I took this picture while we were out fishing on the back deck of the Western Venture. The sun is rising on a new day.

 I have been messing around with a little bit of video editing and I have tons of fishing video so I thought I would throw a clip into my Foto-Friday article. Sort of a trailer for what I am going to be putting together. The images are of the Western Venture and the video clip was shot from her back deck and depicts a transfer of the end of the net from Osprey to Western Venture. That is me throwing the hook and (you only see my hand) and that is my dorky sounding voice on the video.

 This article is a Foto-Friday article and is a feature of the NV photographers. I would like to state my personal gratitude and give a big shout out to Sir Richard Owen for offering advice and instruction on how to properly size images for the internet. My images will henceforth be published in a format that should be much easier to load. For that I offer my sincerest thanks and hope that there will be a way to return the favor some day.

 This is a photo article for the Newsvine Photographers. All images are copyrighted all rights reserved.

These pictures were taken on George's Bank in the Atlantic Ocean from the back deck of the Fishing Vessel Western Venture. The fishing net that was being set out is a swan net ltd. design mid-water trawl. It requires an estimated 1600 horse power to tow the net through the water. The two vessels towing it are both able to tow it alone but find working as a pair to offer better control of the net for adjusting the opening, turning, and lifting the net up and down to move it into the path of the herring and catch them.

Contrary to the many statements by those who make their living maligning fishermen mid-water trawling is an extremely low bycatch type of fishing that has a low impact on the environment. 

 These pictures taken from the deck of the Fishing Vesel Western Venture are from this week on George's bank in the Atlantic Ocean. It was my last trip engineering the boat for awhile and a lovely sunrise for a few pictures. I just had surgery on an injured knee and am not up to writing very much. This was my foto-friday article but it is too late for that now. So it is just an article and is a mighty feature. (:

This article is for Week end exposure and is a feature of the Newsvine Photographers. All pictures were taken in Gloucester Massachusetts by a Fisherman stuck in the town due to a variety of factors including the high price of fuel and interference in regulation by oil funded trusts (I still have copies of the receipts but that is another article). I leave you with.....

The Fisherman's Blues

Ps- All images are copyrighted material.

In the middle of September 2010 a pair of trawlers sailed to George's Bank to catch herring. On the night of September 14th a crewmember died in the water just astern of Western Venture. The crew was unable to revive him and no help was available to us that far out to sea. Returning to Gloucester with a dead crewmember left a lot of questions about what could have been done to prevent his death.

The problem that caused a crewmember to don diving gear and get in the water that night was that the net had fallen down into the rudders and become fouled. The Western Venture was disabled due to the nets entangled in proximity to her propellers. In order to solve the issue of the nets falling down there we designed and constructed a bar that when deployed sticks out of the side of the vessel and provides a place for the net to lay. Held up out of the water the net cannot fall and become fouled in the rudders.

In order to facilitate the plan we needed to build a device nobody had seen before that wasn't readily available. We purchased a hydraulic cylinder off of the shelf and had it sent to Rose's Machine Shop in Gloucester Mass. They dis-assembled the cylinder and built a new shaft for it that was longer than the original and made of stainless steel shafting of the type used for drive shafts on boats. This ensured that the shaft would not rust in the salt water like so many high chrome steel shafts from OEM sources.

We welded an extremely strong pipe nipple onto the cylinder end and bought a large forged steel coupling to weld into the hull. An UHMW plastic (white cutting board material) bearing was made up and threaded into the other side of the coupling to provide both support and a surface to retract the rod of the cylinder into keeping out all foreign material and protecting the shaft when it is not deployed. The use of pipe and couplings enables us to actually thread the cylinder into the hull by turning it clockwise. Thus we can remove the cylinder for service (shaft seal replacement and such).

The valve was mounted directly above the cylinder so the operator can see the rod extending and ensure that it has been retracted all of the way. We were able to plumb the new components into the existing system with very little difficulty which kept the expense of the project reasonable for high pressure system work. The project has been successfull so far in both function without issue and that it accomplishes what it was designed to do. It keeps the net out of the rudders.

The AED we sourced for crew medical emergencies is the same one used on all of the NOAA ships. I have a friend that works on them and asked him to go to one and get me the make, model, and serial number. Owning the same one as the government allows that when we need a battery for ours there might be one available as gov. will need thousands of the same. A good defribillator can be used to revive a person that has had a heart attack or drowned both factors in the loss of our crew member.

We are too far away most days to rely on CPR until help arrives. The only chance a person with a heart stoppage has is the one we provide by being trained and having the equipment available to revive them. Tragedies happen and it is not possible to save everyone, the best a person can do is take what they learned and use it to make sure that we are ready to do our best for our people in the future.

It is definitely winter out here and not every day is going to be nice weather. We sailed out of New Bedford into freshening breezes and a building swell. I was preparing a salmon dinner and enjoying a little bit of Internet. By the time I was supposed to be putting my Alaska Sockeye fillets in the oven it was positively nasty out. I am the engineer of the boat and usually don't cook but our current cook (Corndog) is on the beach with his wife who is ready to have a baby.

When the weather got up we were bucking into it (driving right at it). I decided to delay dinner a bit and take a few pictures of the Western Venture and find out if we were going to be in the lee of something (some land to break the wave height down some). Nice to have it a little calm when it is time to serve the food. The Osprey is a rolly (insert derogatory expletive here!) and dinner and photography were very challenging. I hope these go over as good as dinner did (It is hard to screw up wild salmon).

This photo-essay is a Foto-Friday Feature and as such was brought to you by the News Vine Photographers. I would like to especially thank the New England Fisheries Management Council and our friends at the PEW oil trusts for the wise policy help that puts us out in the worst weather possible. (What do they think is going to happen when they make it illegal to fish when the weather is good and where the fish actually are?)

A shout out to the Fishermen of the World. You boneheads knew the job was dangerous when you took it.

Yesterday they were giving Storm Warnings, Heavy Freezing Spray, and advising all vessels to make port . Today at 2 pm we are sailing out into it. This means I may be able to get those rough weather pictures I have been wanting to get. It also means I may not be around to post my foto-friday pictures. So welcome to my first ever Foto-Thursday feature. I will have to go without the NV photographers logo but I still credit them the inspiration for the project.

These pictures are from the sail into NewBedford. The place hasn't frozen over lately so I got some pictures of boats stuck in the ice. That happens in mushy surface ice conditions due to all of the little cooling systems that require saltwater flow on boats. The strainers on those systems fill with ice and the water just stops coming. This leaves boats with engines over-heating while surrounded by ice in freezing weather. Sounds kind of ironic doesn't it.

The solution that eludes many is removing the strainers. An over heating engine cannot be blocked by ice.

note- There is no picture 13 it a cancelled picture.

This year has seen the most dramatic losses of fishing jobs of any year I have ever heard of. Another year like this one will be an extinction level event for the fisheries of the US. While it is clear to most fishermen that the political agenda is driven by corporate greed, the rest of the public is strangely silent. The perversion of the environmental movement into a tool of control by and for the corporatists does not seem to matter at all. I was at a herring meeting today and learned that even though the fishery is held to the highest standards on the planet, that 6 to 7000 people in collusion with the PEW charitable trusts are screaming for more restrictions and regulations to pile on top of the existing ones.

We in the fishing industry have all seen this movie before. There are no real environmentalists left. Just these corporate shills that know nothing of fishing and everything about predatory regulation. They regulate to destroy. To destroy jobs and ruin families. To eliminate as many fishing boats and fishermen from the waters of the US as possible. The ocean has a lot of value as real estate for wind mills and natural gas storage, as a source of almost 70 percent of the worlds minerals and of course.... oil, black gold.... texas tea.

The corporatists know that future growth requires new wealth. There are not many sources of new wealth available......save one. The ocean. Fishermen were the only people that had a way to stop the ocean's exploitation. For that we are being persecuted and our livelyhoods destroyed.

Please enjoy these pictures of a soon to be forgotten era in US history. The photo essay of the mid-water fishing style that you see here is a description of one set. It is to be continued...............

Coming up in part 2......... a big ass bag of herring is pumped aboard Western Venture.

Here is the Audio of the fishermen in New Bedford talking about being regulated out of business. Listen to minutes 34 to 39 to Owen talking about how screwed we are in the herring industry and how it is all because of the activity of the PEW charitable trusts (BIG OIL FOR A BETTER TOMORROW).

I have a tendency to see things a little differently than a lot of people I know. Sometimes it's like I have a whole different point of view. Come see the world through my eyes for just a moment and I will show you how things look from where I am standing.

This article is a feature of the Newsvine Photographers.

These are the challenges my friends..... I hope you like them~~~the song is for our resident Newsvine Scrapper~~~~

This article is a Foto-Friday Article and as such is a feature of the Newsvine Photographers. Every week on Friday the NV Photographers submit their latest work, photo-essays, projects for the enjoyment of the community. If you liked this article please look for the Foto-Friday logo and enjoy the latest efforts of our very talented and hardworking members.

for dkaz You are missed. ):

On the night of September 15th 2010, heading in to Gloucester from George's bank the atmosphere on the Osprey was somber. We were cutting the trip short due to a fatality on the Western Venture. (That is a different story) I was laying in my bunk trying to sleep for even twenty minutes that night. Suddenly the boat felt weird like there was water sloshing somewhere and it was causing a hesitation in the natural movement of the boat. Many years of life on the water caused me to go from trying to sleep to extremely alarmed in a second.

As the boats engineer it is my job to make sure that the ocean is staying where it belongs, outside the frickin boat! I immediately jumped up and headed for the engine room. Engine room flooding is the most dangerous due to the fact that everything you depend on to control flooding is there. Pumps, electricity generation, and propulsion are all lost when that space floods. When I hit the top of the stairs I knew I was getting wet. A pipe had failed on the main engine and the water was spraying on the back up generator right in the path to the pumps.

What a bummer!! Thinking, "What next?" because of the rule of three (disasters always come in three's). I turned on all the pumps and pumped out the engine room and the shaft alley (water from the engine room had filled it). Remembering the video camera mounted 6 feet away and pointed right at the spraying water, I headed to the wheelhouse to find out why the man on watch hadn't seen this incident. The camera system was directed to the steering room and got stuck there. Ignorance is bliss so rather than allow that, I told the watch man that we are taking on water in the engine room. Everybody loves to hear that.

Of course we made it to town. Then the police wouldn't let us off the boat to get the pipes and stuff to fix it, until they were done investigating the fatality we had. That was your Foto-Friday short story. This article is a Foto-Friday presentation. Foto-Friday is brought to you by the Newsvine Photographers. If you liked this article please look for the Foto-Friday label and enjoy some of the pictures of a variety of subjects from all over the country and even the world.

I don't have the words....

Charlie, I left your picture at the statue of the "Man at the Wheel," today. You asked me for some copies and I fricked around too long and didn't do it. I always thought there would be more time. When I left it there, the sun got in my eyes and the tears rolling down my face made it look to the tourists like I was crying or something. I missed all of my opportunities to tell you some things that now I will never get a chance to say. Like thank you for all of the times you did nice things for me, and for always being there when it mattered the most. How sorry I am for the times I let you down.

Goodbye Charlie, Godspeed you on your journey to a better place and grant you restfull peace.

(It is definitely Corndog's turn to load the fish trucks)

This is Video of The Honor Guard Playing Taps on the steps of Our Lady of Good Voyage. There is an annoying truck engine for part of it. sorry

This is the Story of What Happened.

This is Charlie's Obituary.

This is the Guest Book For Online Condolences

A crew member of the Gloucester herring boat Western Venture has died at sea after donning diving gear and going beneath the 164-foot mid-water trawler in an effort to clear a trawl net that had become snagged on a rudder or prop after a tow on Georges Bank.

The dead man was identified this afternoon as Duane "Charlie" Rine, 51, of Gloucester, according to police Det. Ken Ryan.

Crewmember Dies On Western Venture (The Loss of Duane“Charlie” Rine on George’s Bank)

I never thought citizen journalism was going to be easy, who knew there would be days like today? Sailing out of Gloucester to go herring fishing on George’s Bank there was no way of knowing we would be bringing home the body of a crewmate. I am not impartial in this matter, tragedy has struck our little company and it is with a heavy heart and more than a little regret that I write this.

The following occured on September 14, 2010. It was an evening set pair trawling, on the Osprey we were taking the end from the Western Venture and towing for herring. We had just given the end back to the Venture and they had hauled the gear up and pumped the catch aboard. The trouble started when the net was empty and they tried to reel it up on the stern. The net had become entangled in the rudders. This happens occasionally in calm weather due to an open rudder design and the net lying under the boat and catching on them.

On Osprey we were on stand-by to tow our partner out of the mess. One of the crew over there was a scuba diver and had tanks and all of the gear on board. Duane“Charlie” Rine had dove on the boat before and was willing and able to clear the net from the rudders. They elected to have him dive and clear the net from the rudders and around 7:30 to 8pm he got in the water.

Charlie was able to immediately clear the port rudder but the starboard rudder is more difficult. He was under for around 10 to 15 minutes and when he surfaced he had abandoned all of his dive gear (tank, weight belt, etc.). He was conscious and shouting to the crew when he surfaced but after they lifted him out of the water with the sling he quickly lost consciousness and stopped breathing.

The crew of the boat began performing CPR and did so for over an hour. The A.E.D. (Automatic External De-fibrillator) that they needed to help him was still on the “wish list” of safety equipment for the boat and had never been purchased (it is a little late coming now). They did the best with what they had and tried hard to save Charlie. They failed to resuscitate him and with no help on the way stopped CPR after 9pm. As we drifted by their stearn I could see the crew carrying his body to shelter from the back deck. At 9:30pm the captain of Western Venture told us that we had lost Charlie.

When the Venture was able to pick up her gear, they found all of Charlie’s dive gear tangled in the net. That he became entangled in the net under the boat is a fact. The rest of the circumstances surrounding his death can only be speculated upon. Heart attack, injuries, partial drowning and/or blockage of the airway. Medical forensics will have to determine, if possible the exact cause of death. I am certain that entanglement was a contributing factor.

Charlie served his country in the Navy and like a true, “Navy man” would go to great lengths to get anything done that the captain requested. Diving on the Western Venture under those conditions was an incredibly brave act, he knew how dangerous it was and went anyway. That he lost his life in the service of the vessell is reason enough to honor him, his courage and efforts above and beyond normal duty makes it imperitive. As a person who would benefit from his efforts on that dive I owe him that and more.

Thanks to the fishing vessel, “Victor Ray” for relaying our distress calls to the Coast Guard. A “tip of the hat” to Sean Walsh for his death defying leap from Osprey to Venture while trying to help, (crazy former Marine). I have been trying to find a reason to thank the Coast Guard but no matter how hard I try, I just can’t think of one. It seems like they want all kinds of up to date information about accidents like this one for press releases, not from any intention of helping at all. They were of no assistance at all.

I am releasing this short video clip of Western Venture, shot from the deck of the Osprey while trying to manuever alongside of the Western Venture it has some of the conversation with Coast Guard.

I will not be releasing any other video, but will update with links and details as they become available.

This is the link for the Gloucester Daily Times Article

Here is a link to the memorial article. It has all of the other links.

The largest cruise ship ever to call on Cape Ann drops anchor this morning in Gloucester Harbor, carrying 2,100 passengers and the hopes of the local tourist industry for more big boats in the future.

The arrival of the 11-decked, 936-foot MS Eurodam, expected in the outer harbor around 9 a.m., marks the return to Gloucester of the Holland America Line after a four-year hiatus when the city's stature as a port of call dwindled to a low point last year

The Gloucester Daily Times Story about Ms Eurodam's visit.

There are some who would like to turn little towns like Gloucester into tourist attractions. They would like to replace the money and work that left when the fishing got screwed up by the government, with tourist dollars. Turn out all the real fishermen and just leave behind all the Disney fishermen, like Cape Cod Hook and Line (those guys don't even fish anymore unless you include fishing for donations). Well tourism is all fine and well but there are ways to ensure that tourism doesn't take over a town like Gloucester. The "Seagull of Enlightenment" has a plan to run off the Dutch tourists the old fashioned way, crap in their eye.

My disclaimer: All of the photographs are real. We don't actually feed seagulls in the hopes that they will crap on tourists. The fact is they are stealing those fish and then crapping on tourists. We are not sure why they like to crap on tourists but please be assured that the seagulls are entirely self directed in matters of aim and windage and who to crap on.

I have 2 music selections for you to listen to while viewing the pictures, Indulge me and try one of them..... click and then minimize the window that pops up after turning up the sound.

Otis Redding- Sitting on the Dock of a Bay

Styx- Come Sail Away

These pictures are of Western Venture and Osprey going out for a herring trip out of Gloucester on Wednesday afternoon. I did not go with them which is always a situation of mixed emotions. One feeling is I am missing the boat, the other is the peacefull feeling of the boat repairman seeing the work head out to sea. If you listen to the music each one of the songs conveys one of those emotions and goes with the scene. If you are reading this you are currently enjoying a Foto-Friday Article, these pictures from across the world on a variety of subjects and styles is a feature of the Newsvine Photographers. If you like this article please check out some others that carry the Foto-Friday logo.

In the fall of 2005 hurricane Katrina made a horrifying landfall in Bayou LaBatre', Alabama. It flooded most of the town and decimated the fishing and ship building Industries. In the spring of 2006 some fishermen from Massachusetts showed up to build the largest and most advanced fishing vessel on the East Coast of the United States. The work from the project would bring hope and joy to the many families that had workers involved in the project. The damage and deaths had left the little town of Bayou LaBatre' down but not out, the people of the South are strong and resilient. Their faith, courage, and endurance have seen them through a lot of bad times.

When I got there the town was messed up. Houses were trashed and they were still finding bodies. I asked a little old man out in front of what was left of his house what the storm was like and how he was dealing with how bad it was. He told me, "Hell hurricane Katrina missed us, we were lucky. Those poor folks over in Mississippi, I pray for them every night." The smell of rotting houses and unfound corpses is one I may never forget. Everyone has seen those pictures so I did not include any in this pictorial.

I did include pictures of the Western Venture. She should be the pride of the nation, a vessel like her could feed a city of hungry people in time of need. In America we do not value such things however, so the boat is reviled instead by people that are paid with money that is from the profits of Exxon Mobil. The pictures are from Boconoco shipyard and the vessels in the woods were all shrimp boats from the decimated shrimping industry. Interesting to note the boats not wrecked or thrown onto the beach mostly went broke due to the loss of shoreside infrastructure like processing plants.

Being on wheel watch at sea in the night is always peacefull, sometimes boring and a good time to reflect on the days gone by and days to come. I do my best writing on watch, old school with a pen and I print (works better with the motion of the ocean I think). The pictures in this article are taken on wheel watch at night on George's Bank. The moon came out so clear and pretty that night I decided to take a few pictures of it maybe to use in one of the photography challenges I see all of the time. My camera is a point and shoot so all of the long exposure stuff was hard to get right.

These pictures are all from about a week ago when we were doing successive trips to George's Bank for herring. We are in the shipyard now and will not be out for another week. The first picture shows what the end of a good fishing trip should look like with fish going into the tank. The Western Venture pumps her catch on board so they come on board that fast (that was a high speed exposure pic. those fish really move).

The wake pictures show that we were really moving (all ahead full) and the way the water flies out of the back of the boat causes some cool effects too. One pic had a little faster exposure time then the other one and it shows. The plotter and the radar photograph show the two main machines to look at when driving a boat like the Western Venture, vigilance is needed. Even though the sea is very large it seems like if there is two boats around their paths will inevitably cross. The radar being clear (no boats around), and being very far from land allowed me to take these pictures while Otto (Autopilot) did the actual driving.

The moon pictures were not exactly easy to get. The boat was rolling some and there was alot of motion to contend with. I definitely took more than you see here. Sometimes you think you have it perfect and then the boat rolls just a little different than your ready for and screws everything up. They came out pretty good, the long exposure one looks like special effects world, the comparison photos show how dark it was. In those pics I like how the moonlight shows the texture of the ocean. The pictures don't really do justice to the moon setting. It was really pretty and the pics do a just ok job of showing that. The final picture was a star that I wanted to get a long exposure picture of to give an idea of the boats rolling and motion. You can see how the camera was stable to the deck equipment, but not to the night sky. There is some blurring of the deck gear and antenna due to motion.

It gets really dark ar night out on the water, and when you look up at the night sky, it looks like there is a trillion stars in every part of the sky. Just drifting on a flat calm sea with no lights on, and the stars so bright you could touch them, with it flat calm enough that the universe is reflected in the sea, and it's stars everywhere you look above and below. Too beautiful for words to describe. Like trying to describe jumping out of an airplane or having a baby (I'm told). Description can't be done, you have to be there.

Herring fishing being a little slow, we decided to take an opportunity to do some much needed hull maintainence on the boats. The Shipyard here has a huge dry dock that easily fit Osprey and Western Venture in an end to end configuration that left the rudder and propeller work for the two vessels in the same location. This is a good thing due to the fact that the tools for that work are very large, (the less you have to move them the better) and generally no matter how big the shipyard is, the rudder and propeller teams are the same group of outside machinists and welders. You can see the propellers, and rudders of both boats. They will have to come off for rudder bearing work and cutless bearing (in ocean shaft bearing before prop) work.

You can see in the pictures, power washing of the hulls being done and tasks involving the removal of muscles, and other sea creatures. This work which needs to be done every 2 to 3 years is important to the life of the vessel, and possibly crew. The lower hulls, (normally below water) will be painted with anti-fouling paint and corroding anodes, (Zincs) will be renewed to provide protection to the hull from electrolysis and fouling from marine growth. The hull transducers for the fish finding equipment will also be cleaned, and the sonars maintained. The Western Venture was built in 2006 in Bayou le Batre', Alabama, which is in America, (for those concerned about the foreign fishing vessel thing). This is the first hull paint job for the Venture.

The Osprey sitting directly aft (behind or toward the back) of the Western Venture is looking a lot like a little toy boat in comparison to Venture. She is not small. With a length of 120 feet she is an industry regular in her class of boat, she is a former New Bedford scalloper. Converted to herring fishing in 1996 she is an oldy but a goody. In the pictures she is out of the water for hull painting and propeller work. They will also renew her zincs, and clean all of her sonars and fish finding equipment. We did a bunch of rudder repair work while she was in the water last year so I think her rudder should be ok. Times are not as good as they were in the past in the fishing industry (flawed science pushes agenda) quotas are very low, so it's not like we are trying to spend a bunch of money we don't have. It's too bad because shipyard workers depend on businesses like ours to provide work and when we (get) cut back they suffer.

New London Conneticut is pretty and interesting from what I have seen. There is a submarine park called, "Conning Towers Nautilus Park", just across the river from us. You can see the subs from here I took a picture of one but it's far for a point and shoot camera. You can also see the Gold Star Memorial Bridge which is hwy 95 crossing the Thames. Just up the road is the town of Mystic Conneticut, which is supposed to have good pizza being served by nice people (Who seem to always need a man from what I saw in the movie) I should go see what the deal is, if it's just like the movie.

So that's what is going on here, I have a knee injury and some life things to take care of, so when the boats leave here they will be sailing without me. I don't mind that as I have had less than 3 weeks off this year. We have also been working the crews shorthanded because of our reduced revenues we are operating with 20 percent less people. I will be on the water again, but until next time this is JJ your ocean reporter saying, "Eat local fish, unless your from the Gulf."

Update This is the last day I am going to be in the shipyard so I decide to get pictures of it for this article. The work is progressing as best it can but the fishing season is happening right now and the delays that are keeping the boats here will soon be overcome. The addition of the sub picture was just an added bonus we missed them going directly astern of us or I would have had some close shots.