Otter Trawl Fishing / boat coffee and 150k pounds of shrimp

The otter trawl net, built like a very large stocking that is held wide open at the mouth, closed with fine mesh net webbing at the toe, catches fish by being pulled along the ocean floor scooping up everything that is in its path. 

The name for the net comes from the otter boards, more commonly called drag doors, which are used to keep the front end of the net open.  The boards are made of timber or steel and are positioned in such a way that the hydrodynamic forces, acting on them when the net is towed along the sea bed, pushes them outwards and prevents the mouth of the net from closing.  They also act like a plow, digging up to 8 inches into the seabed, creating a muddy cloud, and scaring fish towards the net mouth.  The net is held open vertically by floats lashed to the head line, the rope which runs along the upper mouth of the net, and led weighted cable, called the foot rope running along the bottom of the mouth of the net.  On our net there was also an extra foot line called the tickler, which was a chain positioned so that it raked along the bottom several feet ahead of the foot rope, creating more of a mud cloud while also waking shrimp that may be resting on the bottom mud up into the water a few feet, more effectively directing them into the oncoming net close behind. 

The body of the net is funnel-like, wide at its moth and narrowing towards the cod end.  The mouth end is in the shape of a large crescent, the leading sides called the wings that are made of heavier mesh webbing help direct fish into the body of the net, which is sewn with every decreasing web mesh size as it approaches the back, or cod end where the fish are finally captured.  At the end of each tow, the net is pulled back onto the boat and a release mechanism in the cod end can be opened to dump the fish caught onto the deck to be sorted and washed before being put into the hold for storage until they can be delivered to the processing plant located back in a nearby port community.   

Scooping up every living creature in its path with this kind of fishing gear has a long and not always uncontroversial history.  As early as the 14^th century a petition was presented to the English Parliament, asking that an early form of this type of net, called the “wondyrchoum”,  be banned because it caught so many fish of all sizes that the excess were being fed to pigs.  The same concerns, over fishing by indiscriminately catching fish of every size and type that happen to be in its way, have been echoed down to the current time, factory fishing depleting the oceans of an ever increasing variety of fish species.   Strict mesh size regulations, catch quotas and rules about returning unintended by-catch back to the water as quickly as possible minimize many of these environmental concerns, although as understandings of sea bed conditions increases some of the older justifications for continued heavy fishing in this way have been shown to be perhaps a bit short sighted, and there are areas of the world where overfishing has created long term damage to many populations of marine life.

In the context of the fishery in which we were participating these concerns had been fairly well addressed.  Areas in which an abundance of unwanted fish species would be caught up in the net were avoided due to the huge amount of extra work required to sort through piles of scrap fish to get the shrimp once the load had been dumped onto the deck.  An additional protection also came from the test fishing prior to the season which not only set limits on the volume of shrimp to be harvested that year, but also kept areas in which too many halibut or other critical species happened to be in too great an abundance. 

As with pretty much everything else, Phil had an opinion about the entire issue of resource management.  Ever the free market capitalist, his philosophy was to allow marketability of a fish stock to regulate the harvest.  Artificial quotas and rules shouldn’t be necessary because when a particular population of fish was diminished to a certain point there would no longer be enough of them available for anyone to make money targeting them, and the fleet would move on to catch something else, allowing for recovery of the depleted species.  Not an illogical argument by any means, even supported on some level by the history of the salmon industry in which huge harvesting efforts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century reduced many populations of salmon below an economically viable levels that later appeared to have recovered.  But kitchen table logic and incomplete understanding of the actual history of devastation and partial recovery in some marine species can lead to honest misunderstanding.  He probably didn’t understand that individual fish stocks are not separate and distinct from one another and the environment in which they exist, and that enough money can be made catching the last of a certain population to make it economically viable long after the total numbers of that particular fish have dropped too low for it to ever recover completely if at all.  Going against a general attitude of rebelliousness toward authority and a negative attitude about marine science in general that stemmed from spending too much time cooped up in the boat with university professors on the research cruises, it would have been extremely difficult to explain these things to Phil, and I took it all as just one more example of his interesting and entertaining way of looking at the world.  What difference did it make that I thought his notion didn’t quite match up with reality as I understood it to be.  It was a good idea that fit well in to the context of our lives at the moment.

The sound Phil throttling the heavy machine down to an idle brought us out of the deepest possible sleep, my feet hitting the deck by the time the gear had been shifted into neutral.    Dressed in heavy winter underwear and jeans with a couple of flannel shirts under a wool jacket Western Chief deck slippers set aside in favor of the trusty Alaskan running shoe, Extra Tough work boots, we eagerly emerged from our little dark caves on each side of the mess room into the bright lit galley.  The smell of fresh boat coffee went a long way toward chasing the sleep from our eyes but there was no time to have a cup now, Tom was already out in the hallway pulling on his yellow bibs over winter coveralls, snapping the buttons up the front of an oil stained orange top coat, bulky with floatation padding front and back that was designed to keep him afloat if he happened to slip over the side while working out on deck. 

The deck, lit like an opening night stage, tiny bubble of brilliant lighting, stark against the night into which our eyes couldn’t penetrate beyond the length of a man’s arm, seemed to awaken a spirit of unknown ancestors.  A hundred thousand years of hunter gatherer heritage, long forgotten in our heads, remembered in each cell of our bodies, focused concentration and energy to each detail of the job.  We were hunters now, closing in on the prey, making final preparations for the kill.   

I hadn’t handled this specific gear before, but very recent work in a salmon seiner out of Bellingham taught me a lot about the basic fittings and hardware that are used on deck in working boats and the similarities far outweighed the differences in the two types of nets and rigging.  Seeing Tom at the wench I fell in behind Jon heading toward the stern of the boat where we immediately began getting the cod end of the net over into the water.  Running the boat from the open top deck of the wheel house, Phil had her crawling forward at a dead slow idle. A short pull on the hydraulic valve located at about chest height on one side of the net reel mounting tripod rolled five or six feet of the cod end down onto the deck, where we wrapped our arms around it to scoot over the back.  Two or three more ‘armstrong’ pulls to get enough bulk in the water for it to feed out on its own, and we stepped clear of the webbing as it clattered over the steel reinforced stern, disappearing into phosphorus highlighted black water out behind the boat. Jon used the hydraulic motor as a break to prevent backlash until the entire net had paid out and trailed unseen in the water astern by two three quarter inch steel cables.  A cogwheel with hinged dog clicked in place held the drum tight while we scrambled to each of the doors for the heavier cable that attached to the corners of the net with quick release snaps, transferring the weight of the net dragging in the water behind onto the main tow cables attached to another hole in the three quarter inch steel bracket that extended across most of the inner face of the doors. 

On the sound of the last quick release clicking in place Tom took control of the net from his command post behind the behemoth deck wench that occupied most of the space forward of the main hatch.  Standing over five feet tall and eight feet from side to side, four feet front to back, the wench dominated that part of the boat.   

For a moment the entire mouth of the net was open in the water behind us, towing on the main drag cables, giving a perfect picture of how it will be functioning unseen on the bottom.  Head line in a smooth arc from each corner of the mouth with the aluminum floats catching reflections in the deck lights.  The foot rope, several feet below trailed a bit behind, coming across between the corners of the net with much less of a downward arc, the effect was of an open mouth with a substantial overbite.  After a quick look, Jon and I scrambled forward to get clear of the bite of the drag cables that lead out of the sides of the wench through fairleads, then around the corner in snatch blocks attached to the chains at the base of the mast shrouds, then straight back to stout blocks hung from the stanchions at either side of the stern.  If something happened during the set or retrieval of the net causing one of the blocks at the corners to break the cable would rake taught across the deck, cutting anyone who happened to be in its path into two parts that would be very tough to reconnect.      

As soon as we were clear, Phil said “let her go,” and Tom spun the break wheel, releasing the both cables, the engine speed increased to keep the cables tight, the net instantly disappeared into the darkness, cables singing wildly in the blocks as the entire assembly sailed toward the ocean floor fifty fathoms below.  Twine had been threaded into the strands of the cable at ten fathoms measured the decent of the net; Tom sang out the numbers, “Twenty, Forty, Sixty,”   loud enough that Phil on the deck high overhead would know he had sufficient scope on the lines for the net to drag the bottom. 

When Tom shouted 175, Phil said “OK” and the brakes were applied to each of the drums in the winch slowing the cables to a stop, then galvanized iron dogs clanked into position on each drum, securing it from turning out more line.  The strain of the net tightened on the blocks, each black cable disappearing into the water at a steep angle at each side of the stern, restricting the roll of the boat in the now lazy swell that was coming in from an unseen horizon out to the northeast.  Unseen on the top house over our heads Phil’s voice announced,  “Open for business.”

After standing on deck for a few moments, listening to the groaning sound singing through the tight tow cables and visualizing the huge net sailing along the bottom we all scrambled into the bright, warm galley to wait out the hour or so it would be before time to haul the net back in and see what, if anything we managed to scrape up from the inky depth.  Tom immediately got his special Ovaltine jar from a shelf over the sink and began mixing nearly a quart of milk heavily doctored with the sweet brown powder.  From the bin under the far side of the stove he got out an apple sized potato, washed the skin under a stream of water and began eating it as if it were actually an apple.  “just as good, better really, no seeds or core.” 

Phil came down from the wheel house to check on the coffee that stayed warm on a special place at the back of the stove.  Boat coffee, also called cowboy or open pot is brewed in the same way as the in a French press pot, only without the plunger to push the grounds down to the bottom after the brew has steeped to perfection.  I am sure that there are some folks with rusted pallets who just toss a handful of grounds into a pot where the water is at a rolling boil, instantly losing any trace of flavorful aromatic oils that happened to remain in the horrible ground canned coffee we all drank in those days.  But not here.  The trick to drinkable boat coffee is to never let the brew boil.* 

A permanent fixture on every galley range is the wide bottom porcelain clad steel kettle.   In the little trolling boats, with miniature galley ranges a four quart kettle works, although I may have had one that was even a bit smaller, lashed to the back part of the stove with an old screen door spring on which coat hanger wire hooks were attached to each end, looped over the stove rails fore and aft.  Bigger boats, with larger stove tops take larger kettles, in the Commander it must have been eight or ten quarts maybe more.  Always filled, kept at a simmer just below boiling it came in handy for any number of cooking and cleaning chores around the galley, especially useful in preparing the coffee.

Alongside the porcelain kettles and stew pots in the galley supply area of the fishing boat supply houses in town are the aluminum coffee pots.  These also come in a variety of sizes, each appropriate for the different classes of boats in which fishers work.  New off the shelf the pot contains the ‘guts’, percolator parts which are always thrown away before the pot can be used.  I only met one guy who used one of these pots as a percolator.  I was living in a house up on the beach one winter long after the Kodiak trip, and this fellow’s ghastly brew stunk up the whole place with a scalded coffee stench that could have waked the dead.  The poor fellow had no idea what he was doing, had no idea what I was talking about when I tried to point out that boiling coffee is the same as cooking the best cut of stake until it is hard and dry, didn’t have a clue that the brown mess he drank every morning bore no relationship whatsoever to coffee.

With the guts safely in the dumpster, the pot is ready for action.  The cast iron top on every galley range has a round opening directly over the fire box through which one lights the flame and checks on the fire.  Selecting an appropriate coffee pot for the boat is a matter of matching the size of the hole in your stove with the base of the pot.  I have seen upscale galley ranges in which the access hole in the top has three different rings to fit different sizes of pots, but all the stoves I ever cooked on had the single sized lid, which I used as little as possible due to the mess.  With the base of the pot directly in contact with the flame the heat transfer is much faster, water boils quicker and coffee is on in a hurry.  But the down side is that diesel oil burning in an open fire box is very dirty.  Even five minutes exposure to the flame puts a fine powder black soot on the aluminum bottom of the pot that is easy enough to wipe off, but then the soot is all over the sponge or towel.  Nevertheless, with work to do on deck, coffee is an essential for everyone and if the pot is filled with water that is already just below the boiling point, exposure to the direct flame can be kept at a minimum.

Didn’t I just go into a rant about not boiling the coffee?  Yes, but don’t get ahead of me.  To have the water at the exact temperature necessary to bring out the best from the bean, it needs to be at a rolling boil, cooled just right by being poured from the kettle into the pot.  At this point there are two alternatives.  My personal choice is to measure the grounds into the bottom of the pot first, then pour the scalding water over the dry coffee.  The other way is to fill the pot with water, then measure the coffee in letting it float on top slowly absorbing the water, bringing out the full bouquet of the grind.  Next step is to replace the lid and slide the pot over to the corner of the stove top, near the stack where the heat level is low enough to keep it hot without bringing the water back to a boil and wait for it steep a few minutes. 

When the brew has reached the peak of perfection it is time to stir the grounds to the bottom of the pot.  I have heard that broken egg shells will make the grounds instantly descend, but the possibility of contracting salmonella scared me off and I never tested the theory.  A bit of cold water poured over the floating mass of grounds helps, along with a quick whisk with a spoon is reasonably effective, and in a half minute or so fresh coffee is enjoyed all around with only an occasional ground to pick out of the teeth.

My brother, always the one to do things just a bit skewed one way or another used to make coffee one cup at a time, serving fresh hot water poured over a table spoon of ground coffee, in tin cups no less.  Cowboys huddled around the chuck wagon in West Texas never had it so good.  As long as you hadn’t trimmed your mustache lately the mix was surprisingly palatable. Although I must say that I have never been tempted to make it that way myself, sometimes that guy did things for the theatrical effect, and may well have made his coffee in a more conventional manor when no one was around to be audience for his performance.

There is one more element to this kind of coffee to mention.  The layer of muddy grounds at the bottom of the pot has an insulating effect on the brew, allowing it remain drinkable for a longer period of time than drip coffee in a pot kept at a similar temperature.  When I was working my little troller on the salmon grounds off the Washington coast the pot had a permanent position just forward of the stove stack, held in place with a bent piece of wire.  With a couple cups of coffee held warm, it was usually drinkable several hours later if a guy really needed a mid afternoon pick me up.  Days are long on a troller, and by four of five in the afternoon a guy has been working for twelve hours with about five more hours to go before quitting time, so a cup of hot coffee can be a real friend to take out to the trolling cockpit and sip during a turn or between pulling in the lines.

Sometimes we would be working away on deck, and suddenly catch the whiff of coffee.  I’ve been in a thick fog and come close enough to another boat to smell the coffee from their galley, but usually it was wafting up the companion way and out the open wheel house door, to our noses in the back of the boat.  The smell of coffee has been shown in tests to produce a semi euphoric state of mind, and if it can do that to relaxed college students in a psych department experiment, imagine what it can do to a couple of young guys working out at sea in a tiny boat, dawn to dark.  Our entire being was lifted to a fresh, new plateau of anticipation and joy.  Dashed of course when one of us descended the ladder into the gloomy little galley only to find that the pot had slid to a warmer part of the stove when the boat took an especially hard roll, and was now boiling away, removing any possibility of actually drinking the stuff. The aroma we enjoyed on deck was the last memory of flavor, driven out by excessive heat.

No matter, the pot was quickly carried up on deck and the salt water hose used to rinse the old grounds out and get it ready for the next round of that essential staple of the fishing business.  Then the stove was adjusted for maximum heat, and the pot carefully positioned.  Back up to the cockpit to overhaul the gear one time, with hearts singing in anticipation for the next time around when we would have fresh hot coffee in our mugs. 

While we had been out on deck in the crackling cold the kettle had been quietly simmering on the stove, a wisp of steam announcing its eagerness to provide us with the needed elixir in short order when we got back inside for the break in action while the net scoured the bottom at the end of the taught tow cables that disappeared into the black water out behind the little bubble of our deck lights. Before our hands lost the numb tingle from the cold the coffee was stirred down, and filling his coffee mug with the fresh brew Phil lumbered forward toward the ladder that lead back up to the wheel house clutching another gooey Danish, protected with a bit of paper towel in his other paw.    

Built into a six inch recess in the wall, the ladder was a series of wood steps that led straight up through the deck overhead into a two foot square enclosure that opened on the forward side to the wheel house room.   Two black iron pipe handles, four or five inches from the wall extended from about eye level at the top down to about deck level on either side of the foot boards, within easy reach from the deck below.  But these were rarely needed.  Coming down from above all you needed to do was to step into the opening with one foot on the top rung, lean back into the slick tongue and groove planking lining the opening and down you went, friction between wall and the back of your shirt slowing the decent with a possible touch of one hand grip to steady the last long step to the mess room deck below.  Going up was about the same, just one long step until your shoulders cleared the overhead, then on up leaning into the box like enclosure above without the need to steady yourself with the hand rails.  Especially useful when bringing coffee and a snack back up to the wheel house like Phil was doing now. 

An added advantage could be gained when the boat was rolling freely in the seaway she was tonight was to make use of the motion to negotiate the ladder.  Timing his assent, Phil moved from the lower end of the room to the base of the ladder on the port role, steadying his steps with the edge of the heavy bench on that side of the table against the side of his left leg.  Then as she came back onto her starboard side he took the first two steps onto the ladder with was now at a considerable angle away form the bulk of his body.  By the time she began to right herself and swing back to starboard his shoulders had cleared the hatch into the enclosure above and he stepped on up leaning against the wall without spilling a drop of coffee.  No more effort than shuffling from the kitchen back to the living room couch at home at the end of commercial break during the Ed Sullivan show on s Sunday night.

During the tow the automatic pilot could be trusted to keep her on a steady course for a few minutes at time, but the skipper never left the wheel house for long.  Phil was constantly keeping a close eye on the course, depth and contour of the bottom to make sure that he didn't pull the net over a rock pile or known snag.  Tearing up the net not only cost time and money in the repairs, but lost fishing time can cost the boat tens of thousands of dollars that can never be fully recovered.

The wheel house, command center for the entire operation, was designed for an era when a compass and a bunch of marine charts and hand line depth sounding weights were all a skipper relied on to find his way up and down the coast.  In a boat of her class, chasing tuna fish hundreds of miles off the coasts of California and Mexico a sextant may have been used to shoot the sun a couple times a day as well, but that fits into a drawer under the bunk.  No one anticipated the installation of electronic equipment and the interior spaces in the deck house were somewhat cramped.  They didn’t even allow for a comfortable captains chair, in the words of one of my first skippers, “real men stand watch,” and stand they did.  The only place to sit down in the wheel house was a drop seat, a small rectangle of plywood hinged to the wall, supported with a leg that was attached on a hinge so that when not in use it folded neatly out of the way.  There was also a stool that stayed on the other side of the room so that two people could be sitting at least part of the time, but it certainly wasn’t the comfortable looking captain’s chair from which the skipper of modern steel and aluminum fishing boats command their little fiefdoms these days.  As for radar, radios and depth sounding equipment, all that had to be threaded in a piece at a time over the years as updated equipment came on the market and the budget allowed for purchases. 

The compass remained the center of navigational equipment.  As soon as the boat gets beyond the immediate confines of a harbor the course is plotted on the chart and steered by compass direction, with the speed of the boat and estimation of currents factored in so that everyone standing watch knows about where the boat is at all times without completely relying on the electronics.  Even in the cramped quarters of a small troller, charts folded and splattered with coffee and fish blood, a guy will use the edge of a hand, moved across the chart parallel to the projected course to get the general direction, leaving the more precise parallel rulers on the shelf until he has to work the boat through tighter passages where the margin of error is small.   In the context of towing an expensive net across an unseen bottom Phil needed to be sure of where he was at all times, and made use of every tool available.  Starting with the data gathered from the test fishing contract as a basic guide, along with the results of each tow throughout the season that was recorded in his own book, the course and direction of each tow was precisely planed. 

Marine charts, maps that not only show every known detail of the coast line but more importantly for the fishing operation, the depths and contours of the bottom, are the most important tool in the skippers work room.  Located in the stateroom three steps through the doorway directly behind the steering wheel, the chart table was always open and ready.  I remember when that thing was brand new, early spring when a huge gang of extended family crowded in the boat for a trip through the locks down to Blake Island and back.  It seemed very cool then, hinged to the overhead above the unused upper bunk on the left side of the skipper’s stateroom, about four feet across and three deep, it could be hooked up so that most of us short Norwegians could avoid nicking a square corner of our heads if we needed to stand there.  But when it was down there was a vast space available on which the large scale charts could be easily accessed.  Not only that, but some ingenious type had built an electric motor powering rollers at each end, so that the primary navigational charts between Seattle and points west in Alaska could then be taped together and accessed at a flip of the switch.  Smaller scale local charts were rolled and tucked under thin strips of wood tacked to the overhead deck beams, and spread out on the table when it was time to pick our way through tight spots, and of course for the careful navigation necessary to tow through the pockets of shrimp that we were chasing tonight.

The start of a particular tow would be located by following depth and LORAN numbers to find the spot.  Once the net was set it became a matter of keeping an eye on the fathometer to confirm depths, the paper chart recorder that gave a clear readout of the contours on the bottom directly below the boat, and steer the compass course.  Other boats in the area were visible in the clear dark night by their lights, but the radar was also constantly running, humming and grinding away in its prominent location just to the right of the wheel.  Set on a relatively short range to also watch for local traffic as well as a double check on the position of the boat relative to the shore line a mile or two off the starboard beam.  It all seems easy enough, tow the net over an area where the bottom is relatively smooth, muddy is better than sand or rocks, and hope for the best.

Of course the pockets of shrimp were not marked on the charts, and even the best data on successful fishing areas in the past only provided a rough guess of where the little critters will actually be on any given day. For this, the fisherman has to rely a lot on trial and error, working a lot by guess and by golly.  Set the gear and see what comes up, make a decision as to whether to move up the slope of the bottom a fathom or two for the next tow, or try it again a fathom or two deeper.  The best charts and electronic gizmos can never replace this level of decision making, and one of the constant topics of beer parlor conversation among the fisher community is the quandary as to what it is that makes some skippers always come out ahead while the bulk of the fleet muddles through with significantly lower catches.  We all have our own ideas, but in the end there are too many variables for anyone to really know the answer.

Good equipment helps of course, and one tool that helped us out a lot on this trip was the sonar set that Phil was using to scan the water ahead and to either side of the boat.  Sonar, along with the other two depth sounding sets we had aboard works on the principle that high frequency sound travels easily through water at a known speed.  The electronic circuits in the set generate steady pulses of current that are changed into the high frequency sound pulses in a unit attached to the underside of the boat called a transducer.  The sound travels to the bottom and echoes back up to the boat where the transducer hears it and changes the pulse of sound back into an electric current.  These currents travel back to the set in the wheel house through shielded wires where the time difference between the pulse leaving the transducer and returning is converted into a measurement on the instruments read out screen.  The fathometer and chart recorder work through fixed transducers, looking straight down to give a read out of a restricted area of bottom under the boat.  The sonar expands on this technology with a transducer that can extend into the water below the keel and be aimed in any direction the skipper chooses to look.  In the wheel house the readout is on a small round screen in which the boat is the center and the echoes from objects in the direction the set is aimed appear as cloudy areas of illumination at various distances across the cathode ray tube.  Distance is calibrated in concentric rings that vary depending on the settings chosen.

Strain from the tow cables dampened the long easy rolling motion of the boat as we worked our way over the course of the tow.  Lighting in the mess room was dimmed to a pale yellow glow over the large end of the table where we all took our meals anyway to prevent a glare from reflecting up into the wheel house where it needed to be as dark as possible to help with night vision.  With our hands warmed by coffee heated porcelain mugs and a bit of sweat roll in our tummies, the droning background sounds of the sonar and occasional radio crackles from the wheel house above, the wee hours prompted the conversation to die down and near sleep began to fog over us when the sudden change in engine speed instantly brought us back to our feet.

In a flash we were  pulling up our rain gear bibs and overcoats, woolen caps pulled snug over ears, stepping back out into the crackling cold night.  Remembering Kimo’s warning, Jon and I hung out around the doorway chatting with Tom while he ran the wench.  The boat was still moving ahead at very low speed, just enough power to keep tension on the cables as they silently emerged from the black into the tiny pools of green cast by spotlights on the stanchions at each side of the stern.  Glistening in the cold flood of light from overhead quantities of seawater ran down from each snatch block along the way, wrung from the steel strands of the cables at each turn as it snaked its way back into the wench where Tom shouted out the fathom marks as each cleared the fairleads at the maw of the bulky machine he controlled with leather gloved hands.     

“Here she comes,” we heard from Phil’s position at the back rail of the top house when he could see the doors close aboard.  Tom brought them up at the same time into the blocks and held the cables tight while Jon and I scrambled back for our part of the show.  First the net reel was reversed several turns so that the wrap cable could be attached to the corners of the net mouth at the rings where the tow cables attached to the doors.  Tom then let the tow cables and doors back down into the water far enough to transfer the strain of the gear onto the net reel which was immediately engaged pulling the mouth of the net over the stern back into the drum.  A quick stop to release the cables that  ran from each corner of the net to the strong points on the inside of each door, and the net was completely detached from the tow cables.  Still trailing out behind us into the dark, the net webbing came up over the iron clad stern timbers in a two foot round bundle until we could see the leading part of the overfilled cod end come into the glare of the deck lights. 
 

Now our blood was really up.  The catch looked huge.  A thick column of shrimp in the webbing disappeared back into the gloom.  I hadn’t known what to expect, but a ball of fish one third the size would have been a rush, this looked fantastic.     

With the leading sections of the net on the reel and the shrimp bag trailing out behind us we did a couple things all at once.  The boat was now shifted into neutral which reduced the strain on the column of webbing leading from the reel to the cod end just below us now.  While I held the webbing into as tight a bundle as I could Jon grabbed a strap, four feet of line into which an eye had been spliced at either end, around the bundle and attached the hook on the end of the single block line to both eyes and yelled “OK.” 

Single block line is a three quarter inch nylon rope threaded through two single sheave wood sided pulleys that are called blocks, as in block and tackle on the boats.  We used the single block for light lifting, and there were also a double sheave and triple sheave blocks to lift heavier loads.  All three were suspended from strong points at the end of the boom, which was always raised to a forty five degree angle during the fishing operation.  This put the points from which the block and tackle lines were suspended more or less over the center of the hatch in the main deck.  The loose ends of these lines are normally belayed on the iron pins that extend through stout wood spacers attached to the mast shrouds, seven feet above the deck at each side parallel to the position of the wench.  Threaded through the block that hangs from the boom, the line extends down to the second block then back up to the first, where it is spliced to the eye on the other side of the block.  The lower block had a heavy galvanized hook that does the lifting, usually by pulling on one of the double eye straps that we had hanging in profusion from a variety of places around the deck, always handy.

As soon as Jon went for the single block Tom had the loose end wrapped around the nagger-head on the wench.  Capstan head is the dictionary term, and while I would never deny a racist streak that ran through our language in those times, it was also to some degree innocent.  My first deck boss was an Englishman, hailing our of Northumberland with such a delightfully interesting accent that it was a long time before I was quite sure what he was calling the thing, and even then wondered if the sound of the word just happened to coincidentally resemble our forbidden N word.    The pulling head, or capstan is shaped like a spool of thread, made from machined cast iron, powered by a hydraulic motor.  When a rope is wrapped around the middle of the spool couple of times the operator can pull tremendous loads by keeping tension on his end of the line with fairly gentle pulls.  Adjusting the strain on the rope gives a great deal of control on the pull as well.  Very heavy loads can be suspended by letting go of your pull on the line just enough to allow the surface of the drum to slip under the line.  For light loads two turns around the drum is sufficient, the heavier the pull the more wraps it takes. 

As soon as the hook was in place in the loops of the strap Tom took up the slack on his end of the line, Jon feathered the valve on the net reel back out as the block pulled upward three or four feet, and Phil slipped the gear into reverse and shot a bit of snoose to the machine.  The wheel beat the water under our feet, stopping the forward momentum of the boat while the stern walked around to starboard.  As she came around Jon continued to back the net out of the reel while the block line pulled up toward the boom, and I kept the bundle of web clear of the stanchion on the port side.  In ten seconds the bag of shrimp was hanging straight down from the port side of boat, directly opposite the main hatch.

 

Phil put the boat in neutral and scrambled down to replace Tom at the wench while Jon and I grabbed another strap to get a second pull on the webbing.  This time with the double block, more mechanical advantage with the second set of sheaves in the blocks for the heavier pull as the fish inched their way closer to the surface.  The same procedure with strap and block line was repeated, this time with the triple block line.  By now the load of shrimp were close to the surface and it took two of us to get a grip around the bundle of web so the other guy could get the strap positioned for the pull, which heeled the boat considerably to starboard as the weight of the shrimp in the water was beginning to be felt through the rigging.  It was obvious now that it was much too heavy for her to lift over the side in a final pull, so we set about the task of taking the catch aboard in smaller increments.    

When the net is built, bronze rings are lashed to the webbing at a place a few feet forward of the tail end at the place where a full bag of fish below the split point will be about the maximum safe load the rigging can lift up over the rail.  A three quarter inch rope is threaded through the rings, spliced in a circle loose enough to allow the cod end of the net to fill with fish, leaving a foot or two extra slack in the line.  Called the split line, this rope can be hooked with the triple block line, lifting the bag full of fish at the end of the net while the excess are sloughed forward into the extra webbing that is hanging in the water alongside the boat.        The first step is to take a strap around the excess webbing forward of the shrimp load and secure it to the cleat at the base of the rigging.  Once the weight of the bunt end of the net was being held by the double block, the single line was released and much of the slack web that we had pulled up was allowed to trail off into the water again.  This allowed what turned out to be the bulk of the shrimp to flow back into the web just above the bag end, as the heavy load that had been split off was hoisted up over the rail.

From the moment Phil had backed down on the engine to swing the net around to the port side of the boat we had been drifting in place.  By now we were sideways to the swell that was rolling down the inlet in which we were working, so the boat was rolling rather heavily, albeit with a somewhat gentle arc of motion.  In the water the bag of shrimp were close to neutral buoyancy, meaning that if the entire bundle were let go it would have drifted toward the bottom, but the pull on the net and lines we had on it was by no means supporting the same load as the weight in the air.  When the line on the triple block took up the slack in the webbing and the split line strained taught the old boat leaned heavily into the load.  Sea water rushed in through the scuppers under the deck boards at our feet, and the bulwark on which we were leaning as we worked with the lines and webbing nearly dipped into the water as well before the bulging bag cleared the cap rail.   Phil was on the capstan, several turns of line around the head that were creaking and snapping under the strain, the rigging overhead rattled and shook with the heavy lift as he eased the bag up over the edge.  With the three of us boys grasping the web, Phil kept the underside of the bag touching the rail just enough to prevent it swinging out away from us as the boat dipped to starboard with an especially large swell that happened to march under us at the moment, then as she began to right herself coming down the back side of the sea he lifted the bag just enough to lighten the friction so it could be swung inboard toward the hatch six feet away.  Over the center of the hatch he let out a bit of line on which the bag was suspended, setting it down so that it didn’t swing out to port as the boat continued her roll in that direction, then when the boat was almost back on her even keel, just beginning the next port roll the bag was lifted again and with the entire weight and strength of us three boys in a move similar to a ruggers scrum, the bag slid off the hatch over the deck on the port side where the quick release at the bottom was snapped open, releasing the ton and a half of beautiful shrimp onto the deck, pink and glistening in the glare of the deck lights.    

When Jon and I were kids, coming down to work on the boat during spring break from school, the main working deck of the boat had a system of removable slatted panels that rested an inch and a half above the actual deck planks.  These panels were made from one by twos spaced about three quarters of an inch apart that ran fore and aft, nailed into two by fours that lay crossways on the deck, space two feet or so apart.  At the time we wondered if the purpose of this system wasn’t just to have a painting project, up on the dock or at the locker around by the parking lot where two pre teen age boys could be kept busy all day without constantly being under foot around the boat.  But in fact the deck boards function as a drainage system for the deck, allowing the large volumes water that come on board along with each bag of fish that is swung onboard to quickly drain away across the deck and back out into the sea through the scuppers, which are openings along the deck line at the base of the bulwarks. 

One of the first things I noticed  the day before when jumping down onto the foredeck of the boat was the new deck board system, unpainted with very narrow spaces between one by four planking.  This new system also had quite a bit more space separating it from the deck, two by fours on edge instead of laying on their sides.  As the shrimp poured onto the deck the reason for the covering became obvious.  The little critters would have sifted right through the old boards, pouring out through the scuppers, muddy water pooling and sloshing around the deck in a huge mess.  Now the excess drained away without the loss of a single tasty morsel of fresh shrimp.

Before the net was empty and ready for the next set we had taken seven or eight bags of shrimp up over the side into the boat.  Double two by twelve checker bin boards fit into slots on the hatch and bulwark divided the deck into several sections, each of which had received a pile of fish, so that by the end the entire area from the barrier across in front of the galley door all the way back to the break at the aft end of the well deck glistened with a pile of shrimp two to three feet deep.  Time counts in this business, every minute the net is lashed alongside the boat while we fuck around with the rigging and gear counts as money that will not be there when pay day rolls around.  The cliché, “come on and pull that net, I have to buy my baby a pair of new shoes” is literally true, and when we were in action there was no room for mistakes, no time to feel exhausted or cold.   A couple years before I had been on the crew of a seine boat in southeast where the skipper gave us a bit of a pep talk while we were cleaning up our breakfast in the pre dawn black, minutes before the opening gun of the season.  “This is like a football game, boys.  Go balls to the wall while we are fishing, there will be plenty of time to kick back and rest after the season is over.”  And this is the way it was with us that night. 

The last dump, much heavier than the rest, barely pulled up over the side with a deep roll into the weight, rigging shaking, line smoking with friction on the capstan head, went into the checker and we were off for another set.  Phil ambled up the ladder, Tom took his place at the wench, Jon and I snapped the quick release shut, belayed the triple block on the shroud pins close at hand and dumped the slimy webbing, now partially buried in shrimp on deck back into the water.  We were back in forward gear now, swinging around to get a course back to the starting place for the next tow.  Before snoosing her back to full power Phil waited until the net trailed straight out behind and we had rolled it all back up onto the net reel.  Then it was smoke hole, throttle pushed all the way forward until the engine had all the diesel it could burn, blowing the extra up the stack leaving a trail of acrid white smoke.  Can’t run at that setting for more than a few minutes at a time or things will heat up and damage the machine, but for short bursts of power it can be occasionally useful.   

After the short run and a couple of sharp maneuvers, during which we got the rig set up for the next set, the engine idled down and we sprang into action on deck.  Working with an almost fever pitch we unrolled the net back into the water and attached the doors and tow cables.  No sooner done, Jon and I jumping clear of the bite of the cables Phil’s voice came from above to “let her go.”  Tom instantly released the breaks on the winch drums, and began singing out his depth marks,  “Ten fathom . . . . . . .twenty fathom . . . . . thirty . . .” and so on until he shouted the depth at which we had captured this delightful pile of shrimp.  Before Phil even called down “OK” Tom was spinning the bronze break wheel on the winch, and in ten seconds had dogged the drums securely in place, the cables took up the strain and the old boat settled herself down, “open for business” once again.

A soft clay like gray mud came up with the shrimp that had to be washed before they could be put to bed in the ice below.  Tom was the only guy with enough bulk to handle the four inch rigid plastic deck hose.  A huge pump in the engine room pushed a gush of sea water out the end with a force that would have bounced Jon and I around the deck like rag dolls in a gale.  So we took the business ends of garden spreader forks and worked ahead of Tom, turning the piles as we went, working our way along one side of the hatch, across the back, then up the other side.  In a short, intense hump of work we had finished and were ready for the next step in the job.

Tom was the ice man, and he scrambled through the manhole in the hatch to work below while Jon and I got things ready on deck by opening one of the water tight covers that were set in the deck, three on each side.  These were about eighteen  inches in diameter, flush to the deck and secured with four dogs that were secured with slotted screw heads.  A half turn with a special tool hung in the locker on the starboard side of the break easily removed the little hatch.  To prevent seawater from flooding into the opening when the boat rolled her deck under, a bronze extension was then twisted in place, raising the level of the opening a foot and a half or so above deck level.  As soon as the extension was fitted, Jon and I began shoveling the shrimp into the opening with large aluminum scoop shovels.   When we took ice yesterday, Tom had only covered the bottom of the front crossing of bins with ice, so that the first haul of shrimp could be put down without digging ice out of an area to make room.  As we shoveled them down through the manholes in the deck, Tom used an aluminum rake to distribute the shrimp evenly in the bin, and then pull fresh ice into the mix, so that the catch would be cooled by the ice as quickly and evenly as possible.  He also had an aluminum shoot that hung from hooks on the underside of the manhole, so that the shrimp could be directed into the two bins in the middle, ten feet or so from the opening.   As each of the bins filled the ice in the next bin directly behind it was raked over the layers of fish, insuring that they cooled as quickly as possible.  By the time a bin was full, the next area from which the ice had been raked was ready to take the next bunch of shrimp.  In this way the entire hold could be filled  front to back without having to shovel ice around needlessly to make room for more.

We worked with a will, excited by the huge catch and the urgency of getting them all on ice before it was time to overhaul the net again.  Working up a sweat felt very good in the near freezing temperature of the February night.  We finished with time for a break in the galley, and after hosing ourselves down and hanging the rain gear in the entry area, the heat from the ‘radar range’ stung our faces in the most pleasant way. 

Earlier, as each bag of shrimp dumped on deck I noticed a few very large shrimp dancing around on top of his finger sized cousins.  I didn’t think much about it at the time, but Jon had been grabbing a few of the biggest of these prawns and trotting into the galley for a minute or two while we were wrestling with the gear.  Now I saw what he was up to.  A large sauce pan was on the edge of the stove,  tinfoil fit over the top to create a makeshift double boiler, a bit of water simmering below.   A quarter pound of butter, clarified from the gentle heat below now received the prawns, which almost instantly cooked to delicious perfection.

The best food in the finest restaurants could never compare with the sensory delights coming out of that makeshift steamer.  No doubt partly influenced by the  contrast between delectable tender fresh shrimp on our plates with the black night outside, the boat rolling and thrashing about as unseen seas marched into the bay where we were working from the open water to the north east.   The main engine roaring  under our feet as ten thousand joints and seams in old wood planks creaked and cracked, old boat strained against the net that was growling along the bottom fifty fathoms below and a hundred fifty fathoms astern.  Comforts and pleasures of home and family aside, this was a moment of real living.

Moment it was, and all too soon Phil called down for us to get back on deck and overhaul the net once again.  While we may have lost a step or two to fatigue over the next twenty six hours, the fish kept coming in the same huge quantities and our enthusiasm for filling the hold in short order didn’t wane until we were dumping the last of the load directly into the main hatch at first light of the following day.  Between some of the hauls we had managed a few moments of sleep, slumping on the benches in the galley.  Someone had managed to throw together a couple of good meals, maybe a roast in the oven during one drag that was ready, complete with potatoes and trimmings the next time we had a break.  In the end it all seemed like a whirl of activity from which we were more than eager to have a break. 

With the final pull the doors were lashed onto the sides of the boat with chain binders, the net wound onto the drum, and the deck hosed down to get as much of the residue form the drags over the side as possible.  With a full load below deck the old girl settled down, heavy in the stern, rolling free in the open water on the way back to town with a comfortable motion.  Boats seem to know when they have a full load, and reward the crew with an easier ride that is better for the now exhausted bodies and satisfied minds.  There are few pleasures in this life more visceral than the feeling a guy has after hard work on the grounds, filling the boat to capacity and then rolling home at the end of the trip.

By mid-day we were laying at the fish plant dock again.  On the way in we each took what my mother used to call a spit bath, washing the easy to reach parts of the body in the small round porcelain and iron sink in the head.  The room could double as a shower, but I never say anyone turn the thing on, fresh water is always an issue aboard a boat, and the small galvanized hot water tank, plumbed through the stove fire box could only supply a limited amount of hot water that would very quickly be exhausted if someone stood under the shower head for more than a minute or two.  But the warm wash cloth on face and arms felt especially good in the unheated little head, then it was off to the bunk for a nap, each of us taking a turn at the wheel along the way as well.

Much to my relief a crew from the fish plant climbed down into the fish hold to unload the catch.  The previous winter I had worked at a fish house in Bellingham unloading draggers and got fairly good at calling the weight of a load from the look in the hold when we begun work in the morning.  My guess for this haul was well in excess of one hundred fifty thousand pounds, maybe a bit more.  The boats I helped unload were a jump in size smaller than the Commander so I wasn’t exactly sure, and for some reason the original guess I made as we buttoned things down after the last tow has stuck in my mind while the real figure from the fish house scales has been lost in the mist of the passing years. 

Throughout the afternoon as the big aluminum buckets shuttled from the hold to the weighting bins pushed here and there on forks of the jitneys buzzing in and out Phil kept a watch up on the dock, making sure that none of the catch accidentally got into the plant without passing over the scales.  The fisherman’s association also had a guy haired to stay in the scale house and record each tote of fish as well, just to make sure that mistakes were minimized.  There has always been a healthy mistrust between fisher folk and buyers.  Uncle Simon tells stories about buyers just blatantly taking a cart or two of fish from each load, just as a sort of bonus to them for doing the favor of buying the catch.  It is a transaction in which the buyer holds more than a fair share of the cards anyway.  Fish are extremely perishable.  By the time a boat works its way back to town from the grounds with the fresh product in rapidly melting ice the window in which the catch has value on the market is rapidly closing.  Usually it is a matter of taking the price a buyer offers or else.  Today’s fresh fish is tomorrows stinking pile of crab bate.  Thus the fisherman’s man in the scale shack, with the understanding that the buyers were almost certainly chiseling on the tare weights of the bins, tinkering with the scales and shaving a penny or two off of a fare price as well we were at least protected from the worst of the possible abuses. 

By the time the last of the shrimp had been scooped up from the slaughter alley and the fish plant crew scrambled up the ladder and disappeared over the edge of the dock, we had enjoyed a relaxing lunch in the galley and were ready for our part of the job.  Stringing a couple of fresh water hoses down from the dock above we filled buckets with a strong solution of sudsy water to which a bit of disinfectant had been added.  While a couple of us started in hosing down the interior of the fish hold top to bottom, then going over every inch with the sudsy water, the other guy worked on deck washing each of the bin boards and stacking them in interwoven piles to dry.  The whole process took an hour or so, and when we finished putting all the bin boards back in place ready for ice and another trip Phil decided to hold off until tomorrow.  The weather had been coming up all afternoon and the forecast wasn’t great, and it looked as if we may be weathered in for a day or so.  No sense in letting the load of ice glaze over and melt in the hold, making it much harder to work with when we did get out to the grounds again.  So we let go the lines, motored over to the basin where the boat settled into a space on one of the floats, and extra lines were strung in each direction against the now inevitable blow that was closing in on the town.  Darkness fell early and after an especially sumptuous dinner we all turned in for a long winters nap in our bunks.    

That night it snowed.  The sound of the wind seemed far off, yet it was obvious that the ocean was being whipped up into a froth into which the boat dare not venture.  We all slept a special kind of sleep, in which the tired body feels as free to fall into complete relaxation as Saturday morning when you were a kid.  Nothing to worry about, no place to go in the morning, safe and warm with the harshest of elements swirling around just outside the port hole two feet away from the pillow.

Waking in the night to the sound of icy pellet snow flakes lashing against the sides of the boat and deck over my head I reflected on the feeling of family in the boat and how this was an aspect of the business that I had not understood before.  By then I had been out on several of these kind of adventures, in the cannery boats during college years, then in the purse seiner and my own little troller, nine or ten seasons by then without ever being in a boat with the family.  By myself, out trolling or in the other boats with crews of strangers I always felt a profound sense of isolation.  Usually feeling homesick most of the time, only later after the season remembering the fun times that went along with the less pleasant parts of being out in the wilds away from friends and family.  Now I began to understand our cultural heritage much more.  Not only the generation of my father’s childhood community but their father’s and father’s fathers as well, all the way back to the days when stories and songs were shared around mead hall tables in stone houses deep in the fjord country along the coast of the Scandinavian peninsula.  Never mind that my personal ancestry may well have been mucking around in other parts of the world, now, in the boat lashed to the boards in a remote northern harbor, winter show swirling around in the wee hours, I was a part of that tradition and it felt damn good.

*Recently I read that the only place where stomach cancer has been linked to coffee is Norway, where it is common practice to boil the brew.

Copyright 2012 - Paul Petersen

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