CNHI News Service Rules, weather raise risk for fishermen

Photos

The Kelly Sea, in a picture taken Jan. 26, is thick with ice after steaming into Portland from 130 miles out to avoid a storm. Its captain, Thomas Roth, said he did not want to slow down to lessen spray and ice buildup for fear of having his days fishing in the Gulf of Maine counted as double. Courtesy photo

New rules and a need to make a living are forcing northern New England fishermen to travel farther, stay out in bad weather, and, increasingly, put their lives at risk.

GLOUCESTER, Mass. — Thomas Roth was out fishing late, and started steaming to his home outside Portland, Maine, on Jan. 26, the same night the New Bedford dragger Lady of Grace disappeared off Nantucket.
“We were about 130 miles east of Gloucester fishing, and we heard a storm report and started heading for home,” said Roth, a 26-year fisherman, who lives in Buxton, Maine. “We got about 30 miles offshore and started making ice.”
During the 18-hour journey back to land in his 42-foot longliner Kelly Sea, Roth said he and his two crew members chipped off ice forming on his vessel every six or seven hours.
“We stopped twice on the way back to chip off the ice, which was forming quickly,” he said. “The stay wires were about 10 inches in diameter with ice every time we stopped.”
The air temperatures closer to shore were in the upper 20s, according to the National Weather Service, and the wind was close to 20 knots. Such conditions lend to a buildup of ice on a boat’s exterior.
It was a little more blustery around Nantucket, with winds estimated around 25 knots.
The Lady of Grace, a 75-foot dragger based out of New Bedford, disappeared early Jan. 26. The Coast Guard discovered the Lady of Grace on Jan. 28 submerged in 36 feet in Nantucket Sound. The Coast Guard recently recovered the second body of the vessel’s four-man complement.
At the time the boat went missing, winds were blowing at about 25 to 30 knots and the seas were 8- to 10-feet high.
“Clearly it was extremely cold and icing conditions were severe,” Coast Guard spokesman Benjamin Benson said. The trip had been cut to four days because of the conditions.
Divers positively identified the vessel lying on its port side 11 nautical miles north of Nantucket, the Coast Guard said in a statement.
Searchers said they could not speculate on what happened, but said it is very easy for fishing boats to become coated with ice and top heavy in the winter, making it easier for them to capsize.
Roth and several Gloucester fishermen have said federal regulations that restrict the number of days fishermen are allowed to spend at sea in inshore areas are causing vessels to take more risks. During the winter, fishermen steam out farther than they otherwise would to avoid the differential counting area and could get caught in a storm or in icy conditions.
During the summer, the risks are lower, but the possibility exists of an unexpected wind storm while dozens of miles out at sea.
Even Roth said he was taking a significant risk going far enough out to fish in an area where each day out would count as two days.
“We’re a 42-foot boat and we were 130 miles out. Some people say that’s crazy,” he said. “I know she’s seaworthy, but we could be fishing 20 miles off Gloucester and catching fish. Because we’re being charged 2 for 1, it eats up your days.”
Current permits allow 48 days at sea to fish, but a large swath of the Gulf of Maine, a swath that covers much of the area off Gloucester, has a double-counting clock, meaning fishermen have 24 days they may use in that area.
Paul Cohan, a Gloucester fishermen who said he was still inshore Thursday because of mechanical problems, said fishermen are going to take more and more risks because of the regulations, and more are going to be lost as a result.
“We hate seeing guys take inordinate risks just to cover their financial encumbrances,” he said. “People will pay for this management scheme with their lives.”
Gloucester fishermen took advantage Thursday of mild seas and clear, warmer weather to fish before another storm comes — one is expected today.
Vito Calomo, executive director of the Massachusetts Fishery Recovery Commission, was one of many warning the New England Fishery Management Council that restricting days at sea would cause fishermen to work more dangerously.
“At the meetings, we were telling them they’re creating a safety problems,” he said. “A man’s going to go out here and pound away for every minute he can and go out farther than he should.”
Roth said he did not want to slow down — he was steaming about 5 knots that night — to reduce the amount of spray, and therefore the pace of ice buildup, because he feared someone tracking his vessel monitor system may have thought he was trying to fish and begin double charging his days.
“It was the worst icing I’ve ever had,” Roth said.
In fact, many people suspect that is what caused the Lady Luck, a Newburyport vessel, and the Lady of Grace, to sink last month. Once ice builds up, the vessel becomes top-heavy and can capsize easily.
“It’s definitely a possibility,” said Cohan, though he added he does not know what happened to either vessel. Roth, though he said he does not know for sure either, said he “absolutely” suspects icing.
But the U.S. Coast Guard ruled out the possibility that the fishing vessel the Lady Luck was sunk by ice build-up two weeks ago.
Lt. Ben Crowell, of the Portland, Maine, headquarters, said that factor was initially believed to be the most likely possibility.
Crowell said ice is not suspected because, talking to other boaters in that area at the time, they said they were not experiencing any similar problems. He said it is therefore reasonable to believe the crew of the Lady Luck also wasn’t experiencing those problems.
The Lady Luck and its crew of two is presumed lost after the Coast Guard in Portland, Maine, received a distress signal from the vessel’s emergency beacon at 2 a.m. Feb. 1. Debris was later found in the area 12 miles off Cape Elizabeth, where the Lady Luck was last heard from, but the Coast Guard called off its search the next night after no trace was found of the crew, skipper Sean Cone, 24, of North Andover and Daniel Miller, 21, of North Hampton, N.H.
According to the National Weather Service, the air temperature at 1:50 a.m. was 28.2 degrees, the water temperature was 41.1 degrees and the wind was blowing at 19.2 knots, off Portland, Maine.

Douglas A. Moser writes for the Gloucester (Mass.) Daily Times. The Associated Press contributed to this report.