NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Just days before Christmas, five sailors died off the shores of the fabled New England fishing community of New Bedford. Seas were violent; the Northern Edge took on water; the sailors were lost even as wives and mothers lit the traditional candles in the windows back home for them.

Because so many fishermen have died on rough seas in the region over the years, funerals have become as much a ritual as candles. But what has been very different in the case of the Northern Edge is the public outcry that has followed.

As federal investigators try to piece together events that led to the region's worst fishing disaster since the sinking of the ship that inspired the book and movie "The Perfect Storm," Eastern Seaboard fishermen have speculated that they already know why the men died. Many squarely pin the blame on a new government regulation that penalizes scalloping vessels and costs them potentially tens of thousands of dollars for breaking a trip and returning to shore before catching their limit, even if they are coming back to find safe harbor from inclement weather.

"Regulations have become so rigid for our fishermen that there is no discretion left to them anymore," said Matt Thomas, the city attorney for New Bedford. "They've started to look at fishing like a science, like something they can study in a lab and a beaker, but that's not the way it works with something as volatile as the Atlantic Ocean."

Amid the debate, the body that oversees fishing in the region, the New England Fishery Management Council, met Tuesday in New Hampshire. In response to the uproar, the council voted to temporarily reverse the controversial rule pending a review by regulators at the National Marine Fisheries Service. For now, no penalty will be levied against fishermen who leave before catching their limit for any reason.

Regulations like the one for scallopers — dubbed the "broken trip" rule and initially put in place in an effort to limit the number of trips scallopers would make into waters that also contained high numbers of endangered groundfish such as cod and haddock that inadvertently are caught in scalloping nets — have become increasingly common in recent decades. The goal is something most fisherman and conservationists can agree upon: protecting and rebuilding dwindling groundfish and shellfish populations in the region to ensure that the waters remain viable fishing grounds for generations to come.

But the devil has been in the details. Depending on who you ask, the debate over the increasingly numerous fishing regulations can be summed up one of two ways: conservation versus common sense or responsible regulation vs. a small subset of renegade rule breakers.

"Enforcement can be patchy sometimes," said Pat Fiorelli, a council spokeswoman. "It's not like you can have 'fish cops' out on the water with the same ease as you have cops on highways to stop speeding. So the need to regulate appropriately is important."

But fishermen say they are being regulated to death. They complain of being allowed fewer than 50 days a year to fish for certain species such as cod and haddock today, compared with the more than 225 days or more they routinely fished 20 years ago. They bristle at high-tech vessel-monitoring systems that allow enforcement officials to track where they are fishing at all times. And, perhaps most of all, they denounce any kind of rules that might make a vessel's captain worried enough about the financial penalties of returning to shore that he stays at sea long after pitching waves and relentless winds should have made him turn back.

"Ten years ago, I wouldn't have dreamed of fishing in the weather I fish in now," said David Goethel, a New Hampshire fisherman and new member of the fishery management council. "But they've got us regulated into such a box that I have no choice but to go out there to make my living. There's a feeling among fishermen that we can stay ashore and drown slowly or we can go out there and get it done all at once."

Tuesday's decision — which affects only scalloping vessels — may be only the beginning of changes for the fishing industry in places such as New Bedford, where fishing remains a more than $1 billion-a-year source of commerce.

Arguing that some rules are making one of the nation's most dangerous professions even more unsafe, fishermen and elected officials are urging government agencies to re-examine a long list of regulations. They would like to discuss the rules for cod and haddock fishing, for shrimping, even for lobstering.

"Maritime law says that a captain is the master of his vessel," said New Bedford Mayor Frank Kalisz, who has been lobbying the fishery council to revamp many of its regulations. "But some of these rules put them in a position where they feel like they no longer have the authority to make the decisions that they are qualified to make both by training and by decades of experience."