News

In Al Youngren’s small kitchen there is a big nautical chart, covering most of a wall, nicely framed and in perfect view of anyone seated at the kitchen table. Youngren, barrel-chested and slim at 82, says it’s from 1985 or so. Still useable. “It’s been up there for 30 years,” he says, in a voice that is all old Cape Cod seaman, rarely heard anymore...

After looking at the Northeast Ocean Data Portal, a major energy company wanted to propose a wind farm in the Gulf of Maine in an area where they saw no documented fishing activity. The Portal pulls together huge amounts of information on every conceivable ocean use, from cultural resources to marine transportation to fishing activity. The fishing data is robust and includes information from dockside reports and vessel tracking systems...

Nick Sanchez had just hopped out of the pool at Massachusetts Maritime Academy, where he had spent several hours getting in and out of a survival suit and enclosed raft as fast as possible, participating in a number of safety drills. Now in his 30s, Sanchez had been a lifeguard in Florida, bounced around other places, but was now following his wife’s dream and had landed on Cape Cod...

Louie Rivers was among the finest men I’ve known, and the times we spent aboard the Miss Sandy remain among my best memories of being on the water. Our days began before the sun, walking the dark streets of Provincetown to the pier. This was the 1980s, when the town was wilder than it is now. Plenty of young men were ending their adventures just as we were starting ours, lounging on a bench in front of town hall that came to be called “the meat rack...

We were able to hold our first fishermen’s training program earlier this month. The images in this gallery give a sense of the breadth of training involved – from classroom work on gear to safety drills to boat visits. And there is a lot not pictured as well, discussions about management, insight into various scientific studies and research, navigational training, even knot-tying lessons...

Uncertainty has always been a silent, unwelcome partner to a fisherman. Wild weather, the mysterious movements and actions of fish, natural patterns beyond anyone’s control, balky equipment, shifting regulations, big price swings in the market, even climate change – I could go on. And now comes another huge uncertainty, how a virus we call corona and the illness it brings, Covid-19, will change this world and our small part of it...

When Captain John Our needed to redo his boat he hired people to do the body work, but did much of the engine rebuild himself. “Pretty much all of the best captains are great mechanics,” said Seth Rolbein as he looked out at 30 or so marine tech students at the Cape Cod Regional Technical High School in Harwich earlier this month. Several students seem well on their way to fitting that bill...

Anthony Lucia stands on a wide, red fishing boat in Saquatucket Harbor in Harwich, a video monitor and a tangle of wires behind him, the sound of a drill in the background. In his hand is a bright white board with perfectly spaced black marks, interspersed with red lines, which will measure fish from nose to tail down to the centimeter. “I just made this last night,” he says...

How do you measure “soft costs?” Wait. What ARE “soft costs?” Soft costs represent a fisherman’s time and effort. They have a monetary value despite not being an actual invoice to be paid. The soft and hard costs of electronic monitoring programs (EM) were at the forefront of conversations for two days in February during the National Electronic Monitoring Workshop, in Seattle, Washington, hosted by NOAA Fisheries and the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission...

The year 1916 went down as one of the greatest in the fishing history of Massachusetts. Here’s Dr. David L. Belding’s description, author of the 51st annual report of the Massachusetts Commissioners on Fisheries and Game (meaning the first report was written in 1865, as the Civil War ended): “Prosperity ruled the waves for the salt-water fishermen of Massachusetts in 1916...

“The fog is a chest, a magical chest! What wonders are hidden in it, the only way to see them is to dive into the fog!” -- Mehmet Murat ildan. Chatham is known for fog and commercial fishing and in this photo gallery we celebrate both. The photos are a blend of old and new and accompanied by a well-known, or obscure, fog quote. There is something about the fog that draws us in and we hope it does for you as well...

Calendars can be arbitrary, highlighting particular dates for no obvious reason -- why is Groundhog Day always February 2? Why was Presidents’ Day February 17 when no president was born that day, the closest being Washington’s birthday February 22, or Lincoln’s February 12? But regardless, calendars have a way of focusing the mind. And at best their dates give us a moment to stop, consider the big circle that is a year, take stock of where we are and where we’ve been...