April 5, 2012 – NEW BEDFORD— From Labrador to the Falkland Islands, there are not many fishing grounds Stanley Adamczewski has not trawled in 46 years on the water as a commercial fisherman. Fishing has been good to the Polish native who came to the U.S. in 1974 and started out as a deckhand on a groundfish boat. Through hard work and diligence, the man who fled communism to pursue the American dream realized his life's ambition in 1986 when he was able to buy his own fishing boat in New Bedford, the 72-foot steel dragger Odin. He renamed her Humbak, the Polish word for the humpback whale. But today the dream is fading. The days when a single-vessel owner like him can make a living on the water and keep a crew employed are vanishing before his eyes, he says.
Adamczewski has plenty of figures to support his belief. Last year, the fish he landed from his 72-foot steel dragger grossed more than $1 million at the dock, yet neither he nor his crew made a living wage for their long hours of hard, physical labor in one of the country's most dangerous professions.
It has been a long, slow decline for his business and his crew, best illustrated by the settlement sheets he produces from nearly identical fishing trips made several years apart.
In 2003, with a crew of five, the Humbak made port after 10 days fishing and grossed $38,000. Each crew member's share came to $2,631.
On March 20 this year, after a very similar trip and with the crew reduced to four, the catch brought $46,000 at the auction but, after expenses of $35,609, the crew received only $1,083.85 apiece for their efforts.
"They made less than minimum wage, about $4 an hour for around 240 hours work," Adamczewski said. "They could make more on welfare than fishing."
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