run afoul of these restrictions, the vessel may lose its fshery or coastwise endorsement, which has the potential to make it ineligible to fsh or tender.

Each vessel over 5 net tons must hold a Certifcate of Documentation issued by the National Vessel Documentation Center. As part of the application process, the COD must be endorsement for the trade for which the vessel will deployed. A vessel may be endorsed for fshery, coastwise, registry or recreation.

The endorsement dictates the trades in which the vessel may legally participate.

Not surprisingly, to engage in fshing, the vessel’s documentation must have a fshery endorsement. However, for tendering, which is considered hauling goods between U.S. ports, the vessel must hold a coastwise and a fshery endorsement. To be eligible for a fshery or coastwise endorsement, the vessel must be owned and controlled by a documentation citizen and be built, and rebuilt, in the United States.

The American Fisheries Act of 1998 established U.S. citizen ownership and control requirements. Basically, a fshing vessel with a fshery endorsement

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foreign or noncitizen lenders from holding a preferred ship mortgage on a vessel with a fshery endorsement. If a lender is not qualifed as a documentation citizen, it cannot hold a Blue North Fisheries preferred mortgage on a Norwegian frm Skipsteknisk AS designed fshing vessel, which includes tenders the 191-foot longliner Blue North. and processors. Instead, it must use an approved mortgage trustee to hold can only be owned by a documenta- the preferred mortgage.There are a numtion citizen. That means no more than ber of preapproved mortgage trustees list25 percent of the ownership or control, ed on the Maritime Administration’s AFA at any level or in the aggregate, may be compliance web page. Before completing vested in a noncitizen. Because of these any foreign held fnancing transaction, provisions in the AFA, there are owner- consult with the Maritime Administraship and control declarations as part of tion. They must review the transaction to the Application for Redocumentation determine whether it results in an imperform CG-1258 submitted annually to missible transfer of control. the documentation center. And for vesA coastwise endorsement may only be sels exceeding 100 feet, annual reporting issued to a vessel that is built in the Unitto the Maritime Administration is re- ed States. Under 46 C.F.R. § 67.97, to quired before the documentation center be considered built in the United States, will issue a new COD. all of the major components of the hull The AFA’s requirements also restrict and superstructure must be fabricated in

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the United States, and the vessel must be assembled entirely in the United States.

If an owner plans to use foreign designs and build plans, that should not be an issue. However, if an owner plans to use foreign constructed components, materials, or build modules for use in a vessel build or reft (sponsoning project, etc.), be aware, have a plan and seek the review and approval of the intended construction plan with the Coast Guard before proceeding with construction.

If an owner records a preferred marine mortgage that is held by a noncitizen, the vessel may lose its fshery endorsement.

If an owner builds or rebuilds their vessel in a foreign country, or uses foreign manufactured components for the hull and superstructure, they risk losing both the fshery and coastwise endorsements.

If cited for employing a vessel in a trade without an appropriate endorsement or if the endorsement is revoked, penalties can be severe and can include daily fnes of up to $100,000 and the forfeiture of the vessel. As Ben Franklin wrote, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

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ON THE HOMEFRONT Worried members post pictures of their fshermen, concerned for their whereabouts and asking for leads.

Karla Richardson, an administrator of the group, as well as the mother of two and co-owner with her husband Jen Karuza Schile is the author of “Captain in Dungeness Seaworks and the F/V of her crew: The commercial fshing mom’s Saint Jude, described the feelings of guide to navigating life at home” and runs many of us in the group. www.commercialfshingmom.com.

“I fnd the Facebook group helpful on two levels: One, on a shortterm immediate relief level for when helped raise monI personally feel strapped at home, and

By JEN KARUZA SCHILE ey for families of two, as a safety net for fshing families in general when a major crisis has everal years ago, when my oldest those lost at sea and those who h have h children were under 2 years old, lost boats. Our members post vintage emerged.”

Richardson’s comment hit home I started a blog for commercial fsh- pictures along with recent pictures of ing families. Because I couldn’t drive deckloads and good-looking halibut. for me personally, as my own fshing family was met with a signifcant around to West Coast ports or fy disturbance this year. Many in the to Alaska to visit my husband, I online commercial fshing comfelt a bit isolated. Starting a blog munity reached out to me via was a way to write about that Facebook, email and cards. experience, stay connected and “Help is near,” says Richardmeet others in the same situation. son. “The pressure comes from Later, two fshing wives and I needing to perform exceptionally started the Facebook group Comwell, often as a parent of multiple mercial Fishing Families and children, without a spouse or Friends. We started by inviting 50 partner nearby. The expectation of our personal friends to join. We in the fshing feet is that partners now have more than 3,000 memat home be self-contained, conbers. Our members include active tinuously, sometimes for months and retired fshermen and fsheron end with no reprieve. women, wives, children, televi“This is a recipe for burnout,” sion producers and attorneys. We she continued. “It becomes essenhail from Washington, Alaska, tial for the land-based partner of a Florida, Louisiana, Australia, Italy fsherman to form a support netand everywhere in between. work of people that are familiar We wanted the group to be a with the demands of the fshing positive place for fshing family family lifestyle. members and their friends to visit The Newport Fishermen’s Wives’ online “Traditionally, fshing wives for support and encouragement. communities garnered tens of thousands of would band together in seaside Through the years, we have signatures to keep a rescue helicopter in town.

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villages to support one another while their husbands were away at sea. These days, the Internet provides additional help in the form of online support groups.

“In times of great sorrow, such as when a fsherman is lost at sea or a boat goes down, or a fshing family is dealing with another kind of major upheaval, is when this networking becomes especially valuable. It is a safety net capable of mobilizing physical help, monetary resources and emotional support.”

I asked Michele Longo Eder, a fsherman’s wife from Newport, Ore., to talk about her experience when her homeport was faced with the loss of their U.S. Coast Guard rescue helicopter.

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“Traditionally, fshing

wives would band together in seaside villages. These days the Internet provides

”

additional help.

— Karla Richardson, Commercial Fishing Families and Friends “The fshing family community is broader than just those families whose mom, dad or other family members are out on the ocean,” she said. “The entire community sprung into action. A social media campaign was launched and an online petition generated over 17,000 signatures to keep the helicopter in Newport.”

“It was really an extraordinary turnout of support,” said Eder. “By virtue of the entire community’s eforts, our elected representatives in D.C. went all out for us and secured the helicopter for at least another year. As fshing families, we know that our community really cares about our safety, and that of other ocean users.”

Please, don’t be a stranger; fnd an inperson or online group that works for and supports you. Join one or join all.

As Richardson says, “Reach out, log on and fsh on!”

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YOUNGBLOODS

Shelter for salmon

ings. According to a report from the Wild Salmon Center (and as any fsherman would know), salmon depend on a neutral pH in their spawning rivers — even slightly acidic water can Sierra Golden is a seiner deckhand cause serious harm. and freelance writer living in Seattle.

The Red Chris mine project is already located near the headwaters of the Iskut River, a major tributary of the Stikine. It includes submerging several hundred million tons of acid-generating tailings and waste rock in Black Lake, which fows into the Iskut. Frighteningly, Red Chris is owned by

By SIERRA GOLDEN Imperial Metals, the company responsible for sending nearly 24 million cubic meters of contaminated water, sand and des the child of a commercial fsherman, I kept squirming bris toward the Fraser River in last summer’s Mount Polsalmon fry as pets, and in my early adulthood, I spent ley dam failure. The Independent Expert Engineering Panel eight summers in Southeast Alaska crewing on my father’s 58- Review Report, released on Jan. 30, 2015, concludes that a foot commercial salmon seiner. One of the most memorable “design failure” caused the 17-year-old tailings dam to coldays I fshed, we worked in a crowd of boats, our nets all lapse. Only three days after this report was released, the Britcurved open to the incoming pink salmon that fooded the ish Columbia government allowed Red Chris Mine to open. region. With the sun hidden behind a layer of rain clouds, we It has the same design as Mount Polley for its tailings dam. scooped salmon from the sea by the thousands.

Despite the rhetoric that says these mines can be “safe,” I What made that unusually successful day special for me believe the scale, scope and speed of these projects is inapwas not the monetary reward; it was the sudden and pro- propriate and dangerous. Mount Polley surely shows that. found understanding of what a healthy salmon run is. Scoop- These mines threaten my family’s way of life, and they are ing thousands of salmon from the ocean in a sustainable, a threat not just to Alaskans and fshermen. They are also a well-managed fshery means there are thousands more reach- threat to thousands of jobs across the country. According to ing their spawning streams and starting the life cycle anew. the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, the Alaska seafood It also means that thousands of people are able to make a industry created more than 34,000 jobs and $1.9 billion in living doing work they love — be it fshing or the many labor income for Washington residents in 2011 alone. The jobs that make fshing possisame industry in 2011 generble: refrigeration technology, ated $6.4 billion in national shipbuilding, fsh processing, direct economic output. The and so forth. It means the rivhealth of our fsheries maters are healthy, and the forests ters — for me, for my Seattle are healthy, and people all community, and for famiover the world have healthful, lies across the country. And sustainable sources of protein. thus, the health of our rivers, This environment, this way streams, and lakes are of the of life, is at risk. utmost importance.

The opening of eight new What can be done to proBritish Columbian mines and tect these valuable resources? the expansion or reopening The United States and Canaof nine more is imminent. da signed onto the Boundary Backed by B.C. Premier Waters Treaty in 1909. Under Christy Clark, fve of the this treaty, the U.S. Departprojects are in watersheds of ment of State has the authorkey salmon rivers that origi- Writer Sierra Golden with her dad, Jeff Golden, and a ity to pursue protections for nate in B.C. and fow into deckload of Southeast salmon on his seiner Challenger. salmon and clean water by Southeast Alaska. According formally referring the issue to to research reported by Trout Unlimited, these mines are the International Joint Commission. Comprising commissionlikely to produce acid mine drainage and toxic heavy metals ers from the United States and Canada, the commission is an that could harm the pristine environment that makes possible independent body that investigates transboundary issues and the healthy salmon runs I just described. Salmon fsheries and recommends solutions. Right now, many Alaskans are pushothers like it employ 1 in 10 Southeast Alaska residents. ing to enact the commission, but the movement needs moThe projects include the massive Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitch- mentum. Please join Alaskans in asking Secretary of State John ell (KSM) mine and the Red Chris mine. The KSM mine is Kerry and the State Department to engage the commission for about 20 miles from the Alaska border and was permitted on an analysis of the cumulative efects of this proposed mining Dec. 19. With three open pit mines, two earthen dams — district on transboundary watersheds. each larger than the Hoover Dam — are needed to contain its Take action and sign the petition at www.salmonbeyond waste, which includes 2.5 billion tons of acid-generating tail- borders.org/what-you-can-do.html.

Sierra Golden

A

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MAKING THE RULES

Fishing for bipartisanship Mark Gleason is the executive director of the Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers and secretary/treasurer for the Seafood Harvesters of America, an umbrella organization of 15 commercial fshing associations based in Washington, D.C.

By MARK GLEASON

I

n the waning days of the 113th Congress, America’s commercial fshermen faced a potential calamity that some have been calling the Fish Clif.

Had Congress not acted, commercial fshermen around the country would have been forced to comply with an EPA permitting requirement that could easily have brought the feet to its knees.

But Congress did act. In a rare moment of bipartisanship, Congress did the right thing and stood by tens of thousands of small commercial fshing businesses.

Rather than allow the existing moratorium to expire, Congress stepped in and granted an additional three years. This reprieve will give commercial fshermen much-needed temporary relief from the EPA. It will also give Congress three years to craft a common-sense approach to discharges incidental to the normal operation of a commercial fshing vessel.

On the Senate side, Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) led the charge. Without her leadership, there’s no telling where commercial fshermen in this country would be. At minimum, we’d be wrapped up in red tape. More likely, boats would be tied to the docks because there’s no way to accurately capture and mitigate rainwater washing of your decks. And getting nailed for violating the Clean Water Act on a rainy day is not in anyone’s budget.

Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), John Thune (R-SD) and David Vitter (R-LA) played their parts in the December drama, rallying support for America’s commercial fshing businesses. And let’s not forget Sens.

Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Mark Begich (D-AK), whose Vessel Incidental Discharge Act got the ball rolling.

On the House side, Congressman Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ) brought the issue to the forefront with his Commercial Vessel Discharges Reform Act of 2013. Congressman Duncan Hunter

(R-CA) ultimately shepherded the extension through to passage as part of the Howard Coble Coast Guard & Maritime Transportation Act of 2014.

While a three-year extension on the moratorium is far better than the alternative, I’m not ready to pack it in and call it a victory. Despite the fact that Congress was able to come up with a last-minute compromise that everyone can live with for now, this issue had more than its share of eye-poking, hostage-taking, one-upmanship and grandstanding along the way. I guess that’s the nature of politics, and very few things inside the Beltway are cut and dry.

So here we are in the 114th Con-

gress, and we’re fshing for bipartisanship again. By the time you read this, Sen. Rubio will have convened a Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard hearing to consider the “impacts of vessel discharge regulations on our shipping and fshing industries.”

It’s probably not too great a stretch to assume that legislation will come shortly afterward. Seafood Harvesters of America call on Congress to include a permanent exemption so we don’t fnd ourselves facing the same Fish Clif in three years. Once again, we pledge to work with both parties to develop commonsense legislation that protects the marine environment, and allows America’s commercial fshing feet to do what we do best — put fsh on the table!

From Georges Bank to the Bering Sea and from California to the Florida Keys, commercial fshermen owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to those who worked with us to achieve a compromise. The Seafood Harvesters of America will continue to work on critical issues our industry faces.

can be hostile.

Hazards abound.

Disaster and risk of injury are never far away.

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2/5/15 2:37 PM

THE LONG HAUL Author Emilie Springer (bottom) and her husband (top), Matt Springer keep fishing in the family and hope to keep king salmon on the table.

Emilie Springer is an anthropology Ph.D. candidate at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, focusing cultural components of fishing.

Emilie Springer

Swimming home

BY EMILIE SPRINGER

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blame, fault, greed, burden and self-pity. It’s hard to avoid these.

It’s hard to admit them, too.

These emotions create a challenge to communication; they impose conflict and challenge.

They have caused many stakeholders to believe their own group is the one who deserves more access to the resource than anyone else. Really, everyone should be aware of the larger problem that the species faces.This isn’t regional.

This isn’t a problem for Southeast or Cook Inlet or Kodiak or the Yukon River. These rivers are not mutually exclusive or independent. The ecosystem features for king salmon includes a huge range of topics — major oceanic issues: Pacific Decadal Oscillation, Arctic climate, acidification. River issues: hydropower, logging, dams, populations and human construction, true subsistence needs, memories of what used to be and desires. Commercial fisheries: deep-sea trawlers, catcher-processors, catcher vessels, seine, drift, setnet managed by both federal and state regulations. International variations on the concept of “region” and how far from home streams the king salmon swim. Fisheries are also cultural occupations. There are issues of sportfishing for enjoyment, tourism and personal use. Many people take pride in images showing an angler holding up a 50-pound king salmon just for the sake of the photo and the excitement of the experience.

All groups need to accept some responsibility for unexplained decline in North Pacific kings. It needs attention from science without policy and regional prioritization, it needs attention from policy and management, and it needs attention and recognition from all user groups. Alaska communities, Alaska residents love and live off of salmon. King salmon are not mutually exclusive to Alaska regionalism or regulations.

The salmon spectrum is vast: Ventura River in central California to Point Hope in Northwest Alaska — across the Pacific to Russia, Japan. Strays noted into the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, strays found in Baja, Mexico. Labeled as endangered in some places and a species of concern in others. We could put gravestones and decorative stream crosses, memorials, everywhere: Sacramento, Klamath, Columbia, Puget Sound, Copper, Kenai, Susitna, Bristol Bay. Washington, Oregon and California have loved it and lived off it, too, for centuries.

Ideally, what does the king, the royalty, deserve on his own?

Katrina Hoff

O

ncorhynchus tshawytscha, chinook. Our king of salmon.

On a lovely summer day all we really need is king salmon and rice. It flavors itself, fries with all the fat of his own body — so much more oil than a red or pink, more flavor than anything. At the same time, watch a bear bat grizzly paws against the upriver path. There is no shortage of natural obstacles. A king is a feast for all, a prime consumption. We love it, and we fight for it. Sometimes rather inappropriately.

There are some nasty features of human identity, behavioral commonalities that suit all of us:

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At least a few need to be safe from the point of conception, through their life at sea (often very far from the home stream) and to fnally make it home and to create future generations.What does it take? Sovereign salmon, please keep your head in the water, use your strength to avoid all the obstacles caused by the humans — the nets, the hooks, the trawls.

Please accept that you will face losses of your own kind. Some victims are inevitable. Humans are avid consumers.

In 130 years our improving technological capacity has contributed to gluttony and overconsumption: salt, ice, transportation, engines, fuel, refrigeration. True, these are also benefts. They have helped improve the quality and quantity of fsheries available. What they have not done is help monitor declines. They have not contributed to sustainability. I cringe to utter this word — so overused that it lacks credibility, so framed in spectacle that the dignity of it declines unnecessarily. I’ll use it here and hope it holds up.

I think of fshermen I know and images I see daily — bulky arms, hands and rough grease. Tough men and women, who work long hours, haul and fx and deal with maintenance and equipment to preserve the boats they also love.They may not admit the need for assistance — instead, just hire others who are just as bulky as they are or skilled in electronics, engine maintenance, awareness of certain areas of the sea — get the crew and team they need to assist.They are aggressive, loud and demanding.

A king salmon is the same, I recently held a dipnet under two of them fghting to get out of a driftnet coming over the roller of bow-picker at the mouth of the Copper River. They are strong.

I promote salmon because this is how I receive income to support my family; this is the way I grew up; this is the way my children are being raised. I know my husband will continue to fsh, and salmon is the priority species.The economics of this species is critical. We don’t need to discuss by consensus, but we do need an element of confict resolution without the bias of politics. All user groups will probably need to accept transitions.

What’s not happening now is any kind of acceptance for change — within media documentation, what we see is primarily controversial arguments and self-promotions that are doing absolutely nothing

for the larger context of the problem, and that is a waste of time and energy.

Those of us with salmon interests: We need to keep our head above water and not be drowned in controversy and worthless commentary. It does nothing to improve the situation. Maybe we can eventually come out of it. Maybe it’s just an eddy.

Let’s be courteous of each other and get motivated for the preservation of this fsh and fshery. Unlike the king, we don’t need to push upstream but be conscientious of the impressions and interpretations of those around us and try to

compensate for it all. But, the main goal needs to be the king itself. Declines may be related to a number of issues: stream habitat, water temperature, ocean features, human blocks, human policy decisions. We don’t know yet, but it’s time to start fguring it out.

Our own intentions block our capacity to fnd consensus. Accept or deny, we don’t have the time to argue. In all regions of the state of Alaska, change is necessary. Those who are willing to accept, study, listen and assist, preserve this animal. Please? The species deserves it.

They are a true symbol for all of Alaska.

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WINTER 2015 / NORTH PACIFIC FOCUS

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2/6/15 2:56 PM

GEAR SHIFTS

PINGS CLEAR AS A BELL Radar goes digital for clarity and gets smaller, lighter

The early World War II antennas were bulkier than a modern antenna (below) and consumed about 25 times more power.

By Ev Collier

E

ver sit in the wheelhouse on a long, monotonous watch, looking around at all those eerie LCD screens, scopes and instrument panels and wonder where all this high-tech stuf came from? The Navy, that’s where; paid for by your parents’ or grandparents’ tax dollars. That’s where we got radar, VHF, sonar, sounders, SSB and all that cool stuf.

To see how radar has evolved, go back to World War II and boats like the radar picket destroyers. They were 24

Fletcher and Sumner class destroyers with the torpedo tubes removed to make room for search and frecontrol radars and antiaircraft guns. Heavily loaded with radar, they were stationed 20 or so miles ahead of a task force and 20 to 30 miles apart. Their basic function was detection and engagement of hostile aircraft, and they were the frst to be seen by incoming kamikaze aircraft. Out of some 100 radar pickets deployed, 43 percent were either sunk

or damaged by kamikaze attacks.

The main search radars had antennas 8.5 to 15 feet tall (referred to as “bed spring” antennas). They weighed 450 to 500 pounds. A complete system consisted of fve or six components that weighed from 1,800 to 3,000 pounds and consumed between 1,500 and 2,500 watts of power at 115 volts, 60 cycles.

Antennas were mounted as high above all

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other structures as possible; at 100 feet signal processing that takes place in the above the water, the maximum range scanner itself. The fact that conversion was 75 miles. All this hardware and of the echo returns from analog to digipower consumption, what did it deliver? tal now takes place in the scanner has You knew something was out there, its signifcant advantages. bearing and range.

Echoes returning to the scanner are By comparison, the antenna for to- very weak and need considerable amday’s equivalent of the SC series search plifcation. However, if you amplify an radar measures 70 inches wide by 21 analog signal, you must also amplify the inches tall and weighs about 60 pounds. “noise” that comes with it, and then the The complete system consists of four receiver itself adds noise. components weighing about 80 pounds A digital signal is easy to amplify and consuming some 100 watts at 24 without turning up or adding noise to volts DC. (Some of the 72-mile radars it. The digital signal opens up opporon fshing boats would be in this cat- tunities for some advanced signal proegory.) In terms of performance, the cessing and fltering. So-called digital radar not only gives you range and radars produce clearer, sharper images bearing, but comes with a bunch of with less interference, better target disfeatures not found crimination and on the earlier radar, automatic adjustsuch as automatic At 100 feet above the ment of gain, sea adjustment of gain, state and rain rewater, the maximum sea and rain clutter; jection. In the last tracking for multi10 years, all the range ple targets; superior major radar manutarget detection; facturers began was 75 miles. and separation. introducing high These dramatic defnition radars.

All this hardware and advances came about They are not, in the late 1950s and however, truly solpower consumption, early ’60s with the id-state radars since invention and subthe magnetron that what did it deliver? sequent developgenerates the pulse ment of solid-state is a high-powered You knew something vacuum tube that technology. It gave us the transistor, an works as a microwas out there, alternative to the wave oscillator. It large, power hunwas not until 2008 its bearing and range. that Navico introgry, expensive vacuum tube at a fraction duced a magneof the size, power tron-less frequency consumption and cost. modulated continuous wave broadband That led to the integrated circuit radar in Europe. (lots of transistors on a single small These are also called CHIRP, or silicon chip) and ultimately to the mi- compressed high-intensity radar pulse, crochip (entire systems on a chip). This radars in which the microwave signal, was soon followed by the microcom- generated by solid-state devices, is a puter, Apple and Microsoft in the mid- swept-frequency signal, as against a 1970s, and of we go. single pulse.

During the ’80s and ’90s, solid-state This type of radar ofers a range of technology began its penetration into advantages, such as improved range disradar applications, initially in the low- crimination, reduced susceptibility to power, less demanding end of the sig- rain and sea clutter, no warm-up time nal processing chain. Gradually radar has and no tuning. become more digital.

Since around 2005 signifcant changes Ev Collier owned a marine electrical installahave been made in the signal process- tion business. He wrote “The Boat Owner’s ing chain and, more to the point, in the Guide to Corrosion.”

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BOATBUILDING O

HULL AND

Charlie ess Photos

Running in Ikatan Bay in 1986, Charlie Ess and his wife, Cheryl, follow a cork line, looking to fll up with silvers.

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HIGH WATER You never know where a good setnet skiff might take you

BY CHARLIE ESS

A

northeast gale had come up Alaska’s setnet skifs came two years we called “sailboat” foam, and using within minutes, and small earlier, in 1978, when I moved up from them as molds. choppy whitecaps quickly Minnesota and found work fshing a After ftting and tacking foam to regrew to 7-foot waves, in setnetting operation with Dean Ostired wooden boats (built by George sync with the changing tide. A woman mar at Clam Gulch. The fshing was Fredrickson in Anchorage or Andy Anand I, total strangers then, dreason in Kodiak) with were caught in a nasty rip thin paneling nails, he’d three miles south of False I loved making one-offs and dreamed fberglass the outsides of Pass, Alaska. We had started the foam, let it cure, musout that morning to look of the day I would make my own. ter a crew of us to lift it of at locations suitable for anthe wooden boat and turn choring a setnet for the it over. Then it would be coming salmon season. fun, but more intriguing was that he’d blocked up from the concrete foor of Now those plans were scuttled. I built his own feet of fberglass skifs his shop so its sides were symmetrical. throttled back, swung the 20-foot K- by encapsulating overturned woodIn the weeks to come, he ftted the sides Bay skif into a monstrous green mass of en boats with closed-cell foam, what with half-round foam gunwales and fnwater and came around to the weather on my port bow, as we ran for the protection of a bight where we made camp at the abandoned village of Ikatan.

The big skif had performed far beyond my expectations. Though I had wished for a dory with high bow, a fat bottom, more fare to its sides and a defned shear in the center, the K-Bay was winning me over with each wave.

The shape of the bow and its straight, high sides kept us fairly dry, and the semi-V hull eased the impact as we bashed into oncoming waves.

But I was young and had much to learn about skifs; moreover, this woman who’d hired me stood amidships, with salt spray running of her chin and gripping a line tied to the bow.

Charlie and Cheryl take a break after coring their Lest I get ahead of myself, my intro18-foot picking skiff with Divinycell in 1985. duction — and my infatuation — with

“

”

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BOATBUILDING ished out the insides with bulkheads, Ikatan’s bight, we were confdent the would be anchored ofshore, full of fsh. ribs, rails and other integrals.

K-Bay was a good sea boat. As summer We’d have to wait for the arrival of a Bitten by the one-of bug, I mixed unfolded, we loaded that boat and an- tender to of-load the skifs so we could resin and manned a fn roller to help other 18-foot George Hamm skif with resume fshing.

Osmar build a new skif that next winter. tons of salmon.

The Munson seemed big in every diThe compromise with the male-molded We also fell in love. We came back mension. It was deep. It was wide. It boat, at least as we were building it, was the next year newlyweds with new nets was indestructible on the rocky beachthat its outside surface would never be and a better camp. We shared the bight es, and we could pick salmon for hours smooth. Sure, we could have spent hours with a neighbor, Dennis Ward, who before losing an appreciable amount of with belt sanders and freeboard. But we felt grinders, but these boats the fatigue of pulling the were tools. With their fat We also fell in love. We came back boat back and forth unbottoms, they slid easily der the nets, especially in under the anchored nets the next year newlyweds with new nets high winds, and decided that lay heavy with sockto relegate it as a holding eyes. Better yet, we’d addand a better camp. boat the next season. ed on a series of sacrifcial That meant acquirshoes — wooden 1-by-4s ing a picking skif. Late encased in fberglass layers — for when arrived with a shiny new alumi- autumn found us at Osmar’s shop, our we came to the beach in big weather. num skif, a 21-footer built by Kevin pickup laden with a 55-gallon drum of We’d charge in through the break- Munson of Kodiak. resin, two gallons of catalyst, several ers, chop the power of the outboard and From a distance it looked like a sled. hundred pounds of fberglass fabric throw the bowline to a waiting four- Its bow consisted of an inverted pen- and huge boxes of close-celled sailboat wheel-drive pickup that would tow us tagonal wedge that formed the junc- foam. For us as a couple it was a work out of the surf. By the end of the season, ture of the sides and two sheets of the of love. We fnished the 18-foot onethe shoes were usually worn through or bottom. The bow design produced a of before the frst snow and shipped it missing, and part of our preseason work slight V at its entry to the water. Mun- west on a tender bound for Bristol Bay. was replacing them each year. I loved son skifs were renowned for packing (We used the wooden Andreason for making one-ofs and dreamed of the heavy loads in frothing seas, and we a mold.) day I would build my own. watched Ward load that skif day after The picking skif had a lot of fare.

In March 1979, I took on work lay- day.

We found that we could determine the ing up hulls inside the glass-smooth feIt had been a good season — so good amount of fare and the height of the male molds at George Hamm’s shop, that in July, Ward ordered a 24-foot bow immediately after plucking the Kachemak Marine, in Homer. The K- Munson with an abbreviated cabin and extremely pliable, half-fnished boat Bay 20 model was new that year, and sold us the 21-footer, which we dire- of the top of its wooden predecessor. my brother Chris, who also worked in ly needed for more packing power, as Jacking up the bow, as our fedgling the lay-up crew, had ordered the sec- the nets would be out and the K-Bays skif sat upright on the shop foor, made ond one produced for fshing herring and halibut in Cook Inlet. We quit work with Hamm to go fshing in late April in Cook Inlet. That summer the K-Bay 20 worked well as a packer and ran smoothly through the chop.

A year later, Chris decided to build a new K-Bay 20 and customize it to his liking. As luck would have it, he sold the old one to Cheryl, who hired me for what would turn out to be the most serendipitous summer of my life.

Though the skif had proven itself in Cook Inlet, I was skeptical of how it would handle the notoriously rough weather of Alaska’s far west. After Cheryl and I arrived in the calm of

“

Built from a mold in Homer, this 24-footer with a net reel and herring shaker proved to be a good sea boat.

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Charlie ess

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the sides bulge out, adding more fare, which afected the shear line.

Finishing out the interior sides and bottom and glassing in foam-cored bulkheads locked the dimensions rigidly into place. I loved the lines. And better yet, the boat remained upright when we flled it with water during a test in the harbor. The idea was to build a skif totally void of air tanks, which were always prone to leaking as the years wore on. We fnished of the boat in a dark blue and white gelcoat scheme, and it became a useful tool in the years to come.

As it turned out, this would not be our most arduous boatbuilding adventure together. Herring prices were on the rise in the mid-1980s, and Cheryl and I had located a 24-foot mold at a shop in Homer. We romanticized a boat with a hydraulic system, a gillnet reel and an add-on shaker spool that would allow us to whack and pack tons of herring and make pulling nets easier during the long salmon seasons.

We acquired a low-interest state loan, rented a shop, cleaned and waxed the mold, and began laminating the hull.

There was a foam core, which was a series of billets, custom shaped to ft the graceful curves of the sides and bottom. Integrating the foam core to a boat laid up in a mold seemed easy enough in theory, and I had spent untold hours studying the construction of foam-cored downhill skis to learn how to sandwich foam between layers of fberglass and achieve rigidity throughout the hull.

The reality, however, added hundreds of hours to the project, as it involved building custom jigs to hold the foam and a wet layer of fberglass so that it would bond to the conformity of the hull. After that, we encased it in more layers of fberglass.

We discovered within minutes of launching the boat, that, like a ski, it was subject to torsional forces. As we ran it out of the harbor I found it disconcerting that the skif fexed in the waves. We fshed it in plenty of rough weather for herring and salmon that year. There wasn’t so much as a hint of stress cracking at the junctures of bulkheads, hull, gunwales or transom. Still, we shipped the skif back to Homer

for a winter of retroftting with a fberglass and plywood deck that had a lot of camber to it. That made the boat totally rigid.

It was a great sea boat, and its Honda-powered hydraulic unit made short work of pulling 100-fathom nets with the reel and power roller. We fshed the K-Bay 20 and the two skifs we had built for another six years before selling out of our salmon operation.

Though it has been decades since

Cheryl and I pulled nets from the skifs of our making, the 18-footer lies tethered to underground toggles in the tall grasses at False Pass. It is, if nothing else, an icon of hope that someday we can return; moreover a reminder of the excitement we found in a clean mold, an enticing table of ofsets or the wooden hull underlying a one-of.

Charlie Ess is the North Pacifc bureau chief for North Pacifc Focus.

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CREW LIFE

EXPO IN REVIEW

By BRUCE BULS

J

ohn Aldridge had quite a story to tell the crowd of fshermen at Pacifc Marine Expo in Seattle in November.

Aldridge is the guy who fell of his Long Island-based ofshore lobster boat in the middle of the night in July 2013 while his partner and a deckhand were sleeping on board their 45-foot boat, the Anna Mary. Aldridge is the guy who watched the lights of his own boat disappear into the darkness while treading water without a PFD or locator beacon.

Aldridge is also the guy who fgured out a way to survive for almost 13 hours before being picked up by a Coast Guard helicopter making one last pass before returning to base with only “bingo fuel.”

During his keynote speech at the expo, Aldridge talked very matter-offactly about what happened and how he survived. He gave primary credit to his Dunlap Thermo+ boots. Soon after hitting the water, Aldridge realized his boots weren’t dragging him down, that they were actually providing some fota-

Seattle Headliners Crew favorites from our annual conference program Wednesday Fishermen on Capitol Hill Salmon Safe Hydropower Classifcation & Load Lines Shipyard Project Planning Thursday Taking Risks at Sea Innovations in Net Building Communities in Catch Shares Friday Succession Planning 101 Update on Vessel Safety Rules Fisherman of the Year Contest

See you in November!

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tion. He then fgured he could make them more efective by taking them of, turning them upside down and plunging them back down with air trapped inside. By tucking both upside-down boots under his arms, Aldridge could keep his head and shoulders above water and even Bruce Buls, technical editor of WorkBoat magazine, swim a bit. “The boots, interviews man-overboard survivor John Aldridge. that was everything,” said Aldridge. “There was no way that I man-overboard alert at about 6:30 a.m. was going to be able to tread water long But the search plane, two helicopters and enough to stay alive.”

21 volunteer vessels started out searching Another key to his survival, he said, the wrong areas because it was assumed was attitude. “For a while, I was thinking, that Aldridge went into the water earlier ‘This is the day I’m going to die,’ but I than he did. He had been scheduled to had to turn that around because I felt like get Sosinski up at 11:30, but had instead it was literally deteriorating myself think- let him sleep while getting the deck and ing that way. Once I started thinking fsh holds ready for the next day. It was at positively, it was like a breath of fresh air, about 3 a.m. that he used a box hook to it was so uplifting, you could feel it em- pull a heavy ice chest of a hatch cover. powering you. The negativity, you could When the plastic handle snapped under just feel it bringing you down, making it the pressure, Aldridge was launched over OK to die and to give up.” the open stern of the Anna Mary. SudBy staying positive, Aldridge developed denly he was in the North Atlantic, alone a survival strategy. He knew where he fell in 72-degree water with a 5-foot swell. into the water, just beyond the 40-fathAldridge’s rescuers had been fying a om curve south of Montauk, N.Y., and Coast Guard Jayhawk all day and by early he knew there should be nearby strings afternoon, the helicopter was getting of traps with buoys. When he spotted close to having just enough fuel for getone, he tried to swim for it but struggled ting home. But with perhaps an hour’s against the current until he realized that worth, the crew few a last-minute course he was at the west end of the string, so set up by the search team in New Haven, he could drift and swim with the cur- Conn. They spotted Aldridge shortly afrent to the buoy on the eastern end. After ter beginning this fnal efort. he found that buoy, he decided to cut it Even though he was exhausted, sunloose, tie it to his arm and swim further burned, hypothermic and dehydrated, east, where he had seen aircraft search- Aldridge sufered no lasting ill efects ing for him. Ultimately, he found another and soon returned to fshing. He has, buoy, tied the two together, straddled the however, made some changes to his opconnection and hung on for dear life. eration. “We put a tailgate on the back The Coast Guard had been looking of the boat,” he said. “It’s a transom that for Aldridge since shortly after his fshing goes up and down, so we don’t have an partner, Anthony Sosinski, called in the Continued on page 32

LesLie TayLor/Videographer

Lobsterman recounts man-overboard survival saga

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After his Thursday keynote address on brand-building and corporate culture, Seattle chef Tom Douglas (right) joined fellow chef Thierry Rautureau to tape their radio show ”Seattle Kitchen“ on the show foor.

All in the Family

By LINC BEDROSIAN

H

istory was made on two fronts at this year’s Fisherman of the Year contest held on the last day of Pacifc Marine Expo in Seattle.

Eike Ten Kley, operations manager of Iliamna Fishing Co. in Portland, Ore., became the frst woman to win the coveted title. Her husband, Reid Ten Kley, won last year’s contest. That makes the Ten Kleys the frst husband and wife combination to hold the title.

Contestants in the annual event display their skills in net mending, knot tyPublisher Jerry Fraser congratulates Eike Ten Kley on her title of Fisherman of the Year.

Bring the whole crew!

Laura Lee Dobson

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ing and rope splicing, with winners in each contest earning a crisp $100 bill plus a slot in the survival suit competition for a shot at the title.

Fisherman Joao Domar of B Fisheries in Seattle won the net-mending contest, making his repair in 34.57 seconds.

The Ten Kleys were pitted against each other in the knot-tying heat, with Eike emerging victorious when Reid momentarily lost hold of the rope when tying the last of the three knots.

Chris Guggenbickler of Wrangell Ports and Harbors, in Wrangell, Alaska, made a three-tuck splice in 40.05 seconds in the rope-slicing contest to grab the last spot in the fnals.

The three winners then squared of to see who could don a survival suit the fastest. Ten Kley clambered into her suit in 29 seconds and secured her face fap just in time to take the title.

Laura Lee Dobson Photos

Linc Bedrosian is senior editor of North Pacifc Focus.

At the end of a long day, fshermen meet at our onsite pub, the ZF Marine Beer Garden.

The expo is the place to outft your boat and your crew.

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CREW LIFE Continued from page 30 open stern anymore, unless we’re fshing with other people on deck.

“We also require everyone to wear a personal EPIRB. We try to get them to wear lifejackets, which is easier said than done,” he admitted.“We wear them more in colder weather.”

He also said that lots of people in the Montauk feet have now switched to Dunlop boots. Another safety change instituted since the incident is trailing a line behind the boat while underway. “It’s just

an extra precaution because you never know,” he said.“In the middle of the night, it’s there for you. Of course, you have to bring it in when you get back to port.”

In the end, Aldridge emphasizes awareness. “Being knowledgeable of where you are and where you fsh and what your capabilities are is what saved me.”

Bruce Buls is the technical editor for WorkBoat magazine and is based in Whidbey Island, Wash.

Fleet mulls permit buybacks

By LINC BEDROSIAN

A

Laura Lee dobson phoTos

large crowd learned more about what a potential buyback of Bristol Bay drift gillnet permits would entail at a conference that may help fshermen decide whether it is the right choice for the feet.

Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association board member Matt Luck, the conference moderator, says the association received interest and questions from members regarding the possibility of a buyback that would reduce drift gillnet permits in the Bristol Bay salmon fshery. Less than productive past seasons generated concern among some members that “the fshing pie might be too small to split,” Luck says.

The association developed a survey sent to 1,800 permit holders. About 400 permit holders responded, and 81 percent of them said they wanted to learn more about a buyback.

Audience members listen to panelists speak about a potential buyback of Bristol Bay drift gillnet permits.

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The association subsequently contracted with Northern Economics, which has developed a report that could help the drift feet determine whether it wants to explore a buyback program.

Panelists Jonathan King, vice president and senior economist with Northern Economics, Jef Regnart of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Mike Sturtevant of NMFS and Bruce Twomley of Alaska’s Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission answered a variety of questions regarding how a buyback program would work.

“I know what people I fsh with are going to say — what’s the beneft, and what’s it going to cost me?” said Bristol Bay fsherman Anna Borland-Ivy. A show of hands revealed that about two thirds of the audience favored some other form of consolidation.

Linc Bedrosian is senior editor of North Pacifc Focus.

Training tips cut pain

By MICHAEL CROWLEY

H

ands that are painful to open, a sore back, shoulders that constantly ache — all these and more are aliments that seem to be part of the commercial fshing game.

“I had times when I couldn’t feel my hands when fshing,” says Jerry Dzugan at his Wednesday presentation on “Strains, Sprains and Pains: Ergonomics for Mariners” at the Keynote Stage.

Dzugan, executive director of the Alaska Marine Safety Education AssociJerry Dzugan demonstrates how to lift heavy items safely.

ation, says, “All mariners have problems with these injuries but not much is being done about it.”

Dzugan and AMSEA are trying to change that with training sessions and presentations like yesterday’s showing fshermen that by changing tools and the work area they can be more efcient, comfortable and work longer with less pain.

Using a video with photos and drawings — plus audience participation — Dzugan showed the efects of improper lifting and bad posture.

Dzugan ofered bits of advice: avoid twisting the spine to lift something; when cleaning fsh, keep the work 4 to 6 inches below the elbow; keep a load close to the body; and tighten stomach muscles and exhale when lifting.

Michael Crowley is the Boats & Gear editor for North Pacifc Focus.

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INSIDE THE INDUSTRY

CALLED UP FROM THE LOWER 48 Tom Enlow heads back to Washington to lead at UniSea headquarters after 25 years with the company’s operations in Dutch Harbor cess. “[But] there’s something romantic about the remoteness. And I was looking for a little adventure as well as a job.”

He arrived to a little town built on king crab and now in the throes of a pollock boom. Unalaska’s longtime mayor, Shirley Marquardt, remembers that era well — back then, she was a processor.

“Everything changed when pollock hit — everything,” she says. So it was a

more housing. Then, in the mid-1990s, they unveiled a diferent kind of enterprise: the Grand Aleutian Hotel. Enlow t’s an hour before a bright pink became its manager, and led the hospisunrise in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, tality division for more than a decade. and the UniSea campus is wak“It was really a statement for the kind ing up. Processors are heading of community that Unalaska was beto the pollock line, or driving forklifts coming,” he says. “That started to cointhrough the slush to of-load a fresh cide with big pollock operations, and… catch of Pacifc cod. And up in a modreally helped the community profle est ofce, CEO Tom Enlow is ponderitself.” ing his new role at the helm of the ship.

That profle was as an “I came out here on a indispensable player in the fve-year plan,” he laughs.

Everything changed when pollock hit global fshing industry.Today, “And I’ve been renewing it Dutch Harbor has been the every fve years since.”

— everything. nation’s top seafood port by Enlow became president volume for 17 years running of UniSea, the Alaskan sub— Shirley Marquardt, — and UniSea is its largest sidiary of Japanese seafood UNALASKA MAYOR processor. The company has giant Nissui, on Jan. 1, movten times the workforce and ing up from his post as VP of big deal for Enlow to come into Uni- feet it did in the 1980s. They produce operations.

He’s been with the company since Sea “at the ground foor of that fshery, more products now, on a more global market.Their plants process hundreds of 1989, when he left a teaching career in which he absolutely loved.”

Enlow was there to see UniSea com- millions of pounds of pollock each year Seattle and set out for the last frontier.

His background in shipping and receiv- plete its second processing plant, which — one quarter of the onshore quota for ing gave him the credentials to man- would take over pollock surimi and the Bering Sea. And they do so age for UniSea. But in a company town: he knew little about UniSea owns three of Alaska’s seafood infour full-service bars, dustry and even less one of two liquor about the place he stores and both hotels was heading.

“I remember stopin Unalaska.

That puts Enlow ping at the library in a unique position on the way home to in the industry, says look at an atlas and At-Sea Processors try to fnd it, and Association Execuwas quite surprised tive Director Stephato see it was way out nie Madsen. She was in the Aleutian Isonce Enlow’s nextlands,” Enlow says of door neighbor in Undiscovering Unalaska alaska (there for the and Dutch Harbor in birth of his twin sons, the days before widenow high school juspread Internet acniors), but she became his colleague when he took over her seat fshmeal, while cod and crab moved of On Jan. 1, Tom Enlow took the the Barge UniSea and onto shore. The on the North Pacifc Fishery Managehelm of UniSea’s headquarters company also added a new galley and ment Council’s Advisory Panel. Madsen in Redmond, Wash.

By ANNIE ROPEIK

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UniSea

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INSIDE THE INDUSTRY was appointed to the council in 2000.

“He was able to see both points of view — having come from the fsh side and then trying to understand the economics of making a hotel like that

“I came out here on a fve-year plan. And I’ve been renewing it every

”

fve years since.

— Tom Enlow, UNISEA PRESIDENT AND CEO

work,” Madsen says. “He had a lot of diferent hats — pollock, crab, halibut, cod — so he really did vote the harvesting and the processing and the support sector perspective.”

And he did so, she says, with patience, thoughtfulness and an attention to the needs of places the industry lived. With two kids in Unalaska’s schools, Enlow

has a personal stake in the city’s wellbeing. He’s served on the city council since 2012, and hopes to fnish his term before moving to Redmond, Wash., UniSea’s headquarters, later this year.

John Gruver of the trawler co-op United Catcher Boats was on the AP while Enlow was chair, and says he advocated not just for his own company, but for the whole industry. “[The AP] gave Tom a lot of exposure. He got to know a lot of people,” Gruver says. “I don’t know anyone that wouldn’t talk to him.”

Enlow thinks those lasting connections are why his predecessor, Terry Shaf, wanted him on the AP while he worked hospitality. Shaf was a mentor for Enlow, and a leader for UniSea for 16 years. He died of pancreatic cancer last November at age 67.

“He was a big part of who we are today,” Enlow says of Shaf. “He transformed UniSea from a company that was really still kind of an entrepreneurial company… to, really, more business-structured.”

Now, Enlow says the company is entering a new phase: one where the skippers and industry leaders that UniSea has worked with for decades are starting to age out. It comes at a tricky time, when UniSea’s facing the $6 million cost of defraying a state minimum wage hike — meaning onshore consolidation and potential job cuts — and a market in which quotas are up, but prices are down.

With a lot of uncertainty, Enlow says he’s not sure how Alaska’s fshing industry will appeal to a generation that’s “maybe not quite as romantic about the opportunity of living in remote, isolated places” as he himself was.

Even so, he knows he’ll have to help lead any coming transformation.

“I don’t think it’s realistic to expect them to feel about this industry like many of us felt about it 20, 30 years ago,” he says. “We might have to adapt a little bit.”

Annie Ropeik is a freelance writer based in Unalaska, Alaska.

FO’C’SLE LIBRARY

By hook and by crook

By Jessica Hathaway

Fast Hands

I

n “Fast Hands,” John Pappenheimer approaches the fshing life from the perspective of a wayward youth, 16-year-old Gus Pedersen. While this novel falls into the category of young adult fction, it can’t help but be enjoyable to all ages, especially anyone who’s learned to fsh from an old salt.

Like many mariners before him, Gus makes his way up to Ketchikan from Seattle. Having been caught taking a yacht for a joyride, he is hardly a hardened criminal. But he chooses a sentence to fsh Southeast all the same, a punishment many have inficted on themselves and found to be the joy of their lives.

And so begins Gus’ journey of self-discovery in which fshing gets him of the hook in more ways than one.

Like most of us, he learns the hard 34

By John Pappenheimer Illustrations by Kate Thompson Epicenter Press, 2014 Softcover, 184 pages $12.95 www.epicenterpress.com

way how to conduct himself in a new town, in unfamiliar surround-ings, how to navigate the tumult of a frst love, and what it means to acceptt that the seemingly all-knowing adultss around you and those who came be-fore you are burdened by faults off their own.

But perhaps most importantly, he learns that fshing, like most things worth having in this life, is relentless, exhausting and rewarding.

Excerpted from “Fast Hands”

M

aybe got two hours’ sleep before my uncle was shaking me awake.

“Get your gear on, boy.They’ll show you how to bait up out on deck.” I pulled

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FO’C’SLE LIBRARY on the Frisco jeans my uncle bought for me, the boots and this really ugly orange rain gear. I’d wanted the green stuf but either my uncle has no taste or he was out to embarrass me. He’d insisted on the orange gear, saying, “This ain’t a beauty contest. If you suddenly decide height of my knees and motioned for to go swimming, we want to be able to me to grab an unbaited coil. Still sisee you.” lent, he showed Up on deck we me how to grab were just passing Both crewmen ignored a handful of coils, a point of land. marked by a The waves broke me. Five minutes went becket that stuck against the rocks, out like a white turning the water by. I was thinking if they tab in a fling a beautiful light cabinet. He had green laced with didn’t need me I might as me place the coils white. Ahead of at my knees. The us was the open well go back to sleep. next step was to ocean. I could grab from an asfeel the big swells sortment of bait: rolling in underneath the Hamilton. I split salmon heads, cut-up herring, segdon’t remember ever being afraid of the ments of octopus, mushy black cod, all water before, but this wasn’t like being slimy and hard to hold. Each one went on a ferryboat. I can swim, but I’ve never been more than a few strokes from the side of a pool.

Rudi was splitting salmon heads from a frozen pile dumped on the hatch cover.

Arnie faced a skate of coiled line on a narrow baiting table in the shelter of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute ..... 3 www.alaskaseafood.org bait shack. He lifted a handful of coils and fopped them down on a platform at his Alaska United / GCI............................ 13 knees as if he were moving a slinky down www.alaskaunited.com one step. With his right hand, he lifted a Bulletproof Nets LLC ......................... 19 hook of the coil. It was tied to a ganwww.bulletproofnets.com gion that was tied to a becket embedded Cummins Northwest.........................CV2 in the line. With a deft movement of his www.cumminsnorthwest.com right wrist and left hand, he ran the hook Delta Western, Inc. ............................. 11 through a piece of herring and then back www.deltawestern.com into it so the point of the hook was just Dock Street Brokers ........................... 16 peeking through the skin. Then with anwww.dockstreetbrokers.com other quick movement he placed the bait so it rested fat on the top of coils stacked Foss Maritime Company .................... 23 www.foss.com at his knees.Then he reached for the next becket and the next and the next.

Fremont Maritime .............................. 21 “What do you want me to do?” I www.fremontmaritime.com asked. Both crewmen ignored me. Five H & H Marine Inc .................................. 9 minutes went by. I was thinking if they www.hhmarineinc.com didn’t need me I might as well go back Harris Electric Inc................................ 11 to sleep. Arnie fnished baiting the coil. www.harriselectricinc.com He placed a canvas square on top of it; Kodiak Area Chamber of Commerce .. 17 with a brisk, almost angry movement he www.kodiak.org cinched it up tight, and then added it to a pile of already baited coils.

Kodiak Shipyard ................................... 4 www.kodiakshipyard.com Without saying a word, he swung up a seat-like plat form just large enough for a skate of gear, adjusted it to the

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on the hook a little diferently. Then he showed me how to place the baited hook on the coil.

“It’s like this. So the hook gets pulled up, not tossed to the side of the coil with the hook facing down.”

Amazing! He could talk! His vocal cords were actually hooked up!

He watched me skeptically while I baited several hooks.

Sure enough, I screwed up. Brusquely he pushed me aside. “It’s like this, otherwise you get a snarl and you’ll be up all night.” He wasn’t joking, but I didn’t realize it at the time.

Jessica Hathaway is the editor of North Pacifc Focus.

INDEX TO ADVERTISERS MER - Marine Engine & Repair .......... 25 merequipment.com National Fisherman ............................ 22 www.nationalfsherman.com NET Systems Inc ................................. 15 www.net-sys.com Pacifc Fishermen Shipyard & Electric . 14 www.pacifcfshermen.com

Pacifc Power Products .....................CV3 www.pacifcmarinepower.com Petro Marine Services ........................ 19 www.shoresidepetroleum.com Satellite Technical Services ................. 12 www.satellitealaska.com Seattle Marine & Fishing Supply ....... 29 www.seamar.com Simrad Fisheries ...............................CV4 www.simrad.com Vigor Industrial ..................................... 5 www.vigorindustrial.com Washington Chain & Supply Inc ......... 15 www.wachain.com WESMAR Western Marine Electronics ............... 14 www.wesmar.com

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IN FOCUS / PUGET SOUND WITH CHUM SALMON

Captain ptain Dave “Soro” oro” Sorenson (left) hauls in chum salmon on the seiner Paige Marie in the Colvos C Passage sag of Washington’s South Puget Sound.

PHOTO BY KIM CARVER / Jack Tar magazine

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Sonar for trawling!

The new Simrad SN90 is a forward looking multibeam sonar for trawlers.

The SN90 transducer is fixed to the hull or bulb like a regular echosounder’s transducer, only pointing forward.

No hoist unit is needed making it a space saving installation. The sonar beams are pointing forward only in a 120 degree swath, taking the propeller noise out of the equation.

A full vertical slice as well as three inspection split beams can be individually trained alongside the swath.

The SN90 is a chirp broadband sonar transmitting and receiving between 70-110 kHz.

Kongsberg Underwater Technologies Inc. 19210 33rd Ave W, Lynnwood, WA 98036, USA - Ph.: +1 425 712 1136 - simrad.usa@simrad.com www.simrad.com

TECHNOLOGY FOR SUSTA T INABLE FISHERIES

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