Crabbers say rules don't erase perils

The rogue wave hit the Aleutian Ballad on Nov. 8, ripping out a wheelhouse window as the crab vessel heeled over in the churning Bering Sea. For a few sickening seconds, skipper Jerry Tilley was unsure if the ship would right itself or dump the crew of five into the sea.

"If we had gear on deck, I doubt I would be talking to you right now," said Tilley, of Westport, Grays Harbor County. "She would have gone down."

Tilley's close call occurred in the first year of a new harvest system intended to create a more profitable, less wasteful and safer crab fleet.

With the first October-to-May season ended, the results are mixed.

Nobody died. But the Aleutian Ballad's close call underscores the perils that remain in harvesting crab in some of the world's most treacherous waters.

Meanwhile, crews were upset by a lower pay scale and biologists were concerned about the large amount of marketable crab thrown back into the water, where some died.

The Bering Sea king- and snow-crab harvests have been the deadliest fisheries in America, unfolding in years past in fiercely competitive derbies that prompted skippers to push the weather — and crews — as they raced to grab as much crab as possible during seasons that sometimes lasted less than a week.

Between 1980 and the winter of 2005, an average of more than three crew members a year died during the harvests, according to statistics compiled by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The death toll helped spur Congress and a regional council to end the derbies.

The new rules reduced the size of the fleet and divided the harvest among the more than 300 vessel owners, who have the right to fish, lease or sell those shares to the highest bidder. They also vested a group of crab processors, most based in Puget Sound, with exclusive rights to buy 90 percent of the catch.

Some skippers say they took advantage of the new share system — where a slower harvest doesn't mean a reduced catch — to stay in port during a season that produced some severe storms and freezing spray that can coat vessels with ice.

"I think, in general, it worked really well," said Tom Suryan, skipper of the state-based Bristol Mariner. "It gave us the flexibility to sit out the worst of the ice, rather than put all our gear on deck and battle up to the grounds."

Other skippers say that they still faced pressure to work fast through horrible weather to meet delivery schedules from processors. The processors wanted to ship crabs in time to sell at market peaks, such as Christmas and New Year's, and also wanted to limit the time period when plants would have to stay open.

"They wanted the [king] crab before Thanksgiving, and the whole time I was struggling to catch the crab," said Tilley, whose boat nearly sank as it made its way back to port with more than 100,000 pounds of crab. "We didn't fish like the derbies, but pretty close to it."

Coast Guard officials also are wary of drawing any sweeping conclusions from one year under the new system.

"The processors and delivery dates are still pushing people to take chances," said Charles Medlicott, the Coast Guard's fishing-vessel safety coordinator in Anchorage. "With regard to the whole idea that this was going to make crab fishing as safe as a walk in the park, it's going to take a few more seasons to see if it has an effect."

Criticism from crews

Some of the harshest criticism of the new harvest system has come from the crews.

At the start of the season, hundreds of veterans found themselves without jobs as most king-crab vessel owners opted to lease their shares rather than join in the harvest. The fleet size for the king-crab harvest dropped from 251 vessels at the start of the 2004 season to only 89 vessels for the fall 2005 season

Many crew members who did find jobs were unhappy because they were offered a 50 to 70 percent lower rate for much of the crab pulled from the sea.

Many vessel owners reduced pay to free money to lease additional shares of the crab harvest. In essence, some of the crew's traditional earnings were transferred to onshore shareholders, who collected the rent fees for their crab shares.

"For the time spent and the risks we take, it's barely worth it, " said Charles O'Brien, a veteran crewman from Anchorage who worked aboard an Oregon-based vessel.

Crew shares also were diminished by higher fuel costs, as well as sharply lower prices for snow crab.

Some crews were still able to make more money than in past years due to the longer season. But O'Brien said his wages actually went down; he earned only $28,0000 for about three months of work, with the possibility of a modest bump when final prices for snow crab are settled. In some of the best of previous seasons, he earned more than $50,000.

Some crew members got so frustrated by the lower pay scales that they quit in midseason, according to skippers and crew. It also was surprisingly difficult to find new crew to replace those who quit, according to Joe Morris, skipper of the Oregon-based Sandra Five, who thinks that the low pay rates caused many veterans to shy away from filling in.

"I just couldn't find anyone," said Morris, who eventually went out to sea with only a four-person crew to set down — and retrieve — the baited steel traps known as pots.

Surge in discarding

For everyone involved in the harvest, another big frustration was a surge in the discarding of legal-sized king-crab males, despite predictions that the new share system would be a boon to conservation.

In years past, crews kept the vast majority of the legal males, tossing back the prohibited females and undersized crab as they raced to fill up their holds before the short seasons ended.

But last fall, with vessels guaranteed fixed harvest shares, skippers sought to fill up their hold with only the highest-value crab. That meant bringing back smooth-shelled male crab and tossing back barnacled male crab that have the same-quality meat but less visual appeal for consumers.

As a result of high-seas sorting, the total number of legal discards was eight times higher than any previous season, and amounted to roughly 20 percent of the more than 3.3 million legal males brought on deck, according to a report by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

To fill their quotas with smooth-shelled males, the crews also hauled up and threw overboard more females and undersized crab.

Biologists estimate that about one in five of these discards die from their brief trip topside.

"We as harvesters screwed up in last fall's fishery, and now we are scrambling to come up with solutions," said Arni Thomson, executive director of the Alaska Crab Coalition, which represents some of the biggest harvest shareholders.

Uncertain future

What happens next is unclear.

One option — feared by crabbers — would be for a reduced harvest next year that would try to take into account a higher rate of discards. Another option would be a "catch it, keep it" rule that would require vessels to retain all legal crab, according to Thomson.

"Maybe when a system changes as dramatic as this, it takes some time — not just one season — to get things figured out," said Glenn Reed, executive director of the Pacific Seafood Processors Association.

Hal Bernton: 206-464-2581 or hbernton@seattletimes.com