Life on the high seas

Life on the high seas

Heart of the matter
Anton McNulty

EARLIER this month the whole country was gripped with sadness when two fishing trawlers sank off the south-east coast, in close proximity to each other, with the loss of seven lives. In fishing communities all over Ireland, the grief was particularly palpable: they understand the despair and loneliness when a boat fails to return from sea.
While everyone knows that fishing has its dangers and fishermen are at the mercy of the gods when at sea, the short time it took for the two boats to go down was the most distressing factor. The first boat that fell victim to the raging sea, the ‘Pere Charles’, was about to return to Dunmore East Harbour after a day’s fishing when it got into difficulty. Within minutes of radioing her fishing partner, ‘Susanna G’ that there was a problem, it had disappeared from radar and from sight. The second boat, ‘The Honeydew 2’, went down in just three minutes, while assisting in the search for the ‘Pere Charles’.
While the majority of Ireland’s fishing fleet could not be described as ultra-modern, all must pass a rigourous safety assessment before they are allowed to go to sea. The ‘Pere Charles’ was built in France in 1982, was only recently refurbished and had passed all the safety requirements.
A number of the vessels used in the Irish fishing industry are second-hand timber boats and, like the ‘Pere Charles’, were built in the eighties. A grant was offered by BIM to replace older boats, but because of financial constraints and insufficient turnover, some fishermen have had to sell the boats and thus forfeit the grant.
Mayo has been fortunate that there has not been a tragedy at sea in recent memory, but many feel that with new Government fishing regulations and quotas, fishermen will begin to take more chances to fulfil the quotas they are given. Eamon Dixon, an Erris-based fisherman, holds such concerns. He explains that the majority of Mayo fishermen are of the inshore variety, who fish mostly crab and lobster and also highlights Mayo’s good fortune in having two lifeboats stationed in Achill and Ballyglass and a helicopter in close proximity if anything goes wrong. Still, with the way regulations are now, fishermen are under pressure. And it only takes a freak accident for lives to be lost, he notes.
“The fact that the Department of the Marine has made quotas on fishing so tight and the way they have it structured, the day you go out you have to get them all, and if you don’t they don’t carry over. The way it is set up at the minute, there is so much bad weather in the winter time that when a day comes when it is any way slack they would be tempted to go out. They have to go out there if they want to make a bob or make a payment on a boat. There are no subsidies for the fishermen,” he explains.
The crab and lobster fishermen will start fishing in the next six weeks. While Eamon feels the vessels are safe and he is not worried when he goes to sea, he acknowledges that it is the wives and families who do the worrying until they return to land.
“As  fishermen in Mayo our hearts go out to those families [in Wexford]; it only takes a slight accident for it to be brought onto our own community. We have been very fortunate in the past, but there is always the danger that the shoe could be on the other foot. The wives and kids of fishermen will worry more in the future when their loved-ones go to sea. If the weather starts deteriorating they will be wishing they were at home. When you are out at sea you do not think about it, nor do you see it, but the people on the land see it in a whole different light,” he says.
Michael Mulloy, who has a mussel farm in Clew Bay and brings cargo to Inisbofin, explains that due to the inclement weather, last week was the first time since December 21 that he attempted to bring cargo to the island. He claims the incident on the south coast had a ‘depressing effect’ on fishermen and was a real concern for coastal communities.
“The fishing industry is at a low ebb at the moment and this is just a further depressing element to it. We are being pursued more rigourously by the authorities as regards the regulations and there is a lot of economic pressure on the fishing sector. There is difficulty in the training and regulatory side regarding the cargo sector and you have to suffer the financial hardship by not going to sea. You have to take it on the chin and hope to make it up when better weather comes. There is no fund you can dip into.”
Fishing has always been a dangerous profession and through the years tragedies have always occurred. However, for young fishermen starting off chances seem like they must be taken in order to earn a living. Unless they are incentivised not to take unnecessary risks, unfortunately more fishing communities will lose their young to the sea.