June 6, 2014 — Thirty-three fishermen and SMAST students and staff tried out, for the first time for many of them, fire extinguishers, flares, bailout pumps, life rafts and survival suits — all at no charge to them.
"You fish in the rain, you train in the rain," said Ed Dennehy, USCG (Ret.), director of safety training for the Massachusetts Fishing Partnership as the fishing vessel safety training carried on in the pouring rain at the UMass School for Marine Science and Technology.
Thirty-three fishermen and SMAST students and staff tried out, for the first time for many of them, fire extinguishers, flares, bailout pumps, life rafts and survival suits — all at no charge to them.
If they weren't getting wet outside they were getting wet inside, where the SMAST indoor water tank was crowded with fishermen in their own survival suits. First they learned how to put on the suits properly, then they learned how difficult it is to board a life raft from the water.
Ted Williams, marine safety director of Hercules SLR US, Inc., of New Bedford gave a lifeboat demonstration that included deploying one outside the building. It was something, he said, that most people have never seen, even in the fishing industry.
That was the idea all around. The day-long course Thursday was hands-on, so that the next time these people use a flare or a lifeboat or a bailout pump, it won't be for the first time.
It's hard to believe, but 10 years ago this training didn't exist, at least not in this form. Fishermen could pay for training, or pretty much do without it.
But Williams said the deaths of 27 fishermen in the course of three months forced a massive re-think, and the fishermen and the Coast Guard began working together because it was a matter of life and death.
Read the full story from the New Bedford Standard-Times