Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: How do fishermen in Massachusetts get healthcare?

June 23, 2025 — Some of us are lucky enough to have jobs that provide benefits, such as healthcare and paid time off. But for commercial fishermen, there is no human resources office at sea.

Fishing Partnership Support Services is a local nonprofit that’s trying to fill that gap for fishermen and their families.

CAI’s Gilda Geist spoke with Tracy Sylvester, regional navigator with Fishing Partnership, to learn more about how her organization supports fishermen in coastal Massachusetts.

Gilda Geist What does Fishing Partnership Support Services do, and who does it serve?

Tracy Sylvester I’m a regional navigator at Fishing Partnership, helping fishing families all over coastal Massachusetts. Fishing Partnership serves family-owned fishing businesses run by independent fishermen. We have offices in New Bedford, Gloucester, Chatham and Plymouth. Being a commercial fisherman is not easy, so that’s where Fishing Partnerships steps in to support local commercial fishermen with our community health programs, top-notch safety trainings, financial guidance and support for the unique personal issues that fishing families face.

GG You have a background in fishing and being part of a fishing family. Can you tell me a little bit about how that experience informs your work?

TS Before I came to Fishing Partnership, I lived up in Sitka, Alaska where I was a commercial fisherman. We harvested wild salmon, halibut and black cod, and we still do that in the summers as much as we can even though we’re living back here in Massachusetts. There’s nothing like Fishing Partnership in Alaska. When I was commercial fishing full-time up there, it was really challenging to figure out how to access health care as a small business owner. Each fishing boat you can think of as a small business. We have wildly fluctuating income, so it can be really hard to estimate our income when we go to apply. Between juggling the logistics of commercial fishing with the whole family on board—I fished with my partner and our two small kids—it was really hard for me to find time to figure out our health care, figure out how to meet our basic needs when we’re back on land. When we are out there, we’re not able to get online, make phone calls and keep our life on land on track. The challenges with accessing affordable health insurance and the related quality of care issues in Alaska was the tipping point that prompted us to move back to Massachusetts in 2019. This wasn’t a decision that we made lightly. It was really difficult to give up everything we’d built up there and come back here. But health care is just so important, and the stress of worrying about losing it was too much on top of all the challenges of being a commercial fisherman. So we came back with the idea that we would keep fishing up there in the summers, market our catch back here in New England and find some kind of balance between the two states and get the best of both worlds. Then COVID hit and we ended up staying here longer. So we sold our boat after a couple of years of struggling to get up there and work our boat and live here, and that’s when I started working with Fishing Partnership.

Read the full article at CAI

The gear fishermen can’t afford to leave behind

March 18, 2025 — A recent informal survey on FaceBook asked fishermen what gear they would never go offshore without. Many responded that they’d never leave port without a survival suit. “That’s smart,” says John Roberts, director of safety training at Fishing Partnership Support Services, a Massachusetts-based non-profit dedicated to improving the health, safety, and economic security of commercial fishermen. “A survival suit is probably the most important piece of safety gear you can have on the boat.”

After 30 years doing search and rescue for the U.S. Coast Guard, Roberts joined the Massachusetts-based Fishing Partnership two years ago and has been running safety trainings for fishermen around New England. “We teach them how to don and doff the suit, that is, get in and out of it, and how to get in the water,” says Roberts. “We encourage them to bring their own suits, and we go over how to store and maintain them,” Roberts notes that zippers should be waxed and lights in working order. “The reflective tape shouldn’t be peeling off. Sometimes a guy might have bought a suit and not used it, and we unpack it, and it’s got dry rot, or the zipper is rusted.”

The Coast Guard has a table—based on length, registration, and distance from shore—that indicates which vessels are required to carry survival suits for the crew, but Roberts recommends having your own suit, even if the vessel is not required to have one for you. He adds that certain vessels are required to conduct safety drills once a month, and thoseneed to be conducted by a certified drill instructor. He also notes that the survival suits should be serviced every two years. “They blow them up with air and look for leaks, dry rot, and open seams, and make sure everything is working.”

When it comes to brands, Roberts can’t make recommendations. “When you look around, Kent and Imperial seem to be the most popular brands, but Guy Cotton is making suits [Piel brand], and Viking is still making them, and Mustang. The important thing is not the brand, it’s that you have it with you and that it’s in good working order.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

‘Nothing they could do but listen’: How a death spurred change for a SouthCoast fleet

October 28, 2024 — In the summer of 2021, a Mayday call went out from the captain aboard a fishing vessel who needed Narcan to help save a life due to an overdose on board. There happened to be another vessel in the vicinity that was able to respond, and they tossed a box of the over-the-counter drug on board. 

The captain administered one dose, but nothing happened. He gets back on the radio. A second vessel was carrying Narcan and tossed it on board. The captain, after the fourth dose, sent his crew member back onshore alive.

“That day there were three fishermen first responders that saved a life at sea,” said Debra Kelsey, with Fishing Partnership Support Services.

Read the full article at The Standard-Times

Fishing Partnership hosting survival training in Maine

May 19, 2024 — When something disastrous happens at sea, fishermen have only seconds to make a series of decisions to determine the outcome. Training for these events can increase the likelihood of survival.

Fishing Partnership Support Services is holding safety and Survival Training in South Portland, Maine, on May 23, 2024, from 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The training will be held at the U.S. Coast Guard Sector Northern New England. Fishing Partnership is a non-profit support service organization founded in 1997. It is dedicated to improving the health, safety, and economic security of commercial fishermen and their families. The organization has provided critical services and programs to more than 20,000 fishing families in New England.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

 

MASSACHUSETTS: Meet the women of New Bedford’s Waterfront — she finds safety and security for fishermen

May 28, 2021 — On a sunny Friday morning, Deb Kelsey made her way to the Fairhaven Police Department with a box of Narcan, the overdose-reversing drug, in her car trunk. Inside she met with Sgt. Michael Bouvier and Peter Lagasse, a certified alcohol and drug counselor, to discuss what homes they would visit that day.

The three form part of Fairhaven’s Opioid Crisis Task Force. Within six weeks of a medical incident, sometimes an overdose, they make house calls and inform community members of different resources available to help them. They also offer packs of Narcan.

Bouvier went through his notes from previous meetings and recent incident logs. As he named people and addresses, Kelsey took notes in her notebook. They recalled whether the individual was home last time or who answered the door.

Kelsey, a 54-year-old New Bedford native, works as a “navigator” for Fishing Partnership Support Services, a nonprofit with four locations in Massachusetts, including New Bedford. As a certified recovery coach and community health worker, she enrolls fishermen in health insurance, connects them with recovery resources for substance use disorder, walks the piers to inform captains of training opportunities and makes house calls with local police and pastors.

“I like to think of myself as a bridge builder,” she said.

Kelsey previously worked in commercial printing and found her current job by chance when an acquaintance informed her of a part-time job opportunity.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Vaccination Resources for Commercial Fishermen

March 24, 2021 — The following was released by the Fishing Partnership Support Services:

Make a Plan to Get Vaccinated!

COVID-19 is frightening – especially for commercial fishermen who don’t receive paid sick time. The economic costs of catching the virus can be greater than the physical toll of becoming ill. Effective March 22nd, commercial fishermen became eligible to schedule a COVID-19 vaccine appointment. Make a plan of action to protect yourself and your loved ones. Vaccines are safe and effective, free of cost regardless of your insurance status, and have been approved for emergency use authorization (EUA) by the FDA.

Vaccination Resources On Our Website:

  • How to sign up and/or preregister for the vaccine.
  • Updates on your eligibility status for the vaccine.
  • Myths versus Facts Primer.
  • FAQs about the vaccine.
  • What to expect after your shot.
  • Videos of Navigators sharing their vaccine story.
  • Resources for coping with COVID-19 vaccine anxiety.
  • Where to find COVID-19 testing near you.

Together we can end this pandemic. Need help interpreting vaccination resources? Contact a Fishing Partnership Navigator 888.282.8816

As fishermen weather the winter cold, are they truly prepared for survival?

January 27, 2021 — The temperatures were awfully chilly this weekend.

On Saturday night, 27 degrees at Provincetown Municipal Airport, with winds at 25 miles per hour and gusts to 37. The low Saturday night was 22 degrees.

It felt like the first truly freezing temperatures this winter on the Outer Cape.

That chill is a reminder of what fishermen have to consider every time they leave the dock.

At a December training in Sandwich, 25 crewmen and captains from Cape and New Bedford fishing vessels sat down in slushy snow to wriggle into what could be the most important article of clothing they will ever try on.

They call them Gumby suits, or immersion or survival suits. A survival suit is bright orange with oversized hands and feet and a tight-fitting hood that reveals only a small moon of flesh: eyes, nose and mouth. The water temperature on that training day was 47 degrees, and Dan Orchard, the vice president of Fishing Partnership Support Services, had the men suit up and jump into the water within a half-hour of arrival. Going from comfort to cold, disorienting water temperatures was about as close to the real thing as could be had shoreside.

Read the full story at Wicked Local

Wellfleet fisherman among those trained in Sandwich to survive the winter sea

December 28, 2020 — Temperatures at the Sandwich Marina on Friday morning, Dec. 18, stood at the freezing mark, with a bitter wind and driving snow. Despite this, 25 crewmen and captains from Cape and New Bedford fishing vessels sat down in slushy snow to wriggle into what could be the most important article of clothing they will ever try on.

They call them Gumby suits, and it’s easy to see why. A survival suit is bright orange with oversized hands and feet and a tight-fitting hood that reveals only a small moon of flesh: eyes, nose and mouth.

The water temperature in the marina was 47 degrees, and Dan Orchard, the vice president of Fishing Partnership Support Services, had the men suit up and jump into the water within a half-hour of arrival. The shock of going from comfort to cold, disorienting water temperatures was about as close to the real thing as could be had shoreside.

Orchard and other staff from the fishing partnership were conducting a day of survival training for fishermen after captains requested it following the sinking of the Emmy Rose. Four fishermen died with the wreck 20 miles east of Provincetown in the early morning hours of Nov. 23.

Read the full story at Wicked Local

Observer Letter to NOAA Administrators

June 30, 2020 — Recently, Fishing Partnership Support Services reached out to federal administrators in regards to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and federal at-sea observers. The following is an excerpt from a letter addressed to Michael Pentony, Regional Administrator for NMFS,  and Dr. John Hare, Science and Research Director for the Northeast Fisheries Science Center.

Fishing Partnership Support Services (FPSS) is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the health and safety of commercial fishing families throughout the Northeast. Given the state of the COVID-19 pandemic and the guidance of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), we are gravely concerned by your decision to reintroduce observers to fishing vessels at this time. For the safety of our fishermen and observers, as well as their families, we ask you to change course and extend the waiver until you can work with the fishing community and public health officials: 1) to analyze the risk of the observer program to safety at sea, and 2) to develop effective protocols that minimize transmission of Covid-19.

The CDC has been clear that older adults and people with underlying medical conditions are at highest risk of developing a severe illness from COVID-19. “Severe illness means that the person with COVID-19 may require hospitalization, intensive care, or a ventilator to help them breathe, or they may even die.”

Read the full letter here

MASSACHUSETTS: Fishing sectors, nonprofits seek federal pandemic aid

May 1, 2020 — Fishing stakeholders are urging Congress to expand federal assistance in the next round of funding to include fishing-related nonprofit associations and Northeast fishing sectors to help them keep their employees working during the pandemic.

In a letter to the respective chairmen of the U.S. House and Senate small business committees, stakeholders called on lawmakers to redress inequities toward many non-profits that have been precluded from sharing in benefits — specifically the Paycheck Protection Program — contained in the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.

“Our primary principle concern is for the equitable treatment of the Northeast groundfish industry sectors organized pursuant to the Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(5), and for those U.S. fishing industry trade associations organized pursuant to IRS section 501(c)(6),” the stakeholders stated in the letter.

Those associations include the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition, the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association, the Fishing Partnership Support Services and other fishing nonprofit organizations.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times