Saving Seafood

Forced sell-off of Rafael assets begins

September 24, 2019 — A father-and-son team from Massachusetts and other buyers are acquiring scallop fishing boats owned by a disgraced fishing magnate nicknamed the Codfather, signaling the beginning of the former mogul’s forced exit from fisheries.

The sale of Carlos Rafael’s 11 scallop boats, and their associated permits, is part of a civil settlement Rafael agreed to with the federal government that will result in his permanent removal from the U.S. fishing industry.

Rafael, once the owner of one of the largest commercial fishing operations in the U.S., was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for dodging quotas and smuggling profits overseas.

Scallopers Charles Quinn and son Michael Quinn are buying seven of Rafael’s scallop boats and selling one of them, their attorney, Andrew Minkiewicz, told The Associated Press. Court documents state the Quinns paid about $46 million for the boats.

Rafael’s attorney, John Markey, of New Bedford, confirmed the other boats have also sold, but declined to disclose the other buyers or purchase prices.

Read the full story at The Associated Press

Quinn Fisheries finalizes deal for six Rafael scallop vessels

September 24, 2019 — The following is an excerpt from a story originally published by Undercurrent News:

Quinn Fisheries, a 33-year-old, New Bedford, Massachusetts-based scallop operation, has closed its deal to purchase six of Carlos Rafael’s 11 scallop vessels and their related permits, sources told Undercurrent News.

The acquisition, which was confirmed by Michael Quinn, the operations manager and co-owner of the company with his father and founder Charlie Quinn, doubles the size of the Quinn Fisheries scallop fleet to 12 total vessels and will cost the company about $40 million.

The new vessels acquired include the Acores, Athena, Apollo, Gypsy Girl, Hera II and the Villa Nova Do II, Michael Quinn said.

Undercurrent News had earlier reported how the Quinns had a deal to buy seven of Rafael’s vessels for nearly $46 million, per an Aug. 29 purchase agreement. The deal later was confirmed by court documents related to a lawsuit filed against Rafael by the Buyers and Sellers Exchange (BASE), the New Bedford, Massachusetts-based seafood auction.

BASE’s owners Richie and Raymond Canastra attempted to block the agreement as part of an apparent attempt to acquire the same vessels, which also possess several groundfish permits. They argued unsuccessfully that Rafael violated the rules of groundfish sector 7 related to offering other sector members the right of first refusal.

However, Merita Hopkins, an associate judge in Bristol County, Massachusetts, blocked the temporary restraining order requested by BASE, freeing up the Quinns and Rafael to complete their agreement.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

MASSACHUSETTS: JACK SPILLANE: A fishing family sees opportunity at the old Revere Copper site

July 29, 2019 — It’s hard to say whether the old Revere Copper and Brass site is more ghost town or field of dreams.

Michael and Charlie Quinn, a son and father who recently purchased the 14-acre lot fronting on the northern part of New Bedford harbor, are going with the latter.

So will I.

The Quinns plan to make the old metal factory into a shipbuilding yard for their related Shoreline Resources businesses — which over three decades have included commercial fishing vessels, Standard Marine Outfitters and East Coast Fabrication, a ship repair shop.

So a family that fishes, outfits the boats for voyage and rehabs them is going to take a crack at building them. It’s a vertically integrated business that has been successful, and as New Bedford has become a hub of East Coast fishing, maybe it will work for them.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Aging New Bedford fleet helped drive purchase of former copper mill property

July 24, 2019 — The logic behind the decision by Charlie and Michael Quinn, the father and son owners of Quinn Fisheries, to buy the former Revere Copper and Brass property in New Bedford, Massachusetts, was not unlike that of a physician specializing in geriatric care setting up an office somewhere in the state of Florida.

New Bedford has an aging population, too, though it’s the commercial fishing vessels in this case that are elderly.

Undercurrent News confirmed Monday that the Quinns, who have been in the scallop harvesting business since at least 1986, purchased the 14-acre property at 24 North Front Street after it sat idle for about a decade. They plan to convert it into a shipyard, both repairing existing commercial fishing vessels and barges and also building new ones, Michael Quinn, operations manager for the six-vessel commercial scallop harvesting company, told Undercurrent.

The Quinns should have plenty of ships to work with, confirms a review by Undercurrent of the port’s roster of 338 commercial vessels maintained on a database. More than half — 180 scallop and groundfish vessels (53%) — were built before 1980 and another 38 were built between 1980 and 1985.

“We’ve been trying to grow our business here for a while and we see a need so we did our due diligence and everything seems to make sense for us,” Michael Quinn told Undercurrent.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

One Square Mile: New Bedford’s Scallop Industry Is Thriving, But Is It Sustainable?

February 14, 2018 — Is the scallop fishery well-managed? Most people, including scallop fishermen, scientists, and environmentalists, had the same answer: yes.

“I think the harvest is being managed, compared to any other fishery in New England, fabulously,” Peter Shelley, senior counsel at Conservation Law Foundation, an environmental advocacy group, said.

The majority agree that the New England Fishery Management Council is doing a good job at keeping the scallop population sustainable and allowing fishermen to make a good living.

Last year, commercial fishermen landed more than $300 million worth of fish at the Port of New Bedford, and 85 percent of that value came from scallops.

Michael Quinn, whose family has been in the scallop fishing industry for 30 years, said he believes the industry is well-managed partly because of the collaboration between fishermen and researchers.

“We get to take scientists directly on our vessels,” Quinn said. “We go out to sea with them. We’re living with these people for a week at a time doing all the data together.”

Data on the scallop population is collected through drop camera surveys. That’s when scientists attach cameras to a big, metal, square frame and drop it to the bottom of the ocean. They take pictures of the scallops and then scientists on the management council’s Plan Development Team use that data to help figure out how much fishermen can catch and which areas should be opened or closed for fishing.

Read the full story at Rhode Island Public Radio

 

MASSACHUSETTS: US’ most valuable fishing port seeks $15m grant, wants to get bigger

October 16, 2017 — Ed Anthes-Washburn wants to make what is already the United States’ most valuable commercial fishing port even larger.

For the second consecutive year the director of the Port of New Bedford, Massachusetts, has submitted an application for a grant from the US Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program to add 600-feet of bulkhead and dredge areas that are now unusable at only three- to four-feet deep.

The changes, which would increase depths in those areas to 18- to 30-feet, would grow the number of berthing areas, allowing the port to expand from about 300 fishing vessels to more than 360. It would invite fishing companies that currently operate outside of New Bedford to make it their new base of operation or to simply offload there, and harvesters already using the port could overcome some frustrations and even grow their fleets, Anthes-Washburn told Undercurrent News.

“There are a minimum of three boats [rafted next to each other] at every dock, and in some cases there are five,” Michael Quinn, operations manager for Quinn Fisheries, said of the crowded situation in New Bedford. “When you have to climb across five boats, it takes all day to get [a boat] out.”

Quinn believes his family’s scallop fishing operation, which keeps six vessels at the port, would benefit by as much as $160,000 per year by the reduced costs and added efficiencies and revenue that could be created.

Having expanded dock space would allow Quinn Fisheries and others to bring in mobile cranes to load and unload, he said. Excess dock space also could be rented to a number of other vessel owners who are clamoring to get in.

Additionally, the changes – which also would include the expansion of roadways and connections to rail lines — would eliminate congestion and allow for direct vessel to truck and rail transfers of fresh seafood, Anthes-Washburn said.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News