Why Save Loran?

Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut seem to think the Coast Guard and DHS should upgrade and save the LORAN Navigation System. They see the LNS as an important part of a mariner's tool bag and point to the economic advantages of keeping it operational. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is slated to decide one way or the other. The Bangor Daily News has the full story here.

While I can see the advantage of a land-based navigation system set on US soil from a security perspective, and I can see the point in keeping a system that costs as much to save as it does to dismantle, I can't see saving a system based on the needs of a handful of 2oth century navigators and manufacturers who can't leave the past behind.

GPS has been surprisingly robust and effective. It's expensive, and it has its vulnerabilities, including solar radiation, cosmic rays, weather, degraded hardware, and orbital anomalies. But LORAN isn't nearly as precise, and it has equally if not worse coverage and reliability issues. Moreover, if the point of technological advancement is to move forward and up, then I can't see saving LORAN. It has as much practical use for the modern mariner and/or pilot as the CB radio, which the vast majority of professionals had the good sense to toss in the drink 30 years ago. In fact, the country's entire navigational capability, in virtually every sector, commercial, industrial, and recreational, is based on the GPS. We've come too far to go back. We've passed the point of no return. LORAN is dead. Accept it. If you need a back-up to GPS, use a chart, your compass and a watch, which suggests something a lot of Loran proponents aren't mentioning.

Let's say we save LORAN and keep it as a GPS back-up. How is it going to help a navigator who doesn't have a LORAN receiver on his boat or plane? Obviously, it's not. So what's going to happen? Will plotters and other navigation equipment have to be made with dual receivers? Will the Coast Guard require commercial vessels to be equipped with a back-up LORAN receiver, either as a stand-alone or as a dual purpose unit. Will we have to carry yet another piece of required equipment, like our AIS, which I assume will need to be integrated with the back-up LORAN. And what about our EPIRBs.

I remember when the Coast Guard and industry forced mariners to switch to 406 mHz EPIRBS. We all had to suck up and embrace the new technology even though many of us who fished inshore (inside 20 miles) knew our best chance for survival after a catastrophic hull breach was a continuous emergency tone transmitted over VHF Channel 16. Well, too bad. We had to trash our older EPIRBs and buy new ones that cost ten times as much. But hang on a second. Because we're allowed once again to transmit MAYDAYs on Channel 16. Manufacturers have reintroduced continuous tone MAYDAY transmissions over VHF frequencies in the form of an Emergency Channel 16 DSC. These MAYDAY transmitters are available in DSC-equipped VHF radios and Personal VHF-based EPIRBs known as VPIRBs. These MAYDAY transmitters send out a continuous digital call that includes, you guessed it, your GPS position. But if we have LORAN as a back-up, how is the back-up signal integrated into the VHF or VPIRB, or a similarly equipped EPIRB that also transmits a GPS location? And how does the transmitter know which signal to use and when? Hmm, sounds complicated, and expensive.

But that's just what they want. To pass the cost of everything onto us. First they'll stick it to us as the taxpayer, then we'll get it again as the consumer.

My vote is to say no to LORAN. The Coast Guard and the IMO picked GPS as the system of choice. Let's stick with it. If a back-up is necessary, it should be able to work with onboard equipment in use today -- not tomorrow, or worse, yesteryear!

~seabgb

Blue Sharks from Last Summer

More Pics from the Florida Keys

Sunset Over Cowpens Anchorage, Florida Bay

Robbie's in Islamorada

Relaxing in Islamorada

Portland Fire Boat Runs Aground

The Portland Press Herald has run a couple of stories about the new $3.2 million fire boat going aground during the rescue attempt of a stranded mariner on Saturday, November 7. I use the term mariner lightly because there's some question as to what the victim and his wife were doing out around Jewell Island. Was he bird hunting out of a kayak or taking a leisurely paddle with his wife in a canoe? Apparently, nobody knows which. However, we do know that going to Jewell Island in November in a canoe or kayak is certainly no picnic cruise. Jewell sits at the outer edge of the Casco Bay archipelago. In other words, it's out there.

Sometime in the afternoon the victim and his wife ended up on Jewell Island suffering from hypothermia. They built a fire and called for help and the USCG and Portland fire boat responded. Two rescuers in a skiff made it to shore and attended to first aid but the tide was ebbing and before they knew it their skiff was high and dry. The fire boat turned around and headed back to Portland for additional manpower and equipment and it was on this return leg that they ran aground in Whitehead Passage between Peaks Island and Cushing Island.

The Portland Press Herald article makes it sound as if an insidious rock jumped off the bottom and took hold of the fireboat. But if you look at the chart you will see a clearly marked channel holding plenty of water (four to six fathoms) for a boat with a 4' draft, provided you don't run straight courses between markers.

Portland Fire Chief Fred LaMontagne said that they would be retracing the fireboat's course to determine what it was the boat hit -- to determine the precise location of any navigable hazards.

I think it's safe to assume the fireboat hit a rock or ledge. And I would further suggest that spending taxpayer money looking for an unmarked hazard is not as important as determining the piloting and/or navigation error that contributed to the grounding.

I'm also curious as to why the fireboat was dispatched in the first place. The Coast Guard and the Marine Patrol are tasked with these types of rescues, and it was the Marine Patrol that eventually completed the evacuation in a small boat. So why did the fireboat go? I can understand dispatching the fireboat in a "standby and assist if necessary role." But when you have a call for help from a man who is not physically in the water, who is on an island with almost no easy landing or access . . . unless the fire boat was out there because of the small fire the man reportedly had started. Anyway, I think the Fire Department owes it to the taxpaying public to look closely at their response to this emergency so that some specific emergency response parameters can be established for the future.

Incidentally, the man who was rescued didn't require hospital attention. He and his wife were dropped off at a marina by the Marine Patrol.

~seabgb

Sailing/Flying Fun

Maine Halibut Fisherman Getting Steamed, Again!

The Feds have decided the Maine halibut is over-fished. Consequently, DMR has little recourse but to impose new fishing restrictions, i.e. there will be new minimum size limits and new catch limits. We're looking at a minimum size of 41" and a catch limit of 30 fish per fisherman. Recreational fisherman are limited to one fish per day.

To say this has pissed off a few fisherman is an understatement of gargantuan proportions. Fishermen feel as if they're being pushed out of the resource altogether.

Look, I'm all for conservation of resource, and I'm a firm believer that commercial fishing is a privilege and not a right. And I'm also convinced that commercial fishing has done as much harm, if not more, to the resource than coastal development and pollution. But -- and it's a big but -- the feds and the state have contributed greatly to the problem of ecological collapse.

First, they operate in a knee-jerk capacity. Instead of being pro-active they're reactive, and all final decisions are highly political. Regulations are determined based on questionable science and compromise solutions.

In the halibut debate, fishermen claim there are plenty of fish. Well, guess what? They always say that. Let's face it. Fishermen lie. They lie to the feds. They lie to each other. They lie to themselves. Maybe they don't even think they're lying. Sure, there are plenty of fish, based on what? Based on how many they caught in previous years? How many years? One? Ten? It doesn't take a genius to see what has happened to the Gulf of Maine over the last twenty years alone. And fishermen should see it and know it before anyone else.

But the state and the feds are equally out there in fantasy land. They say they're being pro-active by making sure all the 950-plus people who have licenses don't got out next winter and decimate the fishery. Well, if they're worried about that, why don't they just freeze licenses? Why don't they turn all fishing licenses into ITQs (Individual Transferable Quotas)?

The state and the feds are thinking ideologically. They are not taking into consideration reality:

1. Most of the halibut endorsements on the books belong to lobstermen and others who will never fish for halibut. They got their endorsement because they figured if they didn't get one the state would take away their privilege. Who could blame them? The state has taken away scallop permits and urchin permits from fishermen who have let their permits expire. I can attest to this because I'm one of the ones who lost both his urchin and scallop permits.

2. Fishermen who hold Federal Fishing Permits for groundfish are limited to one halibut per day and can't fish the same way fishermen with state licenses can fish. My 2,500 hook groundfish permit went to 400 pounds per day, then to 75 pounds per day. My current federal permit for groundfish is for 75 pounds a day, but this permit is for all groundfish, including halibut. What happens if I catch a 150 pound halibut? I'll tell you what happens. I have to throw it back dead. How ridiculous is that?

3. There are plenty of fishermen who catch and sell halibut without a license, permit or any regard to the law, and there are not enough marine patrol officers or other law enforcement personnel to monitor these and/or any other infractions or violations of fishery laws.

I understand why fisherman are pissed and I sympathize. They seem to get nothing in return for their sacrifice except more and more regulations and laws and more and more costs. The state is now looking at raising the price of lobster tags. What??!! They've done nothing to help the lobstermen deal with the rising costs of fuel and bait or the drop in price of lobsters, and all they've done is used revenues to create more restrictions and bureacracy. It's almost conspiritorial the way the feds and industry work together to create gear, equipment, and electronics that fishermen have to buy in order to keep fishing.

So what should we do? I think it's simple.

Freeze licenses and turn everything on the books to ITQs based on catch records. Give fishermen a chance to have something of value on the back end. Give them something to work toward. A business they can sell.

Forget these stupid size and catch limit regulations. Forget the days-at-sea limit crap. None of these are working. They're barely enforceable, starving-out fishermen, and they're based on questionable science. Instead, create no-fishing conservation zones. Fish need a refuge, a place where they can reound without interference from fishermen AND regulators.

~seabgb

Oysters: To Slurp or not to Slurp.

OK, here we go again. The government insists on sticking its big nose into something else. This time it's Gulf Oysters. About 15 people die of food poisoning every year in the U.S. from oysters contaminated with a toxic bacteria known as vibrio vulnificus. This bacteria grows during the warm months between April and October. Typically the bacteria is dangerous to people with compromised health issues. Full story here.

Here's the thing. People who live and eat seafood on a regular basis, particularly people who eat raw fish on a regular basis, will not have a problem with most fish toxins. But people who come from the mid-west who never eat shellfish can find themselves in a world of hurt eating just one oyster, clam or scallop. If you have spent your life living a comfortable and relatively protected life in New York City, and then one day you decide to go to Africa on a safari, and let's say one night you're out in the bush taking a leak in your bare feet and you step on a contaminated thorn. Guess what? You can get an infection and die. Your guide, or any other person who grew up stepping on thorns in the same area, probably wouldn't even notice the scratch.

I'm all for government oversight, but let's not take these things too the extreme.

If you've never eaten raw oysters or raw fish, or if you suffer from an immune disorder, or have kidney or liver problems, you should know well enough NOT to risk your life on exotic foods.

~seabgb

20' Great White

It's nice to know the big ones are still out there. Full story here. We get great whites here but they're usually small. On the other hand, we've had some big Mako sharks here. I have seen two small great whites here in the Gulf of Maine.

~seabgb

Sperm Whale Eating Giant Squid Photos

Great photos and story here. Last two sperm whales I saw were both dead. One had washed ashore and the other was bloated and floating about 50 miles out to sea.

~seabgb