Nautical News is updated weekly on Mondays.

This Weeks Edition Posted 11/16/08

A) Another tragic fishing accident to report. The Coast Guard ended its search for the captain of the New Bedford fishing boat Costa & Corvo after searching for more than 30 hours, and covering more than 280 square miles. The 71-foot fishing boat capsized approximately 115 miles east of Chatham, Cape Cod, early Thursday morning in relatively calm conditions - seas about a foot high and wind speed less than 5 knots. Another fishing boat, the Mary Kay, working about two miles away, rescued the three crewmen from the 58 degree water, but the captain stayed on the boat to call for help and apparently became trapped underneath it when it overturned. The captain was identified as 56 year old Antonio Mesquita of New Bedford. His daughter said he was a strong swimmer and had been fishing since he was 13 years old. Although the Coast Guard continues to investigate the cause of the incident, it is believed that the boat capsized as the crew was pulling up its net full of fish. The weight of the load in the net caused the vessel to roll over.

B) Next week, the federal government is expected to make a key decision on the definition of what the term "organic" means when it is applied to fish. Believe it or not, the term will not apply to wild fish. Only farm raised fish would be considered organic. According to the government, the organic label can only be applied to food products that are produced and controlled by humans. There can be no growth hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, or herbicides used in the raising of the fish. Critics of the organic label say it will only confuse consumers and hurt commercial fishermen. They point out that fish raised in pens eat their own excrement and threaten the natural wild stocks with disease and escapes. Furthermore, it takes two and a half wild fish to feed on farm raised fish, so there is no conservation of the wild population.

C) According to a spokesman for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the senator has plans to sail off the coast of Florida during congressional breaks this winter. His sailboat, the Mya, a 50-foot-long Concordia, was loaded on a trailer for the trip over land to a Florida marina. Kennedy, an avid sailor, spent many hours this summer aboard the blue-hulled Mya while recuperating from chemotherapy and radiation therapy.

D) After nearly a 20-year wait, thousands of commercial fishermen in Alaska are on the brink of receiving checks from the Exxon-Mobil for damages caused by the Valdez oil spill of 1989. Dozens of Alaskan fishermen can expect checks for more than $100,000, and a few will receive up to around $400,000, but even with these payments, fishermen are still mad about the oil spill as well as the long struggle to win their lawsuit against Exxon Mobil Corp. Fishermen couldn't work for a year because of the pollution, and some say it took several years before the fish came back. Lawyers handling the distribution of money have filed long lists of fishermen with a dollar figure next to each name. In many cases the words "estate of" precede a name, indicating that the fisherman passed.

E) The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the U.S. Navy instead of the whales and dolphins. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that U.S. national security interests trumped the lives of marine mammals. Environmentalists from the group known as the Environmental Defense Fund claimed that the Navy's use of sonar hurt and/or killed the whales and dolphins.

F) And the Environmental Defense Fund and The Marine Conservation Biology Institute, two powerful environmentalist organizations, urged President Elect Obama to change the nation's fisheries management methods. The report urged Obama to make sure that at least 50 percent of all federal fishery management plans featured a catch share quota for each fisherman. The report was written by scientists and former U.S government officials such as Bruce Babbitt, former U.S. Interior secretary; Christine Todd Whitman, former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator; and Norm Mineta, former secretary of Transportation and of Commerce. They predicted that all salt-water fish and seafood species would collapse by 2048 if a catch share management plan was not implemented.

G) And last on today's nautical news, The Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Marine Trades Association accepted the resignation of Leona Roach as its Executive Director. A press release from the Marine Trades Association stated that Ms. Roach successfully held the position for five years, during which time the Association expanded its membership roll and services. The Massachusetts Marine Trades Association is a statewide, representative body for over 1,200 marine trades businesses in Massachusetts, which employ more than 27,000 men and women.

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