November 13, 2026 — For Patrick Walsh, as it is for many fishermen, the trade is in his blood. On the docks, a person qualifies their job with their lineage like a badge of honor, and for him, he’s fifth generation among a father, brother and uncles who farmed the ocean.
He’s not on New Bedford’s waterfront on this early summer day, but he’s not far. He’s taking classes at a maritime institute, in a quiet Massachusetts town across the harbor, to earn a specific captain’s license. He doesn’t need it to fish, but certifications like it are useful in other maritime industries, like offshore wind, which Walsh entered in 2024.
Around then, Walsh heard “hush hush” talk of jobs with generous starting pay for an offshore wind project south of Massachusetts. It was in an area of ocean he never dredges for scallops. Walsh decided to bite. He took a job filling in for a crew mate for a two-day trip at Vineyard Wind, and he has been chasing the work to multiple offshore wind projects since.
Walsh is one of hundreds of fishermen and boat owners on the East Coast who have altogether earned millions from offshore wind over the last few years. He and others continue to traverse the Northeast coast to service the few remaining wind farms under construction, catching contracts when they can’t catch fish due to regulations. Several come from New Bedford — the longstanding highest-value port in the country for landings, thanks to the sea scallop. In recent years, those scallop boats have spent more time tied up at the docks. This year, under regulations meant to protect the resource, they’re only allowed 36 days at sea.
“The scallop boats need the extra revenue,” said Walsh. “The worst thing for a boat is to sit.”
With offshore wind work, some vessels are spending more time out on water. Within the turbine arrays, or along the farms’ electrical routes to land, they’re patrolling, looking out for protected species, guarding exposed underwater cable as it’s being laid, and radioing other fishing boats.
Walsh, 37, bought his first house in a nearby town in 2025, a purchase he attributes to offshore wind work: “Fishing would pay bills, and wind was going in the bank.”
But that work will soon dry up. If the Trump administration succeeds in its ongoing efforts to end future offshore wind development in the United States — and by recent accounts, it is succeeding — it will eliminate thousands of current and future jobs on America’s waterfronts from Massachusetts to Virginia. Many of these jobs are located in seaports like New Bedford and New London, where states invested hundreds of millions of dollars in port infrastructure and workforce training to court offshore wind companies.
The resulting uncertainty has led international wind developers to redirect investment towards other countries or even sell back their leases. Meanwhile, the states that invested heavily in offshore wind infrastructure are at risk of seeing their purpose-built piers sitting empty, like New Bedford’s is once again.
“Trump has been all about more jobs. Do you know how many jobs he’s killed in offshore wind?” said Travis Lowery, who was a fisheries liaison for Vineyard Offshore until the company laid off dozens of employees, including him.