Festival honors N.B. working waterfront

PUTTING IN WORK: New Bedford’s 2012 Working Waterfront Festival, an annual salute to the city’s commercial-fishing industry. / COURTESY NEW BEDFORD WORKING WATERFRONT FESTIVAL
PUTTING IN WORK: New Bedford’s 2012 Working Waterfront Festival, an annual salute to the city’s commercial-fishing industry. / COURTESY NEW BEDFORD WORKING WATERFRONT FESTIVAL

She never worked on a fishing boat, but CPA Anne Jardin knows the fishing industry inside out from her work at Jardin and Dawson Inc., in New Bedford, which provides an extensive range of financial services for those who work on the water.
“You can’t deliver mail to fishing boats. We do everything from getting their mail, to paying for ice and fuel, to tax work, to payables and receivables,” said Jardin, a New Bedford native who lives in Dartmouth.
From Jardin and Dawson offices across the street from the state pier, Jardin has seen a lot of the owners of small boats go out of business and sell their boats as the industry shifted to new regulations, high fuel and other operating costs.
“One of the things that’s changed is that the boats could go fishing whenever they wanted to, but now they have a certain number of days at sea or operate under quotas,” said Jardin.
Some of the changes Jardin has witnessed will be in a display that includes charts of changing fuel prices and copies of payroll settlements from many years at New Bedford’s 2013 Working Waterfront Festival on Sept. 28-29.
The festival is a salute to the city’s commercial fishing industry, which generates about $5.5 billion in economic impact annually for the region, based on 2010 data, said Laura Orleans, director of the Working Waterfront Festival.
“We are the No. 1 port in the nation in terms of dollar value of landings. This is largely due to the scallop industry, with scallops selling for about $12 per pound at auction,” said Orleans.
Not all of the 300 boats docked in New Bedford are actively fishing, but the port and related businesses have earned recognition as a hub port servicing boats from Virginia to Maine, said Orleans.
While the available services are outstanding, the industry is challenging, said Capt. Shawn Machie, of the F/V Apollo, who has been fishing since he was a teenager. “We make good money when we’re scalloping. You can make $100,000 in three months,” said Machie. “But the groundfish regulations are killing us.”
“The bad information the government is getting from surveys is shutting us down,” said Machie. “They go out on a boat with people who aren’t fishermen and use the wrong nets to take stock assessments,” said Machie. “Then that wrong information trickles down to make the rules.”
And the three months of good scalloping is hard work. The scallop-shucking contest at the Working Waterfront Festival, which Machie participated in last year, is a reflection of the speed and hard work required on the boat.
“In fishing, it’s how much you catch. In scalloping, it’s how much you cut,” said Machie, which means how fast you can shuck.
Scalloping doesn’t leave much time for sleep. Even the 24-hour day is tossed overboard.
“We usually work 14 or 15 hours, then sleep for four hours. We don’t go by regular days out there,” said Machie. “We divide the crew into two groups and it’s nonstop around the clock.”
Fisherman Louis Lagace, who lives in Portsmouth and docks his boat, the F/V Mariette, in New Bedford, has had a more stable time in the fishing industry than others because he’s stuck to sea clams for years and the price doesn’t fluctuate very much, he said.
Lagace will be down at the Working Waterfront Festival to offer information about sea clams.
“A lot of people don’t know clam strips come from sea clams,” said Lagace, who says most people are surprised by the 6- or 7-inch clams. “Adults and kids say, ‘I never saw a clam that big.’ ” •

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