Saving Seafood

Safety

AMSEA marine safety course can help fishermen — and everyone else — stay safe on the water

June 23, 2021 — Each year, the Alaska Marine Safety Education Association offers courses on safety while out on the water.

The course goes over the survival equipment that fishermen are required to have on their vessels, based on the Commercial Fishing Vessel Safety Act passed by congress in 1988.

That equipment includes immersion suits, survival rafts, signal flares, Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons, and personal flotation devices. Some of the survival equipment is only required on vessels that fish more than three miles offshore.

The class focuses on the technical aspects of operating safety gear, but instructor Ron Bowers hopes the biggest takeaway is knowing what to do in an emergency.

“You know what the best survival tool is — it’s what God gave you between your ears — your brain,” he said. “Having an attitude that you’re going to live, you’re going to survive this situation, you’re going to figure out what to do, and you’re going to come back alive and you’re going to bring your crew with you.”

Read the full story at KDLG

Fishermen Rescued in Gloucester After Being Swept off Rocks

May 24, 2021 — Two fishermen were rescued from the water in Gloucester after a wave swept them off the rocks, according to officials.

Several people were fishing at Rafe’s Chasm Saturday when two men were knocked off by a wave. Two other people with them dove in the water to help, and managed to bring one of the victims safely back to shore.

The second man, however, was pushed further into the ocean, prompting a response from authorities.

Read the full story at NBC Boston

Ørsted, Eversource Hire Sea ServIces to Ensure Safety During Offshore Wind Farm Construction

May 19, 2021 — Ørsted and Eversource have announced they will collaborate with marine services provider Sea Services North America, and its partner fishermen in Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York, to support safe navigation in and around the companies’ Northeast offshore wind farm projects.

This includes the 704-megawatt Revolution Wind project serving Rhode Island and Connecticut, the 132-megawatt South Fork Wind serving Long Island and the 924-megawatt Sunrise Wind project serving New York.

“We believe strongly that offshore wind can coexist with all ocean users, including the region’s commercial and recreational fishing fleets,” said David Hardy, Chief Executive Officer of Ørsted Offshore North America. “Our expanded collaboration with Sea Services will help us as we strive to achieve that coexistence, with the valuable support from fishermen who know the area’s waters best.”

Read the full story at Go Local Prov

Prepping for busier season

May 14, 2021 — Your sailboat or center console runabout probably doesn’t have much in common with the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Key Largo that calls Gloucester its homeport.

The Key Largo is 110 feet long and supports a crew of 17. It features state-of-the-art technology and a trident mission of search-and-rescue, homeland security and fisheries enforcement as far as 200 miles offshore. Its power plant consists of two Paxman turbo-charged, 2,800-horsepower diesel engines that can send the Key Largo through the water at 38 knots.

The Island-class patrol boat also sports two Browning .50-caliber machine guns and an MK38 25-mm machine gun that allow the 32-year-old cutter, when necessary, to announce its presence with authority. If your boat does boast comparable firepower, it’s not just the Coast Guard that would like a little chat.

There is one area where you and you vessel of choice share the nautical realm with Lt. Tara Pray and her crew on the Key Largo — a necessary commitment to safety whenever you venture onto the water.

“In 2020, there were 50 recreational boating deaths in the Northeast, which was a significant increase from the 30 in 2019,” Pray said Wednesday morning while standing on the bridge of the Key Largo as it was tied up at the Everett R. Jodrey State Fish Pier. “In a way, that goes back to the increase in popularity and the pent-up demand for recreational boating.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

RODA Condemns Administration for Putting Goals Ahead of Fishermen Safety

May 12, 2021 — Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA), a broad membership-based coalition of fishing industry associations and fishing companies, condemns in the strongest possible terms the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM) issuance of a Record of Decision for the previously terminated Vineyard Wind 1 Offshore Wind Energy Project. BOEM continues to abdicate its responsibility to the public and leave all decision making to large, multinational corporations, including this Decision which includes effectively no mitigation measures to offset impacts to critical ocean ecosystems and commercial fisheries.

It has only included one such measure: a voluntary and non-enforceable suggestion for developers to cooperate with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to mitigate what the Final Environmental Impact Statement characterizes as “major” impacts to scientific research. Oddly, BOEM directs Vineyard Wind to “participate in good faith” in the undescribed and unfunded Federal Survey Mitigation Program, which “may lessen long-term impacts” (but “may not” reduce the significant short term impacts). Mitigation that is poorly defined, unrequired, and unmonitored satisfies neither the public interest nor the law.

To the best of our knowledge BOEM did not even consider any mitigation measures recommended by RODA or any fisheries professionals, scientists, or natural resource managers, despite having clearly defined requests available to them.

In one pen stroke, BOEM has confirmed its scattershot, partisan, and opaque approach that undermines every lesson we’ve learned throughout environmental history: the precautionary principle, the importance of safety and environmental regulation, the scientific method and use of the best available data, and adaptive management policies. It is shocking that NMFS could sign off on a decision so inexplicably adverse to its core mission and the research, resources, businesses, and citizens under its jurisdiction.

Read the full story at OCNJ Daily

5 Fishermen Rescued From Burning Boat Off Cape Cod

May 3, 2021 — Five fishermen were rescued from a burning boat off the Cape Cod waters Friday night.

The Coast Guard responded to an emergency notification from the 100-foot fishing vessel about 85 miles east of Cape Cod around 5p.m.

According to the U.S. Coast Guard, rescue crews arrived on scene to find the bow and wheelhouse of the vessel engulfed in flames and all five fishermen on the stern. An air crew hoisted the fishermen to safety.

Read the full story at NBC New York

Communities, companies taking steps to get COVID vaccine to seafood industry workers

April 2, 2021 — Later this month, an old U.S. Environmental Protection Agency facility on the waterfront in New Bedford, Massachusetts, will be teeming with seafood industry workers taking the next step toward the industry’s – and the nation’s – recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thanks to nearly USD 4 million (EUR 3.4 million) in funds from the recently enacted American Rescue Plan, the facility will become a COVID-19 vaccination site. A release from the city indicates it will handle up to 125 inoculations an hour and potentially up to 1,000 people daily, and the focus will be on fishermen and others in the commercial seafood industry.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

NOAA launches two coastal models for mariner safety on West Coast, Gulf of Mexico

March 31, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA:

Today, NOAA announced two new coastal condition forecast models that will enhance critical decision making for mariners along the West Coast and Northern Gulf of Mexico. The models provide continuous quality-controlled data on water levels, currents, water temperature and salinity out to 72 hours.

Forecasts from both models are used by commercial and recreational mariners, fisherman, emergency managers, search and rescue responders, and National Weather Service marine weather forecasters.

“The West Coast model will help the Coast Guard with search and rescue and has implications for other stakeholder groups, such as navigation, shipping, and fisheries,” said Nicole LeBoeuf, acting director of NOAA’s National Ocean Service. “The Gulf model improves the safety of marine navigation in an area vital to the safe movement of energy resources and other shipping.”

These two new models join a network that now totals 15 such models in coastal waters around the United States. The models–located in critical ports, harbors, estuaries, Great Lakes, and coastal waters–are part of a larger national backbone of real-time data, tidal predictions, tide and lakes datums, and operational modeling that enables users to make the best decisions for their needs.

NOAA’s Satellite and Information Service supports a key role in developing the West Coast Operational Forecast System, providing near-real-time satellite observations, including temperature, sea-surface height and coastal currents.

“The West Coast operational system is the latest example of NOAA’s commitment to bringing its expertise and data resources together to improve the way Americans live, work and do business,” said Steve Volz, director of NOAA’s Satellite and Information Service.

The Northern Gulf of Mexico model combines three models into one and extends the model to include coverage up the Mississippi River to Baton Rouge, Lake Pontchartrain and Bartaria Bay in Louisiana, and along the Corpus Christi waterways of Texas, as well as south to the Mexico border. The seaports covered by this model are some of the busiest in the nation in terms of tonnage, energy, value and other measures.

WHO, USDA reports refute Chinese concerns over COVID-19 traveling via cold chain

March 30, 2021 — A World Health Organization (WHO) team studying the origins of the COVID-19 outbreak has released a report saying its spread to humans from the packaging of “cold-chain” food products is possible, but not likely.

According to the Associated Press, which obtained an advanced copy of the report, the WHO team – working in conjunction with Chinese researchers – determined COVID-19 can travel through the cold chain, but that the risk of transmission is much lower than through human-to-human transfer.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Coast Guard aids fisherman injured on boat off Nantucket

March 29, 2021 — The U.S. Coast Guard came to the aid of a fisherman seriously injured on a commercial fishing vessel miles offshore in Massachusetts early Sunday.

The guard said the crew of the Connecticut-based vessel Furious notified them around 3:30 a.m. that a crewmember had sustained a serious hand injury while the boat was roughly 60 miles south of Nantucket.

The guard dispatched a helicopter crew from Cape Cod, which hoisted the injured 41-year-old fisherman off the boat by around 7 a.m.

The fisherman, who was not named, was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Gloucester Daily Times