Daily Archives: May 17, 2020

UPDATED: Coast Guard sets Port Condition Yankee for Port of Morehead City, N.C.

The Captain of the Port for North Carolina set Port Condition Yankee for the Port of Morehead City at 2 p.m., Sunday, and anticipates setting Port Condition Zulu at 10 p.m. Port Condition Yankee closes the identified port to inbound traffic without permission from the Captain of the Port. All affected vessels are encouraged to seek an alternative destination. Owners of pleasure craft are advised to seek safe harbor. Drawbridges may not be operating if sustained winds reach 34 mph or when an evacuation is in progress. Mariners can view the latest port updates on the Coast Guard’s Homeport Site. The Coast Guard is warning the public of these important safety messages: >click to read< 19:54

Captain of the Port reopens Port of Morehead City, N.C. – The Port of Morehead City has been returned to the Seasonal Alert port condition and is reopened to all vessel traffic. For guidance on specific issues or questions, contact Sector North Carolina at 910-343-3880.

The future of fish is frozen: How the Massachusetts seafood industry is adapting to Coronavirus

As restaurants closed, local seafood distributors needed to find a way to sell their product. So they turned to their freezer. Jared Auerbach first saw the effects of the coronavirus pandemic in early January, when seafood orders from Boston’s Chinatown — and Chinatowns across the country — slowly stopped coming in. At first, the founder of Red’s Best, a Boston-based seafood distributor, wasn’t too worried. “The second week of March, we were down about 20 percent,” On March 17, restaurants in Mass. were ordered to shutdown, and Auerbach, who founded Red’s Best in 2008, saw his business fall out from under him  “What’s our contingency plan?” Across the country, seafood purveyors are all asking the same question. >click to read< 13:25

Smart crab fishing – New crabber for Scrabster, Scotland

Both owner and yard found themselves in new territory as the UK went into lockdown, just as Andrew Watt’s new vivier crabber was about to be delivered, and with the long delivery trip to Scrabster ahead of them. The new Osprey WK-4 was launched at the Parkol Marine Engineering yard in March,, The new crabber is expected to fish brown crab along the north coast of Scotland west to the Butt of Lewis, working 5-6 day trips,,, photos, >click to read<

 Smart crab fishing – Osprey has a carefully arranged layout for handling fishing gear, developed by the owners and the longstanding crew, working with vessel safety management systems to ensure safe operation. photos, >click to read< 10:58

Slow going for the Copper River opener

A 12-hour opener marking the start of the 2020 Copper River commercial salmon season proved slow going, with a catch of 1,650 Chinook and 1,500 sockeye salmon, down from 2,300 kings and 20,400 reds in the 2019 opener. Prices for the catch were also down, due to lack of demand during the COVID-19 pandemic, with upscale restaurants that normally feature Copper River entrees following the start of the fishery still closed. Even with fewer fishermen on the grounds, it was tough going. One veteran harvester said his 12-hour effort produced a total of five fish. Worries over a potential low price for the prized fish, coupled with concerns that the novel coronavirus pandemic might stop the fishery lowered the competition for the fish, said Cordova Mayor Clay Koplin, who calculated that as much of one fourth of the fleet never left the harbor. >click to read< 08:34