Bristol Bay part 2

In part one I gave a very brief overview of Bristol Bay and how the fishery operates. Part two I want to give an idea about the boats of Bristol Bay.

The Predator is the boat that myself and three others live on through the fishing season. She's a thirty two foot by fifteen foot fishing boat. The department of fish and game has limited the size of Bristol Bay salmon fishing boats to thirty two feet from the corner of the stern to the bow; some boats are shorter and fatter, some are longer and thinner. We're a stern picker which means the deck and workspace of the boat is mid-ship to the stern and the house of the boat is towards the bow with a fo'c'sle (which means forecastle and is pronounced "folk'sel") at the very front end.

The deck of the boat is broken up into three spaces: the holds, the box, and the deck. The holds sit below the drum (which is a giant aluminum spool that is mounted on deck that we use to wind our nets onto via hydraulics). There are three holds on the port and starboard side of the boat and two in the middle (one of which we do not use because it accesses the engine room). In the holds we hang brailer bags. Brailer bags are the invention of a genius because without them we would have to pitch all of the fish we catch both into and out of our holds which would be the stuff of nightmares. The box is a small area between the holds and the deck that is separated by the raised aluminum of the holds and three one by eight boards stacked on edge. We use the box to contain fish, separate nets, and we straddle the boards to help us keep balance on wavy days. The deck of the boat holds the hydraulic controls and the "roller" which is an hydraulically controlled spinning rubber drum with horns on either end that is designed to contain the net while it is being pulled back into the boat.

The house of the boat contains the cabin, the fo'c'sle, the bilge and engine room, and on top rests the flying bridge. In the cabin we have a small table with bench seating, the controls for the boat, a pesky diesel stove, a sink, cabinets and a few drawers for storage. In the fo'c'sle there are four bunks of varying sizes due to a storage cupboard and the head. The head is the bathroom which has a shower and toilet in it but we only use it for storage space due to the inconvenience of operating a shower and toilet on a boat and the general lack of storage space. The bilge and engine room are accessed by a removable section of the cabin floor and a removable section of the bench seating. The flying bridge contains controls for the boat, a diesel fuel tank for the pesky stove, and a small amount of storage space; it is where the skipper of the boat commands the boat and his underlings during a fishing opening.

The Predator is only one type of many in Bristol Bay. It is a 1985 aluminum Curry 32: mid size (though when it was constructed it was mind bogglingly large), with space to work and live, and can pack a lot of fish (I've seen 20,000 pounds at once but it could probably double that safely). A Curry 32 means that it was built by Jim Curry (who is based in Bellingham) and it is 32 feet. Some boats are built out of fiberglass which makes them more comfortable and less noisy. In an aluminum boat you can hear the sound of the water splish splashing all the time and they are not great at keeping heat in or out; fiberglass boats are noise dampening and non conductive of heat which gives them an edge for livability.

Boats are a special thing. They are usually built by someone that is interested in building them. Sometimes they work wonderfully and sometimes they just plain don't work. We spoke with guys in the boat yard who had a brand new boat built by a company that usually builds research vessels. The builders didn't understand what requirements a fishing boat would need and so there were many components that were useless or rendered the boat useless. Another brand new boat blew through two engines before they realized that they had to redo the entire engine room because the length of the shaft was putting too much pressure on the engine (imagine $500,000 on a new boat and another $200,000-$300,000 to fix it right away. Ouch!).

Another fun thing about boats is, although they are designed to be in the water, they are built on land. Strange things occur out on the water that cannot be accounted for. Boats get window blow-outs due to waves coming over the bow but if the windows are angled with the top toward the bow and the bottom toward the stern they are less likely to blow out due to natural deflection. It doesn't matter how well your boat is designed if the wind is blowing you will get water inside and if it is wavy it matters little how well everything is secured, you will have things rolling all over the floor including yourself or other crew members at times; these occurrences usually prompt a mid-season freakout from myself which is totally justified and equally embarrassing.

These boats take a pounding out there. In the weeks that they are used they can be beaten by waves and other boats, loaded heavily, run aground, and stressed to the limits. When they are not in use they sit through Alaskan winters. I do not envy them. Luckily the Predator has always been a sturdy vessel and has required little emergency repairs. Other boats we've seen are not so lucky. Usually there are boats that are towed in every year due to some sort of crippling incident. Sometimes an engine blows and once in a while a rudder inexplicably falls off. In the water they are quite buoyant. They provide an odd set of sea legs because they are short and stout. They don't really pitch and roll as much as herk and jerk; when there are waves mobility becomes difficult.

It takes a lot for most of these boats to sink (although I've seen boats that seem to take a lot to get them to float). Awkward or unforeseen circumstances are usually the cause of sinking.
 I once looked up from picking fish to see a large brush floating by, then a bucket, and a few other items. When I searched for the source of these I saw a boat with its entire deck submerged and its crew trying desperately to keep it from entering the cabin. They were unluckily and luckily in a very shallow spot. They had a lot of fish on board, got caught on the bottom and took a wave at the same time which submerged them but they couldn't actually completely submerge; they were however in danger of getting knocked on their side with another big wave. I believe that someone threw them a line and towed them to get their bow above water so that they could pump the water out. Scary stuff but as someone once said "when people ask me what I would do if the boat sank I tell them; 'I'd stand up and walk to shore'." Still, sinking would be inconvenient because the stove would probably go out. Pesky stoves!