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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 34 Number 5
January 2007
American Freedom ready to take on fish at-sea
PORTLAND, ME – Following an 18-day steam from its retrofitting site in Norway, the 346' mothership American Freedom made its way into Portland harbor on Dec. 7 ready to begin a new life as an offshore at-sea freezer of Atlantic herring and mackerel.
The vessel was originally built in 1985 in Tacoma, WA but was never commissioned. It served as a Seattle-based salmon processor for a short time but, according to its new owner, Atlantic Pelagic Seafood LLC, the vessel was “berthed for most of its life.”
Atlantic Pelagic Seafood was formed in February 2005 to purchase, modernize, and operate the vessel. The company’s president and most visible principal partner is Jim Odlin of Portland. Odlin’s other company, Atlantic Trawlers Fishing Inc., operates five 85'-100' vessels that primarily catch groundfish.
To date, Atlantic Pelagic Seafood has invested more than $24 million to turn the American Freedom into a state-of-the-art floating processor. The vessel does not have the capability to catch fish on its own.
David Long of Alaska, who has worked on a number of large West Coast freezer trawlers, will serve as captain.
Seven diesel powerplants, delivering a total of 8,000 horsepower, run the ship, but only 25% of the power will be used for propulsion. The remaining 75% will generate electricity to run freezing operations and other vessel functions.
The refrigeration systems are fluorocarbon free, and the new, environmentally friendly carbon dioxide freezing system is believed to be the first in the US.
Creating jobs
Although the vessel was retrofitted overseas, Odlin emphasized that the American Freedom is “American-built, American-owned, and American-crewed.” The boat carries 10 officers, five seamen who’ll handle the catcher boats and pump fish, and 35 crewmen who’ll freeze fish.
According to Odlin, the American Freedom is really all about jobs and creating additional economic opportunity in the fishing industry. Atlantic Pelagic Seafood expects to directly employ 85 people – 10 shoreside and roughly 75 total to crew the boat. The crewmen will rotate through two-month shifts. The vessel is expected to spend eight months at sea and support a total payroll of between $4 million and $5 million annually.
Economic boost
In addition to the company’s own employees, Odlin said the American Freedom will give many other independent fishermen a chance to participate in the offshore herring and mackerel fisheries when they might not otherwise have been able to do so. Some might operate vessels that are too small to work alone in distant-water, high-volume fisheries or they might lack the necessary refrigeration and handling systems to effectively handle and carry food-grade fish caught offshore.
The American Freedom can serve up to nine catcher boats at one time and can freeze up to 2,000 metric tons (mt) of whole fish before returning to port.
When the vessel does steam home, Atlantic Pelagic Seafood said the boat will provide a significant economic boost to the community, pumping welcome dollars into shoreside businesses that are suffering from downslides in other fisheries.
The American Freedom will be homeported in Portland, but it may offload fish in Boston, New Bedford, and Mid-Atlantic ports as well.
Vessel’s role
Back in July, Atlantic Pelagic Seafood attorneys David Frulla and Shaun Gehan of the Washington, DC-based firm Kelley Drye & Warren LLP presented background information to the New England Fishery Management Council’s herring committee about the American Freedom.
Through a series of letters, fact sheets, and personal communications, Frulla and Gehan made the following points:
The American Freedom is not a fishing vessel and will not alter harvesting capacity.
As a mothership, the American Freedom will accept primarily food-grade fish over-the-side from independent vessels participating in offshore herring and mackerel fisheries that are “quota-limited and substantially under-harvested.”
The 2006 US at-sea processing cap for herring is 20,000 mt, and the fish can be harvested only from Areas 2 and 3.
Vessels supplying the American Freedom will be able to add value to their herring and mackerel catches and do so more fuel-efficiently because they won’t have to steam home after loading up. And
Many of the catcher boats expected to supply the American Freedom have had substantial cutbacks in other fisheries such as groundfish and squid and welcome the ability to work on herring and mackerel without needing refrigerated seawater tanks.
Benefits to Area 1
The American Freedom cannot accept herring from Area 1 in the Gulf of Maine. Many fishermen have concerns about localized depletion in the Gulf of Maine, particularly in Area 1A, the most inshore part, so the New England council and the National Marine Fisheries Service specified that fish supplied to an at-sea processor cannot be harvested from this area.
“If anything,” said Frulla, “the American Freedom’s operations offshore might actually serve to reduce inshore Gulf of Maine effort by pulling small-boat harvesting out of Area 1A. Currently, 1A is the only area that small Maine herring vessels are able to fish given their capabilities and the distance they now need to travel to unload.”
According to Frulla, the American Freedom’s at-sea freezing operation also will help the industry meet a key Amendment 1 herring plan objective, which is to achieve “long-term, efficient, and full utilization of the optimum yield from the herring fishery” without adding additional harvest capacity.
“The American Freedom will provide new opportunities to New England and Mid-Atlantic fishing vessels facing severe cut-backs in their other fisheries and will help build new markets for US-caught, underutilized Atlantic herring and mackerel,” said Frulla in early December. “The vessel is not taking away harvesting or processing opportunities as part of a zero-sum equation.”
Janice M. Plante
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