November 29, 2012 — With the sale of Viking, a 40-foot fishing boat that has plied the waters off the Vineyard for three generations, the Island’s once-vibrant fleet of small wooden draggers is now at the brink of extinction.
Craig Coutinho of Vineyard Haven confirmed this week that he will sell Viking along with his fishing permits.
Mr. Coutinho, 63, said he will retire after fishing from Viking for 50 years, primarily out of Menemsha. The boat is now in the Oak Bluffs harbor where it usually spends the winter. The sale, which is still pending, includes the transfer of the fishing permits that run with the boat. Mr. Coutinho would not disclose the name of the buyer or the price, but said the boat will go to Provincetown. He also said the buyer is primarily interested in the inshore state fishing permits for fluke, flounder, groundfish, conch and squid. “He wants to sell [Viking],” Mr. Coutinho said of the unnamed buyer. “He already has a boat . . . everyone wants the permits today. Nobody wants a wooden boat,” he added.
Viking was built in 1929 at the Casey Boatbuilding Company in Fairhaven, a company known in its day for building fast rum-running boats in addition to fishing vessels and later racing sailboats. She is one of the last of a breed of wooden boats built when fish were plentiful and commercial fishing was a year-round industry.
“I got tired. I’ve done it for 50 years. I was 11 years old when I started fishing in that boat. I think that is long enough,” Mr. Coutinho said. “Everything is getting tight. Fuel is expensive. The cost of everything has gone up. With a wooden boat you have to haul it out, maintain it. It is not at all like a fiberglass boat,” he added.
Last summer Mr. Coutinho fished out of Menemsha, as he has for at least 30 summers, dragging for summer flounder. His daily quota was 300 pounds. Mr. Coutinho sold his fluke to Stanley Larsen at the Menemsha Fish Market. “He is a dedicated Island fisherman,” Mr. Larsen said this week.
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