Click2Flicks - The Perfect Storm - Chapter 3

<body link="0000ff" alink="ff0000" vlink="000000" bgcolor=000033> <table width="100%" bgcolor=000033> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <table width=90% bgcolor=ffffff> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <tr> <td> <div align="center"><b><font face="arial, helvetica" size=5 color="#000000">THE PERFECT STORM<br><br> <font size=4>CHAPTER 3 - LONG-LINING FOR SWORDFISH<br></font></font></b><br> </div> <center> <table width="90%"> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top"> <div align="justify"> <p><font face="arial, helvetica" color="000000" size="3">Looking for "blue [temperate] water" where swordfish feed, the crews of the Andrea Gail and Hannah Boden did what all "<a href="http://www.pbs.dfo.ca/OPS/fm/Groundfish/hookline/method.htm" target="_blank"><b>long-liners</b></a>" do. They set their 40-mile lines with hooks - <a href="http://www.isofish.org.au/backg/fishing.htm" target="_blank"><b>lots of hooks</b></a>. About 1,000 of them.</p> <p>Since swordfish feed at night (especially when the moon is full), lines stay out overnight. At daylight, the crews see what they've caught. It's a tough life. No one gets much sleep when the lines are out. It takes a long time to set the line and a long time to harvest what the hooks have caught.</p> <p>Because the equipment is dangerous (even more so than <a href="http://www.canadianheritage.org/images/large/10087.jpg" target="_blank"><b>pre-modern fish hooks</b></a>), crews have to be careful. It's hard to be careful on four hours of sleep. (Follow this link to see a picture of <a href="http://www.annonline.com/interviews/990602/biography.html" target="_blank"><b>Linda Greenlaw</b></a> and hear an audio interview where she describes life on a long-liner.)</p> <p>Conservationists are often critical of <a href="http://www.uct.ac.za/depts/stats/adu/seabirds/longline.htm" target="_blank"><b>long-lining</b></a>. But, as Linda Greenlaw says in her recorded interview, being a long-liner and a conservationist aren't necessarily incompatible. Plus, the government of Canada has established a <a href="http://www.gfc.dfo.ca/fish_mgmt/mgmt_plan/swordfish-e.html" target="_blank"><b>Management Plan</b></a> that regulates swordfishing in the Grand Banks. The Plan allows long-lining. </p> <p>As Linda also says, it's easy to think "your luck will change" when things are going well on the trip. If "the weather is great, you start to think when will it end."</p> <p>Skippers on fishing boats usually have fax machines on board to track when the good weather will end. Those fax machines act as a safety line for people who are days away from land. The best most crews can do with bad weather reports, however, is use the knowledge to <a href="http://www.fishingnj.org/artswrd.htm" target="_blank"><b>ride out the storm</b></a>. Linda Greenlaw makes the point directly: If she had to constantly worry about bad weather, she and her crew "might as well never leave the dock."</p> </div> <p align="center"><font size="2"><a href="perfect_storm_ch2.htm">GO TO LAST CHAPTER</a>     <a href="perfect_storm_ch1.htm">BACK TO FIRST CHAPTER  </a>   <a href="perfect_storm_ch4.htm">GO TO NEXT CHAPTER</a></p><br> </td> </tr> </table>  </td> </tr> </table>  </td> </tr> </table> </body>