FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL, 79, NO. 2 

 155 



180 175 170 165 160 155 



Figure l. — Western Gulf of Alaska and eastern Bering Sea and selected International North Pacific Fisheries Commission areas. 



In addition, an economic model such as the one 

 described in this paper may be helpful to fisher- 

 men considering future diversification. The model 

 could be easily adapted for use with a program- 

 mable calculator or onboard microcomputer. After 

 tailoring the parameters to his vessel, the vessel 

 owner need only key in a few pertinent variables 

 such as expected ex-vessel price, distance to the 

 fishing ground, and fuel price and receive an im- 

 mediate estimate of the average catch rate re- 

 quired to cover his expenses. 



One advantage of the modeling approach is that 

 it allows one to examine the effects of individual 

 factors of interest by allowing these factors to vary 

 while holding all others constant. This paper 

 examines the effects upon fishing costs and fuel 

 efficiency (fish harvested per fuel consumed) of the 

 following factors: vessel type, processor location, 

 fishing strategy, and fuel price. Costs and benefits 

 are estimated only within the harvesting sector. A 

 consideration of economic feasibility within the 

 processing and marketing sectors of the industry 

 is beyond the scope of this paper. 



THE ECONOMIC MODEL 



Given a set of operating conditions, such as dis- 

 tance to the fishing grounds and number of crew 

 required, a set of vessel characteristics, such as 

 cruising speed and hold capacity, as well as a 

 schedule of capital expenses, such as the vessel's 

 initial value and finance rate, the model projects 

 the costs of a single fishing trip and computes a set 

 of catch rates and corresponding ex-vessel prices 

 required to balance fishing costs with net revenue. 



Assuming the crew (including skipper) receives 

 shares of the revenue as remuneration, the benefit 

 iBij) to the vessel owner of a single fishing trip is 

 simply: 



By = (1 - S,j)-U-P 



where Sij = total crew shares (expressed as deci- 

 mal fraction) for the ith vessel type and 7th mode 

 of operation, U = total catch, and P = ex-vessel 

 price. 



Fishing costs are commonly categorized as fixed 



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