January 6, 2025 — A fishing boat named Saints and Angels sat docked at Leonard’s Wharf after a recent fishing trip. Ice covered some of the deck as a man cut into the boat’s steel side to create a door for scientific buoy deployment. Nearby vessels were being worked on, some with anti-offshore-wind flags whipping in the wind. Just the American flag flew on the Saints as Tony Alvernaz climbed up to the wheelhouse.

The blue-hulled scalloper, built in 1997, started out as a tender boat, transporting loads of fish between vessels and processing facilities. After a few years catching tuna, the vessel brought in over a million pounds of scallops over its life. But times, regulations and fish stocks have changed. The bivalves are still relatively lucrative, but vessels have spent more and more days sitting at the docks while expenses have risen.

So two years ago, Alvernaz, the part-owner of six scallopers, put aside his personal feelings and did something he never thought he’d do: He signed up to work for an offshore wind company.

In about two years, Vineyard Wind has paid about $8 million to local fishermen and vessel owners — many from New Bedford, like Alvernaz — to provide safety and security work during the wind farm’s construction (a figure that includes fuel costs).

About 45 fishing boats have worked as safety vessels, guard vessels, science vessels and scout vessels on the project, which remains under construction 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard. This could mean sitting at a site 24/7, guarding scour protection before the monopiles go in, identifying and transmitting locations of fishing gear to be avoided, or moving through the wind area looking out for and alerting other vessels of activity.

It’s an example of collaboration and co-existence amid what has been a contentious relationship between the two industries.

Read the full story at The New Bedford Light