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Crews' daily double trips keep gillnet owners afloat |
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Six owners of federally-permitted Gloucester gillnet vessels have each
adapted to today's groundfish laws, ebbing fish prices, flowing
expenses, and year-round cod abundance off Gloucester by working two
vessels in that fishery with just one crew, who often double-trip
daily.
This May's sector management program will void that survival technique. "I was one of the first (gillnet vessel owners) to get a second boat around 2001. The 120-day block was the original reason. Who can go unemployed four months out of the year?" questioned Phil Powell, captain and owner of approximately 43-foot-long and 45-foot-long gillnetters. Groundfish regulations dictate every federally-licensed Gloucester gillnetter take an annual 120-day block (four month-long time out from fishing) which must be done "... in no less than seven-day increments and include a 20-day block in the spring and also a 21-day one in the summer," explained Richard Burgess, one of the vessel owners who works two sets of gillnetters within the 30- to 50-foot range with two crews. |
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BOSTON HERALD: Fishing for help
It shouldn’t be the Wild West out there on the high seas, but as one sign in the flotilla said, “Fishing families are working families.” That is a message Obama and his underlings should remember.
