Safety is a big concern in the fishery, as this issue of The Navigator illustrates.
Fishing is widely reputed to be the most dangerous occupation in the world. There are certainly long histories and many stories of tragic losses of vessels and crews. And the danger is probably a big part of the reason reality TV shows like The Deadliest Catch and Coldwater Cowboys attract substantial audiences.
So why are people willing to fish for a living, despite the dangers?
Essentially, people fish because they can earn a good income from it. In other words, money creates an incentive to go fishing. Not only that, but they can often earn a good income in a relatively short fishing season, so they don’t need to work all year, unlike people who work in factories or offices. That means they have time to do things other than work during the off-season, allowing them to have a pretty good lifestyle.
Unfortunately, every silver lining has its cloud.
The cloud in the fishing industry is risk. And there are many risks. Probably the most important ones are the changing abundance and availability of different fish species, competition to catch the fish available and highly variable weather and sea conditions. These risks translate into uncertainty about catches and incomes, which can fluctuate from week to week and year to year. They can also translate into uncertainty about getting home safely.
Sometimes, risks can be identified in advance and measures taken to either avoid them or reduce their impacts. At other times, however, risks can present themselves randomly, such as in the form of a rogue wave that capsizes a boat.
Often, the danger comes from how fishers respond to both the incentives and the risks. They are very much aware that their annual incomes and standards of living depend on what happens during a relatively short season. Because the season is short, each day can make a big difference in annual income. Understandably, they want to maximize their incomes, while they can. But trying to maximize income during a short season can lead to unfortunate decisions.
Let’s start with fishing vessels.
In Canada, regulations limit the length of fishing vessels in an effort to limit fishing effort. Because vessels can’t be longer, fishers build them wider and deeper, to obtain more capacity. That can lead to problems with both stability and fuel efficiency.
A vessel’s stability determines its ability to withstand winds, waves, loads, and other forces. Compromising stability ultimately means compromising safety of both vessel and crew. According to Transport Canada, four out of five deaths on fishing vessels are related to stability or people falling overboard.
Thirty years ago, there were clear distinctions in our fishing fleets — smaller inshore vessels fished close to land, larger near-shore vessels went out 50 miles or so and the largest offshore vessels operated out to the 200-mile limit and sometimes beyond. Different sizes of vessels also meant different operating seasons, with larger vessels able to operate for longer periods.
With the transition from groundfish to shellfish, these distinctions have become less distinct. Although we still have some larger vessels that fish year-round, the near-shore fleet in particular has increased its range and its operating season. That means they operate in more challenging weather and sea conditions, farther from shore, sometimes out to the 200-mile limit and beyond. Again, that means accepting greater safety risks for vessels and crews.
Fishing vessels effectively are work platforms, not entirely unlike offshore oil platforms. People often have to perform their work on a rolling deck, as they are buffeted by wind and rain or snow.
Research has shown that people in such conditions are under considerable stress and do not perform as well as they normally would in either making decisions or performing work tasks, so the potential for error is high. Once more, doing this work means accepting a high level of safety risk.
As the foregoing indicates, accepting risks is part of the culture of the industry. Some captains and crews are recognized for their willingness to go to sea and work in conditions others are less inclined to find acceptable.
The season may be short but working in the industry is not for the faint of heart or for anyone not willing to work hard when there is work to be done. It is easy to be considered a landlubber or, in Newfoundland, a hangashore — i.e. someone unfamiliar with the sea or lazy, destined to be poor.
Each of the risks described above, as well as others, increases the probability that something can go wrong. Nevertheless, of the many thousands of fishing trips made during a year in Canada and elsewhere, the odds are favourable that vessels and crews will make it back home. Only a very small percentage ends in disaster. Because of that, it is easy to ignore the risks or, at least, not take them as seriously as they should be taken.
Much like winning a lottery, the chances are small but the impact can be big. Sometimes, being just a little fearful can help to prevent disaster.
Any one thing — the vessel, the operating location and condition and the people on the vessel can be a safety risk. But the risk is magnified when a series of events, each individually unlikely, happens in combination.
That was essentially what happened when the Ocean Ranger offshore oil platform sank in 1982 and it is what happened more recently when the Atlantic Charger went down off the north coast of Labrador. Seldom does a catastrophe have only one cause.
Anyone wanting to get ahead in life has to be prepared to take some risks, whether it is asking someone out on a date, taking out a mortgage to buy a home, or going to sea to earn a living. Ideally, they should be calculated risks — the expected payoff should exceed the expected cost. But sometimes, there is a fine line between taking a calculated risk and doing something stupid, simply because we can never foresee all the possibilities and our calculations may be off.
Certainly, the situation is much better now than it was decades ago.
We have learned from our history and much has been done to improve safety through better vessels, equipment, and crew training. Over the past few years, CCFI has collaborated with others to produce a video, Getting Back Home, to raise awareness of safety issues and an interactive stability simulator for fishers to see how their vessels would perform in different conditions.
Just recently, Transport Canada announced new regulations for small fishing vessels, with the goal of improving safety.
Nevertheless, much remains to be done. Loss of life or a debilitating injury is too big a price to pay to earn a living — even a good one.
