Simply stated, “Why do Maine lobster landings keep going up?” The shaky economy and the high cost of fuel have failed to make lobster fishers into millionaires, but  lack of lobster is not an issue. In 1994 we thought the record-breaking 39 million pound harvest, exceeding the previous record by 26%, was a fluke. By 2009 the harvest soared to 78 million pounds, in 2010 93 million pounds, and some predict even higher numbers for 2011. What is going on?

A while back I summarized the prevailing theories about why landings continue to increase. Reduction of predators (the cod fishery collapse), increase of kelp beds due to sea urchin fishing (kelp beds protect young lobsters) and finally, the inspired way lobster harvesting is managed by our Maine laws and fishermen. This last reason is kind of self-serving; after all, you don’t create an historic population boom by eating less of something.

Meanwhile, the scientists were baffled. For many years they warned that the fishery was on the verge of collapse, calling it “overfished” (Stock Assessment Review Committee Document 93; 18 July, 1993) . It’s easy to see how they would think this. For about a century, data suggested that a healthy harvest level was somewhere in the 20 million pound range. But a publication written in 1996 and available at the Maine Government website here proposes an interesting theory. While mentioning the usual reasons, lower predation, increased minimum size as amended in 1988,  and warmer water temperatures, it also presents a unique calculation. In 1994 lobster fishers raised their traps 39 million times:

If we assume each newly set trap contains on average about 2 pounds of bait, we can then calculate that Maine fishers used about 78 million pounds of bait in 1994.

In 1994 the lobster harvest was 39 million pounds, so that’s two pounds of bait per pound of lobster. The lobsters know how to work a handout. They enter the traps (underwater videos show them doing this with little difficulty) and unless they are big enough to not fit through the escape vent, they will not stick around until the trap is hauled. If they are too big, a notched female or an unnotched egg bearing female, they will be returned to the water. The few whose carapace measure from 3-1/4″ to 5″ are retained.

from Maine lobsterguide.pdf

So if this theory is correct, what we have here in Maine is a semi-domesticated fishery! They come into shallow waters in the spring, eat “our” food, mate, shed and grow. Without the artificial food input would there be nearly 100 million pounds of lobster? Think of it this way: a quick and dirty google search (USA Today) brought up a ratio of 5 pounds of feed for one pound of chicken and two pounds per pound of catfish, so it’s not unreasonable to think that bait is a significant factor in the increase. More landings result in more traps. More traps mean more feeding stations, and so more lobsters. In Nova Scotia traps are limited by law, and the harvest has leveled off.

While it’s hubris to suggest that our fishing methods are so well designed that we are able to produce more lobster than we can harvest, it does appear that an unintended byproduct of this fishing method (the bait) could be doing just that. So keep eating lobster. There are hungry mandibles to feed.

Late Word: The Ellsworth American reported on Feb 1, 2012 that the 2011 lobster harvest was 100 million pounds! Wow! The same article also reported that the 2010 total just for our Hancock county was 31.1 million pounds. Compare this to 11.6 million pounds caught in Massachusetts  waters in 2009. For our part of Maine, that’s 576 pounds of lobster for every resident!

Amelia made this for Christmas 2010

Get Ready Lobsters, ‘Cause Here I Come

(apologies to Smokey Robinson)

I never met a clam who makes me feel the way that you do. (You’re alright)

Whenever I’m asked what makes my meals real, I say crustaceans do. (They’re outta sight)

So, fee-fi-fo-fum
Look out lobsters, ’cause here I come.

And I’m bringing you some fish that smell.

So get ready, so get ready.

You’re gonna love it in my wire hotel.

So get ready, so get ready ’cause here I come.

(Get ready ’cause here I come) I’m on my way. (Get ready ’cause here I come)

If you wanna play hide and seek with me, let me remind you (It’s alright) The meal is free if you’re too big or small, I just release you (It’s outta sight)

So, Fiddley-dee, Fiddley-dum Look out lobsters, ’cause here I come.

I’m bringing you a life with no risk.

So get ready, so get ready.

I’ll make your friends into a lobster bisque.

So get ready, so get ready ’cause here I come.

(Get ready ’cause here I come) I’m on my way. (Get ready ’cause here I come) (Get ready)

[Instrumental]

If all my friends should want you too, I’ll understand it. (Be alright)

I hope to trap enough for them, the way I planned it. (Be outta sight)

So twiddley-dee, twiddley-dum Look out lobsters, ’cause here I come.

And if you’re a lady that’s just full of roe.

So get ready, so get ready.

I’ll notch your flipper and just let you go.

So get ready, so get ready ’cause here I come.
(Get ready ’cause here I come) I’m on my way. (Get ready ’cause here I come) (Get ready ’cause here I come) (Get ready)

Humpback whale, from C. O. A.

One of our recent guests to SeaCat’s Rest wanted to come in early October, but was concerned that the whale watching cruises would be over by then. I contacted Bar Harbor Whale Watch Co. and they told me that the usual end point for whale trips was anytime after the middle of  October, and the reason is that the whales pack up and leave, and arrive again in May (cruises start in June).

The twenty-first century “whaling industry” is much different from the 19th century, when whales were hunted for their fat content in pre-petroleum America. Besides the whale watch trips, which are not as disruptive and invasive as you may think, College of the Atlantic has a major program of whale study, including the  Adopt-A-Whale program and stranding rescue. Both these programs are done by Allied Whale, and more can be learned by visiting the Bar Harbor Whale Museum. Whale adoption helps to fund research and is quite affordable. For $30 you can adopt a finback or humpback whale and for $40, a mother and calf pair. You get adoption papers too! A great Christmas gift idea.

You may think the whale watch boats chase down the whales and bother them. Actually, once the boat is in the area, the whales like to come by for a visit. They like to roll around and show off, seeming to enjoy the encounter. Whales are very intelligent animals, a finback’s brain weighs 6.9 kilograms, five times a human’s. If the boats were bothering them I think they’d let us know, and the College of the Atlantic (C.O.A.) and Allied Whale would not accept funding donations from the cruise operators.

Besides smaller marine mammals and birds, the whales you are likely to see on the whale watch boats leaving from Bar Harbor are finback, humpback and minke. Occasionally the endangered northern right whale is sighted. At 130 tons and a length of up to 89 feet, the finback is the biggest in the area, second only to the blue whale. Humpbacks come in second with a length of 56 feet and a weight of 45 tons, but they’re the most athletic, as the above sequence of pictures reveals. Finally, the minkes weigh 5-10 tons and are up to 35 feet long.

The trip out to the whale habitat is long, about to the middle of the Gulf of Maine, or halfway to Nova Scotia. This is serious ocean out here and the waves are often big swells. Until the new catamarans (twin hulls) were adopted, the journey was unpleasant for folks with sensitive stomachs. Now it’s much better, but the motion can still be a factor. The twin hulls also mean a faster trip so more time is available for watching and less for getting there.

Most of the activities in and around Acadia National Park are environmentally benign and the whale watch cruises are no exception. At around $62 for adults ($11 for kids under 6 and $31 for older kids) the price for a trip is not cheap but also not outrageous. Spend the following day on a hike for free (scroll down for one) and the daily cost averages lower. Thanks to youtube poster Richard for this fine video:

One of the sore points of our beautiful state of Maine has been the collapse of the ground fishing industry. This has been even worse in Newfoundland, where the human population had dropped from its peak in 1991 at 568,475 to 505,469 in 2006, a 9% drop. A neighbor recently bought a house in a fishing village there for $1. While the trend may be finally reversing due to new mines and oil exploration, here in Maine there’s new hope for groundfishing.

from the Portland Fish Exchange website, http://www.pfex.org

First, a definition. Groundfishing refers to fish with fins, not lobsters, shrimp or shellfish, caught in nets.  Here in the northeast these are mostly haddock, cod, hake and pollock. The resource collapsed due to overfishing. Blame for this situation varies depending on who you ask; fishers, the government, foreign factory ships, healthy eating trends or homeowners with leaky septic systems, take your pick. In a very long and detailed article in Maine Coastal News Jane Lubchenco (see below for her title, it’s a whopper)* writes that the new fish management scheme is resulting in a turn-around. Previously, implementation of the Magnuson-Stevens  Act (the federal law enacted to manage fish stocks) focused on limiting days at sea and landing limits. This was not embraced by the fishing industry, as it resulted in fishing during bad weather and dumping lots of by-catch. Now, the new way of rebuilding our fish stocks involves participation of the fishers themselves. In an earlier article, we explored how Maine’s lobster industry has successfully worked with science and government to maintain health, now it seems the government is more willing to trust the groundfishing industry to self-manage.

from the Portland Fish Exchange website, http://www.pfex.org

Instead of limiting days-at-sea, the new scheme is called “sector management”. The sectors are actually volunteer groups of fishers in given areas which are charged with meeting certain catch limits. How they do it is up to them. Like farming, each fisher is limited by his territory and responsible for its productivity.  The results are encouraging. Dr. Lubchenco writes,

We are finally on track to end overfishing. For the first time ever, we have catch limits and accountability measures in place and clear ability to track progress. In 2010 fishermen fished within the limits for 18 of the 20 stocks. This is excellent news.

Stocks are being rebuilt and therefore catch limits are up….in the 2011 fishing year catches have gone up for 12 of the 20 groundfish stocks…

Atlantic Cod from http://www.nero.noaa.gov

Dr. Lubchenco goes on to praise the new cooperative system for resulting in more selective fishing and “fishing smarter” to avoid the taking of bycatch of weaker stocks.

While early signs are encouraging she warns that there are many tweaks to the system which may be required. Better data collection, more nimble reaction to stock levels and more trust building between government, science and fishers will need to be done in the next few years. And even if stocks are on the upward trend, the cost per pound needs to provide a decent income, something that can’t be guaranteed by anyone.

The article I have presented is at best a brief summary of this complicated issue. I will continue to report on the groundfish situation, and I expect the news to be good in the next few years. Yet another reason to love the state of Maine. Get the full story in November’s issue of  Maine Coastal News.

*Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., Undersecretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and Administrator National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U. S. Department of Commerce Before the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, U. S. Senate, Boston, MA.

Thanks to google for this image

It’s been a month now since I launched Eleccentricity, my electrically powered boat and perhaps primary symptom of mental illness. After all, who does stuff like this? Why can’t I just mow my lawn like normal people? Anyway, I’ve had a lot of fun cruising around and trying to figure out how far I can go on a charge. I still don’t know. I had the bright idea of setting out into the wind for a set distance and heading back, figuring that if I ran out of juice I could just blow back. I could do this multiple times until I ran out of power, thereby arriving at my range for one charge.

But I got bored, and the wind kept changing, and I started to stray off course. After all, the reason for building the boat was to experience the water and I was succumbing to the rapture. Besides, I was going back and forth and the boat was showing no sign of pooping out. So for now, the range will remain a mystery. After 5 or 6 days of light use I still got 37.5 volts, which translates to around 70% charge, so I am unsure of the range. Best estimate is about 20-25 miles.

A big beautiful fisherman's anchor!

On one of the days I decided to pull up an abandoned mooring I spotted close to shore. I knew it was abandoned because the orange ball was only visible at low tide. It sank under as the tide rose. So at low tide I tied Eleccentricity’s bow eye to the mooring and hoped it would not pull her down as the tide rose. I set about painting the interior to pass the time. Eventually I noticed  the stern was lifting higher. With just a little sinking of the bow the mooring was off the bottom! Now I could wait for high tide and move the mooring close to shore until it grounded. I was hoping the spot where it hit the bottom would be visible at low tide. Next day at low tide I surveyed my treasure. A big fisherman’s anchor had become tangled with a lobster trap and both were completely colonized by marine growth. I untangled and cleaned up the anchor and put it to use as a close-to shore mooring for charging Eleccentricity’s batteries. So far the scheme has worked fine. I have about 6 hours during which the tide affords me the water depth to keep the boat off the bottom for a full charge.  Next year I hope to charge using photovoltaics on a canopy.

The final entry in this story is Irene, the hurricane. I have seen lots of fizzled hurricanes in Maine, but on Saturday I was cruising about and noticed a very empty harbor at Lamoine State Park. The lobster boats were all in the parking lot. This caught my attention. There’s something quite unsettling about being one of the few boats left in the bay. Even the whale watch ship was booking it toward protected waters.  My friend Chuck (the veggie farmer, find his wagon at Lamoine Corners) was anxious, and had already pulled his sailboat. He offered to pull mine, I agreed. So now Eleccentricity sits in the park’s lot, waiting Chuck’s return. Irene was powerful, even up here. We lost power for a short while; the wind howled and the rain hammered. No telling what could have happened if I had left the boat in. Thanks Chuck.

On July 31, 2011, a day ahead of schedule, we launched Eleccentricity, my electric launch (and someday, lobster boat) from the ramp at Lamoine State Park. My friend Chuck Weber, the veggie farmer at Lamoine Corners towed my trailer the mile to the park and the launch proceeded without incident. What happened after was a little off-script, but in a funny way.

Author/builder on right

Once the boat became afloat and upright (an achievement in itself, I might add) all that remained was to drop in the electrified outboard and connect the big thick wires providing 36 volts of current to the permanent magnet motor. This I did while chatting with Ben Fuller, curator of the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport, ME. He and many other small/wooden boat enthusiasts were present for the Small Reach Regatta winding up at the park for the second year. My frenetic preparations prevented me from attending the event, but I was bathed in attention from the crowd during my launch.

Connecting steering with Ben Fuller

Once I got a push off shore from the helpful crew I encountered the reason why my friend Dr. Jim counselled me to launch the first time in the dead of night. I twisted my throttle (actually, a little knob like you’d find on an old transistor radio),  I noticed the motor humming but no forward motion. In fact the boat was moving in reverse, back toward shore. OK, easy enough. Just reverse the big wires on the motor. It took about a minute, and I managed not to drop the nuts in the ocean.  Now everything was set for a spin around the harbor. I goosed the throttle and away I went. But the steering was weird…I turned the wheel and the boat went the other way. BACKWARDS STEERING!! I had connected the steering backwards and never noticed! I was so confused I steered the boat into the shore and my alert shore crew prevented me from grinding on the bottom as I cut the power.

Cruising with electrons

So the steering’s backwards! OK, just deal with it. I steered my boat to the dock and picked up three more friends and we took a cruise into Frenchman Bay. Among them were several who were sure the batteries would go dead within seconds of departure, but they were proved wrong. We cruised back and forth to Mount Desert Island and around the bay without depleting the batteries more than 30% from a full charge. I brought along my car’s GPS so I could see my speed and managed to top out at about 6.1 MPH, real close to the calculated hull speed (note: “hull speed” is used in reference to “displacement hulls”, which have a maximum theoretical speed, based on the square root of their waterline length. Speed boats have planing hulls which rise out of the water and can go much faster. Eleccentricity is a displacement hull design).

Prop wash

In the week since I have been working on getting power to recharge the boat and putting together a mooring. Currently Eleccentricity sits at anchor, slowly discharging as batteries do. Soon I will take her mackerel fishing.

This shows the fancy Lovejoy coupling, which transfers power to the shaft.

With my August 1 launch date fast approaching the pace of boatbuilding is speeding up. The electrified outboard is complete and so is it’s water-tight well. The batteries are in place and wired up. The steering is complete. All these tasks had glitches, cost overruns and frequent trips for stainless steel bolts but they’re done.

My artistic daughter and her boyfriend are taking charge of the exterior hull painting. The third and final coat is about to go on. Earlier today I shimmied under the boat to paint the bottom. What joy.

I ordered custom lettering from the internet and the letter transfer onto the transom of “Eleccentricity” and “Lamoine, ME” should take far less time than painting the letters.

Thanks Dave and Amelia (Photo by Amelia)

The first 14 inches in front of the transom are reserved for the motor well, but there was room on either side to create two other sealed boxes to house various electrical components. On the port side is an additional 12 volt battery which will power all necessary 12 volt stuff like the bilge pump, stereo, GPS and running lights. I could have tapped into my 36 volt battery bank to get the 12 volts but that would have resulted in uneven battery discharge, which would cause trouble eventually.

In the other watertight box are the 100 amp circuit breaker, the PWM (pulse width modulator) speed controller and 36 volt battery charger.  From here two big orange cables feed the motor, which by the way, runs fine and spins the prop just like it should!

I have yet to finish some carpentry; I need to build hinged lids for these boxes and some sort of covering for the motor. Then it’s time for fitting final hardware; the boaty stuff like cleats, chocks and oarlocks.

Reverse is kind of a last priority. I can either use the existing gear shift (and figure out how to do that from the front of the boat) or do it electrically, utilizing a big expensive high amperage double-pole double-throw relay. This would just reverse the motor rotation.

Guest are flooding into our SeaCat’s Rest Oceanside Suite and are very tolerant about the rough-looking host working away on the boat in the garage. I even got an impromptu shove from two guests who saw me pushing my boat back into the garage after I switched it end for end. This came after the realization that I couldn’t load it onto the trailer transom-first.  So a quartet of wagon wheels fastened onto the cradle and away I went.

I have begun messing with the outboard. The vile stink engine has been removed and I am now puzzling with how to connect the DC electric motor which will run on the 36 volts produced by the six 6 volt batteries. Out came the water pump (pictured) which resulted in much less friction. It won’t be needed for an electric set-up. The shaft turned much more easily with the thing gone.

The other water cooling related item to remove was the outlet pipe where the heated water exited the outboard. This was unceremoniously dispatched with a sawsall, and plugged with wood and epoxy. This task was recommended to me by a helpful boat guy on the west coast, who did a similar conversion on his outboard. He has a nifty .pdf file of his conversion. Go here and right click “Swe’Pea Conversion Story” and save or open with your .pdf reader.

I also checked the gearbox, which contrary to perceptions, is (or should be) completely sealed so that the water stays out and the gear oil stays in. I found mine to be in perfect shape. Still, I plan on draining and changing the oil before I finish.

Sort of like vanilla and strawberry

Back on the boat it was time for floatation. This will keep those heavy lead batteries from sinking the boat like, well,  six lead-filled batteries. I cut up and put about 7 cubic feet of foam into area under the floor. A cubic foot of salt water weighs 64 lbs, so seven cubic feet of foam would displace 448 lbs minus the weight of the foam, which is about 11 pounds. This gives me a net buoyancy of 437 lbs, more than enough to counteract the 370 pounds of batteries plus a bit more. Now,  even a partial flooding would be ruinous for the batteries, so I don’t plan to let salt water over the tops of the batteries. They are each in their own plastic boxes and are protected by a sump pump which will keep the bilge dry…hopefully. Still, if the worst happens I may lose the batteries but not the boat, thanks to the foam.

Now the foam is epoxied into place, the floor can get screwed on and no more bad footing while working inside the boat.

Next:  It’s time to build the bulkhead which will isolate the motor well and serve as a mount for the outboard.

I have a request for more boat progress pictures.  This is Eleccentricity, my wacky electric boat, which is now upright in my garage and moving ever closer to completion.

Glassing the insides

After flipping it over I fiberglassed the insides and then cut out the floorboards. They got glassed too. Gunwales (the strips of wood at the tops of the sides, inside and out) were next installed. I was looking for ash but found instead a pair of amazing fir boards, twenty feet long.

20 foot fir boards were recruited for gunwales

Next came decisions about where I would install the dashboard, which would also define the size of the foredeck.

Floorboards cut but not fastened

Remember, I’m making this up as I go along.

I positioned a lawn chair on the boat’s floor and tried various spots for where I would sit behind the steering wheel. For some unknown reason, the steering is always on the right in power boats–like England, Japan, and India do with cars.

Fitting the dash

After deciding where to put the dash I cut out a piece of glued-up ash and glued and screwed it into position. Then I built a framework in front of it to support the foredeck. I wanted to curve the foredeck so it would shed water (rather than dumping water in the captain’s lap). This could not be done with anything thicker than 1/4″ plywood. Now, 1/4″ plywood is pretty thin stuff and not likely to support a middle aged guy with a little extra padding, so I had to use two layers. Amazingly, when you epoxy two layers of curved 1/4″ plywood together you end up with something so stiff it feels like concrete. Getting it to curve in the first place was very difficult, involving lots of clamps and screws, stainless steel of course. Next up: floatation foam in under the floor. Then I’ll start dealing with the daunting mechanical and electrical systems. Stay tuned.

Second layer going on

Framing the foredeck

I finally got the pictures off my camera:

The motor well cut was made 6/6

The cradle was built before the flip

Lifting the hull. Will the sides break?

So far so good!

Over and intact! All I got was a bruised elbow.