The top recommendation of the 2002 report of the Governor’s Task Force on Commercial Fishing Safety was to create a state Commercial Fishing Safety Council, comprised mainly of fishermen, along with other marine and safety experts. The impetus for the council, which had its first meeting in September, was the unacceptable level of deaths in Maine’s fishing industry. According to the task force report, in 2000, there were more deaths in fishing that in any other sector of Maine’s economy. From January, 2000 to January, 2001 alone, 10 fishermen died in six incidents, ending an eight-year period in which 34 Maine fishermen died. The majority of the deaths were from drowning and hypothermia after vessels capsized or sank, or after a crewmember fell overboard.
“In Maine,” the report said, “hazardous working conditions are made all the more dangerous by cold waters, high winds, icing and economic pressures associated with fisheries management initiatives.”
The industry is rife with injuries and casualties. Following are just a few:
In separate incidents just three days apart, two fishermen were killed when their clothes were caught in a rotating shaft in their boat’s engine room.
A Wells man suffered serious injury when his arm was entangled on a warping head while recovering a lobster trap; his arm had to be amputated above the elbow.
A Portland crewman’s arm was partially severed when it was caught between the gallows frame and a stiffening flange on the net reel while the trawl net was being backed off.
Two boats experienced severe flooding when their rudder fittings, mounted on wood blocks that had deteriorated, failed and tore significant holes in the fiberglass hulls. A Portland trawler was nearly lost at sea when an improperly stored battery fell on a PVC seacock housing, creating a crack between the valve and the hull.
A boat tending hagfish traps off Cape Elizabeth capsized when the propeller clearing port hatch was not properly secured, came loose under pressure, and resulted in flooding of up to 1,000 gallons per minute.
A 60-foot trawler and a 770-foot tanker collided in the Gulf of Maine, causing heavy damage to the trawler, probably due to an overreliance by the skipper on the collision-avoidance capabilities of large ships.
A fisherman onboard a Stonington scalloper suffered potentially life-threatening injury when a cargo line, which had been chafing on a steel becket, parted, dropping a scallop drag onto his head.
Unbeknownst to the crew during a fishing trip, an exhaust pipe located just 2 inches from a wooden deck beam had reached temperatures in excess of 700 degrees, lighting a smoldering fire belowdecks. The crew smelled an unusual odor but couldn’t locate the source. Back at the dock, the boat burst into flames and sustained $7,500 in damage.
A 50-foot boat out of Portland experienced an engine room fire when oily rags were stowed near a heat source and the flames quickly spread to highly-flammable extruded polystyrene insulation installed to reduce noise.
Several fishermen were killed or seriously harmed after being overcome by hazardous air contaminants — created by toxic vapor, carbon monoxide or other toxic gases, ammonia from decomposing fish products or refrigeration leaks, or chemical reactions causing oxygen deficiencies — working in confined spaces aboard their vessels.
The year 2000 saw several Maine fishermen die and even more fishing vessels sink due, in part, to improper repairs to steering gear, through-hull fittings, and machinery.
Among scallop boats, the 1996-97 season included at least four sudden capsizes that seriously endangered the lives of crewmembers, due to improper towing or lifting procedures, failure of cargo lines, or dragging from open-transomed boats. One scalloper quartered the drag wire and sank in less than a minute. Chafed wires and fiber ropes have failed and dropped drags onto crewmembers. A Maine fisherman was killed in 1995 when his skull was crushed by a falling drag. A draggerman’s arm was crushed and severed when he was pulled into a powerful hydraulic winch. In another incident, a winch was torn from the deck, narrowly missing the head of a draggerman as it flew overboard.
Marine Risk Factors
According to Coast Guard statistics, the leading causes of fishing vessel loss and death are:
• flooding
• sinking
• capsizing
• man overboard.
The most common contributing factors in casualties are:
• inadequate emergency response training,
• poor vessel and/or safety equipment conditions
• lack of awareness of or ignoring stability issues
• refusal to wear life jackets or survival suits on deck.
More specifically, common problems include:
• loss of power
• poor hull integrity
• non-watertight subdivision
• non-watertight deck hatches
• bad weather
• alcohol or drugs
• overloading or shifting of load
• poor vessel design or modification
• lack of training
• failure to notify the Coast Guard when a problem is first noted
• poor drag rig design
• fishing alone
• poor safety practices
• survival suit improperly worn or didn’t fit
• problems with the EPIRB signal.
