Missing person

In late September, a man went missing from the Bering Sea cod freezer longliner Clipper Epic.

A search failed to locate the man, who was not named at the time.

The Alaska State Troopers are now identifying him as Nicolas Andres Pettitt, 38, of Washington state.

Is 'merger' another word for this?

Here's big news from longline heavies Blue North and Prowler Fisheries.

Longliner sustains fire damage at Unalaska

Lauren Rosenthal with KUCB in Unalaska has a report on a significant fire Wednesday aboard the freezer longliner Blue Pacific.

Freezer longliners modernize fleet

We're seeing quite a boat-building boom in a major fleet that targets Pacific cod and other species off Alaska.

The latest example: Seattle-based Blue North has signed a contract with Dakota Creek Industries of Anacortes, Wash., for a new 191-foot freezer longliner (rendering above).

A freezer longliner is a factory vessel that catches fish with long strings of hooks, then brings them aboard for processing and packing.

Blue North says its new vessel, designed by Skipsteknisk of Norway, will be state-of-the-art.

The boat will feature an internal haul station — a first in the United States. This means the longline will be hauled through a moonpool in the centerline, so crews will "no longer be exposed to rough seas and freezing temperatures for hours on end," a Blue North press release says.

The boat also will be the first purpose-built hook-and-line processing vessel in the country with a molded hull, which should reduce resistance through the water, Blue North says.

The vessel will have diesel-electric propulsion, and accommodation for a crew of 26.

The price of the new longliner wasn't disclosed. The boat is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2014.

Blue North says it holds an option to build a second vessel starting late this year.

Two other freezer longline operators are wrapping up construction of new boats.

Petersburg-based Alaska Longline Co. is getting the Arctic Prowler, a 136-footer, from the Vigor yard in Ketchikan.

And Alaskan Leader Fisheries, of Lynden, Wash., ordered the 184-foot Northern Leader from J.M. Martinac Shipbuilding in Tacoma. The Seattle Times reported the cost of the boat at nearly $35 million.

All these fishing companies are part of a trade group known as the Freezer Longline Coalition.

In 2010, Congress passed legislation allowing freezer longliners to establish a fishery cooperative and catch shares in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands.

Longliners propose further capacity reduction

Perhaps you remember how, in 2007, the Bering Sea freezer longliner fleet took on a $35 million federal loan to buy out three vessels.

Well, the fleet is now proposing to shoulder an additional $2.7 million loan to retire a latent permit and its fishing history.

The fleet would pay for the permit buyout with a small landings fee collected over 30 years.

The permit isn't associated with a vessel, so an additional boat would not be removed from the fishery.

And why would freezer longliners want to retire a latent, or inactive, permit?

"All vessels ... would benefit from a permit buyback because there will be less potential competition for the harvest," says this notice published July 30 in the Federal Register.

The notice, so far as I can tell, does not identify the permit owner.

With more than 30 large vessels, the freezer longliner fleet is a major player in Alaska's groundfish industry. It targets predominantly Pacific cod.

Look out, codfish!

Artist's rendering of planned longliner Northern Leader.

Seattle-based Jensen Maritime Consultants says it has been selected to design "one of the world's largest freezer longliner fishing vessels."

The 184-foot boat will be built in Tacoma for Alaskan Leader Fisheries and will be homeported in Kodiak.

'Arbitrary and capricious'

Another commercial fishing group, the Freezer Longline Coalition, has sued the federal government over new fishing restrictions put into place in the Aleutians to protect Steller sea lions.

Here is the lawsuit and here is a press release.