Commercial fishermen - life on the cruel sea

By TIM WATKIN

Vast, unforgiving seas are their prairies and they ride waves like cowboys ride wild horses. In a world beyond the horizon of most New Zealanders, commercial fishermen risk their lives to net the country export revenues worth $1.34 billion last year.

They steam out of Lyttelton and Nelson, Tauranga and Auckland for weeks in untamed territories in much the same way as those cowboys in America's wild west.

The release of The Perfect Storm in cinemas this week is a reminder of just how wild a fisherman's life is - both on and off the water - and just how important the sea and its bounty remain for us on this cluster of islands in the world's fourth largest exclusive economic zone, covering 1.2 million square nautical miles.

"It's the last frontier," says Bill Moore, a year-old who has been fishing since he was 12. "It can be really unforgiving or really nice. Either way, it can kill you as quick as look at you.

"If one percent of society are outlaws, then fishermen would be the one percent of the one percenters. Fishermen are outside society 99 percent of the time because they're at sea."

New Zealand's deep-sea fishermen are hunting out the places where krill and squid have been dragged by the southern currents. Places unknown to the land-bound - Chatham Rise, Louisville Ridge, Colville See Mount. Trips can last between one and eight weeks. Out of season, 100 tonne of fish can be hauled in on a good trip. In season, 100 tonne can be caught in one five minute shot.

A bad trip - for whatever reason - leaves everyone out of pocket. Fishermen are all share-fishing, taking their cut after expenses. "No fish, no pay" is their lot.

It's made New Zealand fishermen a canny lot, with a reputation as masters of fishing in "rough country" - the sea mountains where Orange Roughy and Oreo Dory gather and where foreign skippers refuse to go.

"Nobody knows how dangerous it is, really," says Ginger Gibbs, who was born on a boat between the M.... lighthouse and Auckland and is one of four fishing brothers.

"The ones who survive are the ones who realise it's dangerous. The guys who don't understand that lose fingers and arms."

"We lose people every year," says Peter Jones, president of the federation of commercial fishermen, whose members trawl our fourth largest export earner. "It's a fact of life."

The sea, the gear, and the life are not abstract threats. Danger is always close and awaiting a slip. If they're trawling, the nets can be a hundred metres long, held open by two tonne trawl doors and released by gigantic winches. If long-lining, 2000 hooks might be in use.

'Bugsy' Ryan, a mere 10 year-old when he spent his first working day at sea, says accidents happen in a split second. He remembers how one deckhand, known as Lucky, lost his arm regathering the trawl doors.

"You may do it 10-15 times a day, a thousand times a year. One day you go to clip it on, all of a sudden a wave comes over, the boat rolls; wham, bam, gone. Just like that.

"If you're putting the net out and your foot gets caught you can go half way round the winch before anybody notices."

Maritime Safety Authority figures mark it down in black and white. New Zealand has an estimated 6300 commerical vessels and for every 2000, there is, on average, a fatality every three months. In the 1998-99 year eight fishermen were lost at sea and 75 accidents reported. Many accidents go unreported.

ACC recognises the seriousness of fishing injuries by charging marine fishing operators a premium of $4.69 per $100 - one of their highest.

While most injuries occur because of breakages or human error, around a quarter are labelled "environmental".

As Gibbs points out: "The sea rules. You've got to realise you're in somebody else's territory."

In that realm, a storm can be the sea's executioner. A hired gun. There's only so much a crew can do when one hits - lash every thing down, check safety procedures and get below. The skipper has to consider a hundred variables: weather forecasts, the weight of fish in the hold, that fighting a storm uses more petrol and that makes the boat lighter, that every square foot of water crashing onto the deck equals almost a tonne of downward weight...

The instinct to run for shore is not to be trusted. The worst place to be caught in a storm is the continental shelf encircling New Zealand, where deep water meets shallow.

"Captain Cook always said 'go to sea', don't come in to land," says Gibbs. "It's safer out there. You have to know you're going to hit port safely or you ride it out."

Every fisherman remembers his worst storm. Gibbs' was in the southern ocean south-west of New Zealand in the mid-1980 when he was hove to for 22 days in a "29 metre skinny ex-North Sea trawler".

"They were 30-40 metre seas, 80-90 knots of wind and breaking swells, which are the ones you've got to watch. I lost my liferafts, all the gear, everything on deck."

What's it like in such conditions?

"It's like a jug of boiling water. Everything is white."

One skipper with 25 years experience, who wanted to be known only as John, replies:

"What's it like being in a 44 gallon drum coming down the slopes of Mt Eden, mate? That's about the equivalent. You can't compress water, you can only displace water. So it's got to go somewhere and it's usually straight up and down.

"The worst part of being in heavy weather is when you're up on top of a big wave so that the bow's out of the water and the stern's out of the water and you're only being supported in the middle. Then that turns to foam and drops out from under you. You can drop a ship like an areoplane hitting an air-pocket. That's scary mate."

When the boat goes down the back side of a wave, somtimes the bow doesn't lift up before the next wave crashes over it. It charges through, with white water up over the wheelhouse. Most boats and fishermen can handle that. But if it's blue water, be afraid - the boat's just become a submarine.

"It could last 20 seconds or 4 or 5 seconds, but when it happens you think you're dead," says Moore, who has survived a blue water experience.

"The weight of the water on the boat was such that it's got you under the water and the bouyancy of the boat is trying to break through to the surface. Hopefully before the next wave gets you."

In The Perfect Storm, so called because the conditions could not possibly have been worse, it was the convergence of three fronts that generated winds of over 130 kph and waves peaking at 30 metres.

"I'd say anybody who has fished in the southern ocean has experienced The Perfect Storm a dozen times over," says Gibbs, who has fished all over the world. Other fishermen agree; the southern ocean has bigger seas and wilder wind, untrammelled by land.

But Erik Bernstrum, a lead forecaster at Metservice, says the same conditions are more dangerous in the north Atlantic than in the southern ocean. The main differences are the Gulf Stream, which brings warm ocean currents dangerously close to cold water, and the banks close to the water surface, which create "dramatically worse" wave conditions.

"The southern ocean can be very bad very frequently, whereas in this area east of the United States the extreme conditions are less frequesnt, but at their meanest, they're actually worse."

Hauling fishing gear in these conditions is rough work. It has always attracted rough men, who are drawn by the elemental existence the sea offers.

Ryan is typical of most fishermen. "You go to sea to start with because it's a job and then you just get hooked. I try to work on land now and I can't. Your eight to five, your rush hours. when you're at sea, you may be working 24 hours, but you're free."

For all the raw romanticism, they go too for the most practical of reasons - even the most unskilled positions on a boat can pay well. A 16 year-old straight out of school can earn $40,000 processing fish on board a factory boat for 300 days in the year. By the time he's 19, he could be hauling in $70,000. It's a life spent in the hold of a ship working eight hours on, eight hours off continuously for six to eight weeks. For obvious safety reasons, boats are almost universally alcohol and drug-free. As Moore says, "it's like going to prison and being paid for it".

"That's hard work, so when they come home they play the same way," says John.

A year's worth of partying is packed into a few crazy weeks. The most Ryan's blown in just two days on land is $6000. Bars, prostitutes, taxis, restaurants, the casino are the main recipients of this binging.

"Lock yourself in your room for a few weeks, then come out for a few days and catch up on life," he says. "Then go back and lock yourself in your room. And every time you come out, put a thousand bucks in your pocket."

The old fishermen's bars had arrangements with the banks so they could cash pay cheques over the counter.

"You have your most wild adventures on land, not when you're at sea," says Gibbs.

At least, you used to.

"Everything's been tamed," he sighs. "The outlaws have gone. She's all over. Those days have gone."

Just as in the old west, the wagons are rolling in and the ranchers are putting up fences. Since the quota system was introduced in 1986, the companies have come to dominate, while the small indepdent fishermen have become their contractors. The industry is better regulated, poaching has diminished, the companies pay their taxes and, most importantly, fish stocks are showing signs of rejuvenation.

The fishermen accept the changes just as they accept the dangers. But over their beers they'll reminisce about their outlaw days.

New Zealand's cowboy fishermen have been reined in, but men like Bill Moore will keep riding out on the the watery range seeking fish and adventure.

"I'll do it til I die," says Moore. "Or until it gets me. There's nothing else like it."