Saving Seafood

Gloucester Schooner Festival – Welcomes Navy and Schooner Columbia

August 25, 2015 — The following was released by the Gloucester Schooner Festival: 

The story line of this year’s 31st annual Gloucester Schooner Festival, which runs from September 4th to September 6th, is all about Essex built and Essex inspired schooners. And the arrival of the 610’ USS Fort McHenry, but we’ll get to that.

The signature or attraction schooner at this year’s Festival is the replica Columbia. The original Columbia was a 141’ classic Gloucester Fishing Schooner built at the historic A.D. Story shipyard of Essex, Massachusetts in 1923. That fall, the Columbia, designed for speed, challenged the Bluenose, Canada’s legendary schooner in the International Fishermen’s Cup Races in Halifax. Nearly winning the title, the Columbia was narrowly defeated by the Bluenose and was one of the few American schooners to provide a challenge to Bluenose. (The other being the Gertrude Thebaud which beat the Bluenose in the Lipton Cup in 1930. The trophy is on display at Maritime Gloucester.). The replica Columbia was built by Brian D’Isernia at his boat yard, Eastern Shipbuilding Group, in Panama City, Florida. The Schooner is currently sailing to Sable Island, where the vessel was lost with all hands in a gale on August 24, 1927. Following a memorial service at sea, the Columbia will make the return trip to Gloucester that never occurred. The Columbia is slated to arrive in Gloucester on the morning of Thursday, August 27, 2015, in advance of the Schooner Festival. “This is such a great story,” says Schooner Committee Chair, Daisy Nell Collinson. “We hope the public will come out in great numbers to welcome the Columbia and, over the weekend, celebrate the great history of schooners from Essex and Gloucester.”

This year’s schooner race on Sunday, September 6th, includes three of the remaining five Essex-built working schooners. The schooners Adventure (1926), Lettie G. Howard (1893), and the Roseway (1925) will all be racing this year. The Highlander Sea (1924) will be resting comfortably at the Gloucester Marine Railways as it enviously observes its wooden peers (pun intended) as they compete for the Esperanto Cup. Of the remaining “intact” Essex-Built Schooners, only the Ernestina-Morrissey will be missing from this austere group. The Massachusetts owned schooner is being rebuilt in the state of Maine. Joining their elders will be the schooners Thomas Lannon, Ardelle and the Fame, all built over the last 20 years by 11th generation boat builder Harold Burnham at his boat yard in Essex.

The Schooner Festival will also feature a major attraction vessel — the USS Fort McHenry (LSD-43), which is a Whidbey Island-class dock landing ship of the United States Navy. She was named for Fort McHenry, in Baltimore, Maryland, the 1814 defense of which inspired The Star-Spangled Banner. This 610’ vessel is actively deployed around the world for combat and humanitarian purposes. It carries as many as 22 officers and 391 enlisted sailors. The ship will be available for public tours on Friday afternoon, Saturday and Sunday. “The City of Gloucester is honored to have the USS Fort McHenry in our historic harbor,” says Gloucester Mayor Sefatia Romeo-Theken. “We hope the community and weekend visitors take this opportunity to board the ship and honor the great men and women serving our country.” For more information about this Navy vessel, go to http://www.fort-mchenry.navy.mil/.

On Saturday, September 5th Maritime Gloucester will host its annual Heritage Day celebration from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. The event is free to the public. Over 25 artisans, food vendors and community organizations will be set up on Schooner Way and down Webster Pier with demos, family activities & more! Children’s storytelling and songs with Daisy Nell. Chick & Ellen will be performing their country blues and folk tunes. Maritime Gloucester exhibits will be open with 1/2 price admission throughout the day. Schooner Adventure will offer free deck tours and Schooner Ardelle will be offering one-hour sales for a discounted fee. For a complete list of the Gloucester Schooner Festival schedule, go to http://gloucesterschoonerfestival.net/?page_id=23

Lead sponsors of the Festival include: the City of Gloucester, First Ipswich Bank, Market Basket and Institution for Savings. For a full list of sponsors, go to the Festival’s website. The Festival raises much needed funds from the community by offering Schooner Festival raffle in addition to corporate support. Please purchase raffle tickets (available at Maritime Gloucester) or during Maritime Heritage Day. These funds directly support efforts to put kids on the water.

Massachusetts: Oars and Flowers: Gloucester Remembers Lost Fishermen

August 25, 2015 — There were tears — there always are — as the flowers were thrown on the water, recognizing Gloucester’s many losses to the sea.

There were Carol Figurido, Vincie Curcurum and Josie Russo, Gloucester women who lost loved ones to the ocean deep. They were just three among the many who attended Gloucester’s annual Fishermen’s Memorial Service held Saturday evening at the Fishermen’s Memorial on Stacy Memorial.

Figurido spoke of her grandfather — and the 5,383 other Gloucestermen whose names grace the Fishermen’s Memorial Cenotaph — at the ceremony. She came to know Thomas Isaac Moulton through relatives and family history. A ship’s cook, Moulton, 48, and five other Gloucestermen went down with the fishing vessel Mary E. O’Hara in 1941, before Figurido was born.

Vincie Curcuru lost her brother, John Orlando, 59, when the fishing vessel Patriot went down on Jan 3, 2009. He was crewing for his son-in-law.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Massachusetts: 15 shoreside businesses to receive disaster aid

August 25, 2015 — In this case, for Gloucester and 15 of the city’s shore-side businesses, the glass is decidedly half-full.

Those Gloucester businesses comprise precisely half of the 30 Massachusetts businesses that will receive groundfish disaster aid.

Collectively, they will receive by far the largest portion of the $750,000 set aside to assist shoreside businesses affected by the federally declared ground fish disaster now grinding through its third year.

The 15 Gloucester fishing-related enterprises — the most from any single Bay State groundfishing community — will share $380,360, or 50.7 percent of the $750,000 included in the second phase, or Bin 2, of the federal groundfish disaster relief distribution plan.

Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken said the city’s success in garnering more than half of the available aid earmarked for businesses underlined the city’s prominence at the epicenter of the groundfish disaster, both on the water and on the waterfront.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

 

 

Granddaughter of Massachusetts ship cook to speak at service

August 19, 2015 — Carol Figurido of Gloucester never knew her grandfather.

Thomas Isaac Moulton and five other Gloucester men “went down to the sea in ships” aboard the fishing vessel Mary E. O’Hara in 1941, before Figurido was even born.

But through speaking with relatives and tracking down her family history, Figurido says she’s learned a good deal about Moulton, who was lost at sea at the age of 48. So, come Saturday, she will speak of her grandfather — and the 5,383 other Gloucestermen whose names grace the Fishermen’s Memorial Cenotaph — at the annual Fishermen’s Memorial Service.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

 

DAVID GOETHAL: Fishermen’s anger justified

August 18, 2015 — Recently, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker called the requirement for fishermen to pay $710 per day for catch monitoring “the most perfect example of an unfunded mandate” and continued on to call the policy “ridiculous” and “outrageous.” As a fisherman with close to 50 years experience in the fishery, I could not agree more but think your readers and editors need more context to understand the fishermen’s anger.

Philosophically, we are opposed to this idea because other industries do not pay for their monitoring. The airlines do not pay for the TSA, agribusiness does not pay for meat inspection, and pharmaceutical companies do not pay for the FDA, to name a few. These are considered functions of government and so is catch monitoring.

Read the full letter at the Gloucester Daily Times

 

 

MA Gov. Baker backs fishermen’s call for NOAA to pay for monitors

August 13, 2015 — With a crystalline portrait of America’s oldest seaport serving as the backdrop, Gov. Charlie Baker on Thursday attacked NOAA’s plan to force fishermen to pay for at-sea observers on their boats and reiterated his pledge to help convince the federal fishing regulator to consider science other than its own.

Baker, speaking to a crowd of about 100 near the Fishermen’s Wives Memorial on Stacy Boulevard, with the city’s Outer Harbor sparkling in the background, called the federal at-sea observer proposal “the most perfect example of an unfunded mandate I think I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“I think it’s ridiculous and it’s outrageous,” Baker told the audience of fishermen, fishing advocates, Gloucester officials and members of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association. “If they want to send observers out on the boats, they should pay for them with their own money.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has told the commercial fishermen in the Northeast multispecies groundfish fishery that it expects to run out of money to fund the at-sea observer program by Oct. 31 and then will shift the responsibility for funding it  — estimated at $600 to $800 per day for each boat that carries an observer — to the fishing permit holders.

“It’s insult to injury as far as I’m concerned,” Baker said. “And I’m sure that most of the people in the fishing industry feel the same way.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

 

 

MA Governor Baker meets fishermen in Gloucester

August 13, 2015 — Gov. Charlie Baker will journey to Gloucester this afternoon for a private meeting with fishermen and fishing stakeholders to hear concerns and address recent and pending regulations from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the governor’s office confirmed.

Baker’s press office said the the event is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. at the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Memorial on Stacy Boulevard, and that his private meeting with the fishing stakeholders will be followed by a press availability session.

The governor also is scheduled to meet with the editorial board of the Gloucester Daily Times during the day.

Read the full story from the Gloucester Daily Times

 

 

JACKIE ODELL: Emergency action needed on at-sea monitoring

August 10, 2015 — The New England senators stated in their April 29, 2015, letter to NOAA Fisheries that such a directive would “avert the collapse of our fisheries and secure their healthy and stable future.” The Northeast Seafood Coalition greatly appreciates the exceptional efforts and support the groundfish industry has received from the Senate Appropriators and members of Congress throughout the Northeast on at sea monitoring. Unfortunately, we continue to bite our nails and watch the clock tick. At this time, one crucial request by the Council to NOAA Fisheries remains unanswered. Specifically, the council’s request for NOAA Fisheries to initiate an administrative action to improve the efficiency of the existing at-sea monitoring program that will reduce costs of the program for groundfish sectors, fishery-wide — without compromising compliance with regulatory requirements.

This administrative action request is logical — it follows regulatory directive — and is another attempt to reduce inefficiencies of the at-sea monitoring program and thus costs to groundfish fishermen, fishery wide. It also reflects the strong message delivered by the Senate Appropriators in their pending fiscal year 2016 funding legislation for NMFS — to work with the regional fishery programs on a transition plan to an at-sea and dockside monitoring program that is more cost-effective, accurate, and commensurate with the ex-vessel value. The Northeast Seafood Coalition strongly supports the council’s request.

Read the full letter at the Gloucester Daily Times

Read a letter from the New England Fishery Management Council to NOAA regarding at-sea monitoring

 

Gloucester Fishing Boat Catches Fire, Family Evacuated

August 3, 2015 — GLOUCESTER, MA — Five people on the Gloucester fishing boat Amanda Marie were evacuated shortly after noon today when a fire broke out on board.

No one reported any injuries, according to Harbormaster Jim Caulkett.

Capt. Mike Parisi, who owns and operates the 35-foot Duffy as a charter boat, said the vessel was on the oceanside of Ten Pound Island when they first “smelled something that smelled like smoke” from a fire that started started somewhere below deck. An unnamed gillnet fishing vessel came alongside the Amanda Marie, and the five people transferred from the burning boat to it, according to Caulkett.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

 

MASSACHUSETTS: MEETING TO DISCUSS GROUNDFISH DISASTER AID

August 2, 2015 — GLOUCESTER — Two bins down, one to go.

The distribution of the nearly $33 million in federal groundfish disaster aid has moved through the first two phases — or bins, in the parlance of NOAA Fisheries and the respective state fisheries directors — in the past year-and-a-half.

Bin 3? That’s become something of a stickier wicket.

NOAA and the fishery directors for the five coastal New England states and New York initially agreed on a formula that would use the $10 million in the third bin to address long-term issues of the Northeast multispecies groundfish fishery, including a potential vessel buyout and/or permit buyback plan.

Those plans dissolved in the spring when the respective regulators and stakeholders couldn’t agree on the inordinately complex equation for developing long-term solutions for the fishery declared a federal disaster in 2012.

Now, the money has been returned to Bin 2, which means each of the six states will individually decide how to best spend their allotment from the $10 million.

Tonight, the Gloucester Fishing Commission will take a stab at coming up with what it believes to be the best option for the nearly $7 million earmarked for Massachusetts.

Read the full story at The Salem News