LYNDE: ECONOMIC FEASIBILITY OK GROUNDFISH HARVEST 



1) The maximum trip length when delivering at 

 sea is limited only by the storage capacities for 

 fuel, water, and supplies, while the maximum trip 

 length when delivering onshore is limited by the 

 iced storage life of the catch. In the first case, the 

 maximum trip length has been estimated as 28 d 

 for vessel type 1 and 26 d for vessel type 2. In the 

 latter case, a 5-d storage life for fresh walleye 

 pollock (Sea Fisheries Institute and National 

 Marine Fisheries Service'") limits the trip to a 

 maximum of 7 d (including time traveling to the 

 grounds and time in port). At higher catch rates 

 the actual trip length may be further limited by 

 the hold capacity for groundfish and ice. 



2) No ice is required when delivering at sea. 



3) Fewer crew members are needed when deliv- 

 ering the catch at sea since no sorting or stowage 

 of the catch is required. Jaeger' ' predicted that 

 two fewer crew members would be required if de- 

 livering at sea. This proved true for at least one 

 vessel owner participating in the joint venture for 

 Pacific whiting (formerly known as Pacific hake) 

 off the coast of Oregon during 1978 and 1979 

 (Fisher'^). However, in this analysis, a conserva- 

 tive estimate of one fewer crew member has been 

 adopted. 



The search time, towing time, and the time in 

 port have all been assumed to be the same for both 

 modes of operation. The search time, or time spent 

 prospecting for fish, and the time spent in port 

 replenishing supplies, refueling, and unloading (if 

 applicable) have been estimated to be 6 and 24 h, 

 respectively. The towing time per day on the 

 grounds has been taken to be 9 h after Jaeger 

 (footnote 11). Again, these assumptions are con- 

 servative. If vessels delivering their catch at sea 

 are fishing for a joint venture operation, the in- 

 formation sharing that is likely to occur may re- 

 duce the search time per trip. It has also been 

 argued that the cod end transfer system employed 

 in the sea delivery mode requires less rerigging 

 time and therefore allows more towing time per 

 day on the grounds (Fisher footnote 12). 



'"Sea Fisheries Institute, Gdynia, Poland, and National 

 Marine Fisheries Service, Seattle, Wash. 1977. Preliminary 

 report Gulf of Alaska research cruise. First leg, July 1977, 21 p. 



'Jaeger, S. 1977. Presentation to the North Pacific Fishery 

 Management Council on the subject of foreign joint ventures. 

 August 5, 1977. Seattle, Wash. 



' Barry Fisher. Vessel Owner/Operator, Newport, OR 97065, 

 pers. commun. with R. Major, Northwest and Alaska Fisheries 

 Center, National Marine Fisheries Service. NOAA, Seattle. WA 

 98112, November 1979. 



Fishing Strategy 



Three different fishing strategies were 

 examined based on the following stocks as targets: 

 Pacific cod and walleye pollock in the western Gulf 

 of Alaska, walleye pollock in the Aleutian area, 

 and sole, especially yellowfin sole, Limanda as- 

 pera , in the eastern Bering Sea. The distances to the 

 fishing grounds are based on the locations of the 

 nearest of the most productive foreign fishing loca- 

 tions during 1977 and 1978 (Smith and Hadley'^). 

 Table 4 lists these locations and their approximate 

 distances to the nearest port. 



Fuel Price 



For most of the following comparisons the fuel 

 price was taken to be $0,277/1, which was the cur- 

 rent price for no. 2 diesel fuel at Dutch Harbor as of 

 the time of this writing (1980). A subsequent sec- 

 tion details the sensitivity of cost estimates to 

 increases in fuel price. 



RESULTS 



Delivering at Sea Versus Delivering to Port 



At any given catch rate for vessel type 1, the 

 break-even ex-vessel price when delivering to a 

 floating processor is at least 31% lower than when 

 delivering to port. For example, at a catch rate of 

 10 t/d on the fishing grounds, vessel type 1 would 

 require an ex- vessel price of $42iyt to cover costs if 

 unloading in port while requiring only $290/t if 

 transferring the catch at sea. A plot of the rela- 

 tionship between break-even price and catch rate 

 [described by Equation (1)] for vessel type 1 operat- 

 ing in the Gulf of Alaska delivering to a floating 

 processor (solid) and delivering to a land-based 

 processor (dashed) is shown in Figure 2. 



Similar results were obtained from the analysis 

 of vessel type 2 operating in the Gulf of Alaska 

 (Figure 3). Under the sea delivery mode of opera- 

 tion break-even ex-vessel prices are at least 33% 

 lower than under the port delivery mode. At a 

 catch rate of 10 t/d the required break-even prices 

 are $146/t and $217/t for sea delivery and port 

 delivery, respectively. These results are in general 

 agreement with Jaeger's (footnote 11) analysis in 



'^Smith.G. B..andR. S. Hadley 1979. A summary of pro- 

 ductive foreign fishing locations in the Alaska region during 

 1977-78: trawl fisheries. Alaska Sea Grant Rep. 79-7, 287 p. 



307 



