Fishing about and about fishing
THE DANGEROUS PROFESSION
Published in WORLD FISHING, Ben-Yami Column, Dec. 1998
It took the sea a thousand years,
A thousand years to trace
The granite features of this cliff,
In crag and scarp and base.
It took the sea an hour one night,
An hour of storm to place
The sculpture of these granite seams
Upon a woman's face.
(E.J.Pratt, "Erosion")
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More than once, and in more than one country, deep-sea fishing has been declared the most dangerous occupation. According to a 1983 British study, the fatality rate of fishermen in the U.K. was 20 times that of workers in manufacturing industries. Labour Canada reported that in 1985 on every 100,000 workers, 32 construction workers, 74 miners, and 212(!) commercial fishermen died "on the job". Four years later, an American study disclosed that the annual fatality rate for the U.S, commercial fishermen is about 7 times higher than the national average for all industries.
I'm quoting those statistics from "Voices from off Shore"(*), a book on risks and dangers on board fishing vessels which while focusing on the deep-sea fishery and fisherfolk of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, throws light also on the perils of the fishing trade in every industrialized fishery. In this book, Marian Binkley, a social scientist, examined various aspects of the risks and dangers of fishing, after she and her colleagues had interviewed more than 200 fishermen and their relatives in the course of their study. Narratives by fishing people, 10 fishermen and one fisherman's wife, were selected to form the pith of the book. Chapter 12 is the author's summary.
I assume that the "deep-sea fishing" definition covers, apart from the
large, ocean-going fishing craft, also the medium or even smaller-scale trawlers, seiners, longliners, etc., that fish in deep, offshore waters, though not necessarily far from their bases. I doubt, however, that the statistics quoted in the Introduction cover the millions of small-scale and artisanal inshore fishermen who frequently sail many miles to fish on offshore grounds. Too often many of them are killed by typhoons and hurricanes. Perhaps, if respective statistics would beavailable, the toll those folks pay both, in life and health, especially in 3rd World countries, would be shown as extremely high.
But excesses of the oceans kill also crews of bigger vessels, even though, with personal survival equipment, lifeboats, liferafts, and better communication and positioning systems, they're better equipped for emergencies. Apart from "conventional" perils
when fishermen get killed or badly injured when vessels burn, sink in collisions, capsize in high seas or due to icing, or when wrecked on rocks in bad weather or fog, there's always the looming risk of deck and engine work accidents, and other hazards associated with fishing operations.
There's an endless catalogue of accidents at work: people swept overboard or burned in fires under the deck, people caught in machinery, hurt by on board explodes, knocked off their feet by a swinging load or a sudden wave, or losing fingers while gutting or heading fish; and they all come in many variants. Fishermen may also get hurt or even killed by powerful or poisonous sea creatures, not necessarily the size of Moby Dick. A prick from a poisonous spine of certain small fishes may end in amputations of a limb, while a sudden convulsive stroke from a tail of a dying stingray or a shark may cause a serious injury.
Hauling heavy catches or hooking up on fasteners, may become deadly perils especially when combined with bad vessel design, such as inadequate stability and seaworthiness. These alone may suffice for bad weather disasters.
Keeping the crew safe and avoiding injuries should always be one of the main preoccupations of experienced skippers and ship's officers. The turnover is considerable, and training greenhorns and keeping them in one piece requires time and patience, both rare on board a vessel fishing round the clock.
While the book was written to deal mainly with the risks and dangers at sea, it also reveals other facets of the life of fishing people and their families. There're the prolonged absences from home and their effects on husband-wife and father-children relations, and the difficulty of compensating the family during the only too short and too rare home leaves. There're drinking, drugs, and emotional problems as well as suspicions about spouse's faithfulness. There're the worries and anxieties inherent in the life of fishermen's wives and children listening to bad weather reports on the radio. All this creates a particular culture of only nominally regular, but for most practical purposes, one-parent families.
This is a good book whose importance consists in the first-hand narratives. These can bring home to many people who make their living from fisheries associated jobs- in administration, research, management, marketing, supplies, etc. - that there's much more to deap sea fishing than "harvesting" fish and delivering them to the market place. Don't be mistaken; it doesn't deal with the technicalities of accidents causes and remedies. But, written in everyday language, "Voices from Offshore", has great human interest to anyone interested in fisherfolk's life and lore.
============================================================= (*) Voices From Off Shore: narratives of risk and danger in the Nova Scotian deep-sea fishery. By: Marian Binkley. (Publ.: Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER), Memorial University of Newfoundland, St.John's). 1994. 238 p.