December 17, 2014 — Each season, with the same regularity as the swallows returning to Capistrano, the trampers arrive back in Western Alaska to haul away the sea’s mother lode. Kind of a sea gypsy, a tramper is a ship that wanders around the oceans of the world, without a schedule, searching for and collecting goods until her holds are full. Trampers are small compared to other deep-sea ships, averaging around 500 feet in length. While there is no argument that fish are valuable, they are not economic equals to oil or some of the other high-volume bulk commodities shipped over the globe. Because of this, ships chartered to transport fish to foreign markets operate along much thinner profit margins than their larger and more expensive cousins.
The typical ship arriving in Western Alaska isn’t a Cadillac. It is a Spartan, rust-covered, hard-working Samson-sized ship constantly struggling to be “the little ship that could.” It competes against Goliath-sized container vessels carrying 10 times the cargo.
The more frequent and common customers to Western Alaska are Korean-, Japanese-, and Russian-flagged trampers with crews from all around the world. To reduce operating costs, many ship owners hire the cheapest labor available from Third World markets. The result is that crews and officers alike are often mixed together without regard to cultural differences or ethnicity. Men of different races and religious beliefs have a hard enough time coexisting with each other on terra firma. Imagine being bottled up together on a 500-foot ship drifting around in the Bering Sea for more than a year. Good captains need to be good babysitters.
The fact that ship pilots must live on these ships for weeks at a time is an unusual aspect of piloting in western Alaska. This is due to the reality that many of the ports and harbors these ships visit have zero infrastructure. No communication, transportation, housing, or medical facilities are available. Because of this, a voyage to Western Alaska for most seamen provides little time ashore to even briefly stretch their legs or to lie down in the grass and do a little daydreaming. Many of these men sign contracts to remain aboard these ships for a full year or longer. For better or worse, the ship is their home.
Recounting one of my past partners' story about a particular ship in our respective careers provides a good snap shot of what life was (is) like not just aboard a fish tramper, but life in general aboard the multitude of foreign-flagged ships that ply their trade in the remote reaches of Western Alaska. Ships much like the Oryong 501, the fishing trawler that recently sunk in the Bering Sea.
Read the full story at Alaska Dispatch News