Saving Seafood

Fishing Amid Territorial Disputes in the South China Sea

April 8, 2016 — CATO, Philippines — As Asian countries jostle for territory in the South China Sea, one Filipino fisherman is taking a stand.

He has faced down Chinese coast guard rifles, and even engaged in a stone-throwing duel with the Chinese last month that shattered two windows on his outrigger.

“They’ll say, ‘Out, out of Scarborough,'” Renato Etac says, referring to Scarborough Shoal, a rocky outcropping claimed by both the Philippines and China. He yells back, “Where is the document that shows Scarborough is Chinese property?”

At one level, the territorial disputes in the South China Sea are a battle of wills between American and Chinese battleships and planes. At another level, they are cat-and-mouse chases between the coast guards of several countries and foreign fishermen, and among the fishing boats themselves.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The New York Times

Gloucester boat captain in ill-fated Coast Guard rescue drowned

GLOUCESTER, Mass. (March 25, 2016) — The state medical examiner has determined that a Gloucester eel boat captain who died during an ill-fated rescue off Cape Ann late last year had drowned, a finding that brings new scrutiny to the equipment aboard the Coast Guard’s vessels.

David “Heavy D” Sutherland died moments after his 51-foot wooden boat, the Orin C, sank while under tow by the Coast Guard about 12 miles off Cape Ann on Dec. 3. The Coast Guard is investigating why the tow went awry and whether rescue vessels should be outfitted with more medical equipment.

Drowning victims can sometimes be saved if they’re underwater for only a few minutes and receive oxygen immediately, according to emergency medicine experts. But Sutherland didn’t receive oxygen because, unlike ambulances and airplanes, most Coast Guard vessels don’t carry it and crews aren’t trained to administer it, a Coast Guard official said.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

Coast Guard suspends search for fisherman whose vessel capsized, sank off Oregon coast

CHARLESTON, Ore. (March 24, 2016) — The Coast Guard has suspended its search for a fisherman missing near Charleston, Oregon.

A 62-foot fishing trawler was carrying the fisherman and three other people when it capsized Wednesday, the Coast Guard said in a news release.

The other three people aboard the vessel were rescued by someone who happened to be nearby when the vessel capsized, the Coast Guard said.

Authorities suspended their search at 7 p.m. Wednesday after 11 hours of attempting to find the fisherman, who was captaining the now-sunken vessel.

Read the full story at The Oregonian

Coast Guard Vessel Capsizes on Way to Rescue Fishing Boat

February 25, 2016 — Five Coast Guard officers sent to rescue the crew of a fishing boat faced their own emergency early Thursday when their vessel capsized in treacherous conditions off the Rockaways, officials said.

The tables were turned on the Guardsmen as they tried to save a 76-foot scallop trawler from Virginia that was being hammered by 10-to-12-foot waves and taking on water near the East Rockaway Inlet, according to officials.

The commercial fishing vessel — dubbed the Carolina Queen III — had been searching for sea scallops in the mid-Atlantic region just south of Long Island, which would have been on the plates of New Yorkers if it wasn’t for the bad weather.

Fighting gale-force winds and heavy rain, the Coast Guard’s 25-foot, twin-engine response boat was dispatched from Station Jones Beach to rescue the seven man crew after receiving an urgent distress call at about 2 a.m. saying they were having mechanical issues and had lost power.

But as the Coast Guard members tried to save the fishing vessel, which eventually ran aground, the powerful surf proved to be too much for them — and their boat overturned at about 4:45 a.m. near the Silver Point Beach Club in Atlantic Beach, officials said.

Read the full story at the New York Post

MASSACHUSETTS: Lobsterman rescued after boat burns

November 6, 2015 — Editor’s note: Proper safety and survival training is  critically important for dealing with emergencies and disasters at sea. To learn more about maritime safety and to enroll in a maritime safety and emergency preparedness course, contact Fishing Partnership Support Services.

A lobsterman was forced to jump overboard after his vessel caught fire just off Plum Island on Friday morning.

Luckily for Sam Allen of the Dawn Breaker, two men in a nearby vessel were able to pull him out of the water within 15 minutes.

Though Allen, an Ipswich resident, sustained no injuries, the Dawn Breaker is a total loss.

The fire started when the Dawn Breaker’s engine began to overheat. Allen tried to put the flames out with a portable fire extinguisher, but the vessel went up fast, Lt. Lee Prentiss of the Ipswich Fire Department said.

The Coast Guard lauded Allen for his quick actions.

“This is the mark of a true professional mariner,” said Petty Officer 1st Class Darin Crozier, a watchstander at Coast Guard Sector Boston’s command center, in a statement. “He was prepared and did everything right — he donned his immersion suit, communicated his location clearly with his radio, and abandoned ship with his locator beacon.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Image courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard.

Image courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard.

MASSACHUSETTS: Coast Guard, Samaritan tow in fishing boat disabled off Monomoy

October 16, 2015 — The Coast Guard and a commercial fishing boat towed another fishing boat in from off Monomoy Island where it had become disabled after engine trouble Thursday, according to the Coast Guard.

Late Thursday afternoon watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector Southeastern New England notified their command center that the 41-foot Angel Fish, with its three-man crew, was disabled because of a main diesel engine failure 10 miles south of the island, according to a statement from the Coast Guard.

Read the full story from the Cape Cod Times

Fishing industry pushes for safety exams every 2 years

September 27, 2015 — The Coast Guard will require commercial fishing vessels to undergo dockside safety examinations only once every five years, a move that North Pacific industry officials are protesting as far too infrequent.

The industry officials want the exams, which become mandatory Oct. 15, to be required every two years so that the Coast Guard has a better chance of spotting torn survival suits, malfunctioning alarms and other safety problems.

Commercial fishing has long ranked as one of the most deadly occupations in the nation. Plenty of people within the industry have bridled at regulations that have come about in recent decades, so it’s unusual to have some call for tougher oversight. But the North Pacific industry officials said in their letter that the two-year interval would do a much better job of overseeing safety and could save lives.

“Once every half decade is just a really bad idea,” said Chris Woodley, executive director of the Seattle-based Groundfish Forum and a member of the Coast Guard’s Fishing Vessel Safety Advisory Committee. He is one of 15 representatives of North Pacific fishery associations and seafood companies that have signed onto the protest letter sent this month to U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Paul Zukunft.

Read the full story at the Seattle Times

 

Gloucester’s Key Largo tows disabled fish boat into Boston

September 11, 2015 — The crew of the Coast Guard cutter Key Largo, homeported in Gloucester since April, assisted in the rescue of four people who were aboard a disabled fishing vessel 97 miles east of Boston.

The captain of the 80-foot fishing vessel Lydia and Mya, homeported in Boston, used a VHF-16 radio Wednesday about 9:30 a.m. to contact  Coast Guard Sector Boston to report Lydia and Mya was disabled due to mechanical problems.

Search and rescue coordinators at Sector Boston issued a marine assistance request broadcast soliciting assistance for Lydia and Mya from good Samaritans or a commercial salvage company. After the request went unanswered, the Coast Guard cutter Escanaba, a 270-foot cutter homeported in Boston, was sent to assist.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

 

 

Fishermen rescued from burning boat off Maine coast

August 27, 2015 — PORTLAND, MA —Two Maine fishermen were safely rescued Wednesday evening from their burning boat about six miles from Jeffreys Ledge off the coast of Maine.

The Coast Guard said a crew member of the Gretchen Marie, a 40-foot fishing boat based out of Portland, contacted the Coast Guard around 7:40 p.m. to say there was a fire on board and heavy smoke was coming from the boat’s pilothouse.

Station South Portland sent a motor boat to the area and removed the fishermen from the boat. The fishermen used their own equipment to put out a fire in the boat’s engine before the Coast Guard arrived, according to Petty Officer 1st Class Kurt Hein.

Read the full story at WMTW News