the salmon fishery as a result of restrictions 

 on that fishery gi-owing out of the USSR-Japan 

 agreement concerning it. An attempt to 

 relieve this pressure was made in June 1957 

 bj' raising the lower limit for licensed skipjack- 

 tuna vessels from 20 to 40 tons. The result 

 was the almost instantaneous creation of a 

 39.9-ton tuna vessel fleet.** A fairly large num- 

 ber of "39-tonners" were built by owners in 

 the traditional salmon ports of northern Japan 

 but a majority of these new "free entry" vessels 

 appeared in the traditional skipjack-tuna 

 ports. The measure thus did provide some 

 relief for the depressed salmon and other fish- 

 eries but the main effect appeared to be in- 

 creased investment by those already in the 

 skipjack-tuna fishery. Pressure from the salmon 

 fishermen continued and some fifty new 

 "medium-sized" tuna licenses were given 

 craft owners in this fishery between 1960 and 

 1962 in exchange for their abandonment of 

 the salmon fisheiy. 



A demand to permit increased use of mother- 

 ships also began to develop in the late 1950's. 

 Large motherships operating with independent 

 licensed tuna vessels had been authorized 

 since 1948. Fairly stringent restrictions had 

 been placed on the annual catch and on place 

 of fishing of those "independent vessel mother- 

 ships" as they came to be called.'* However, in 

 the late 1950's, the larger tuna longline 

 vessels began to carry "portable catcher boats" 

 on board. Once on the fishing ground, these 

 catcher boats proved almost as efficient in 



*• Accurate records were not kept on the number of 

 such craft until a centralized licensing system was estab- 

 lished in 1964. However, one study by Fisheries Agency 

 personnel in which an attempt was made to trace the 

 growth of this fleet showed only three such craft were 

 launched in 19.57, 2.3 in Ut.'iS, il7 in 19.59, and 194 in 

 1960 (Japanese Fisheries Agency, May 8, 1963, p. 6). 

 No data are available on the number of salmon longline 

 craft under 40 tons that switched to tuna longlining but 

 the number probably was substantial. 



" Motherships were limited in place of operation to 

 designated areas in the central and southern parts of 

 the Pacific and always under a catch quota system. The 

 maximum number of motherships used in any one year 

 was six, each with up to .50 independently licensed tuna 

 longliners. In the early 1950's, Antarctic whaling mother- 

 ships were used as tuna longline motherships in the 

 offseason. However, salmon motherships came to be 

 used with restrictions on that fishery imposed by the 

 Japanese-Soviet agreement in 1956. Each mothership 

 fleet was granted a maximum catch quota before leaving 

 port. The total quota for all mothership fleets reached 

 a high of 28,000 tons in 1958. 



terms of catch rates per day as the independent 

 vessels. A new category of licensing was estab- 

 lished for these craft in April 1961 and re- 

 vised in September 1962. Two classes of these 

 "catcher boat carrying motherships," as they 

 came to be called, were created — less than 

 2,000 ton craft where the mothership was per- 

 mitted to fish, and over 2,000 ton craft where 

 the mothership was not permitted to fish. A 

 complex system of computing licensed tonnage 

 was established for the catcher boats. In gen- 

 eral, it required that regular licensed craft 

 be decommissioned in considerable larger ton- 

 nage for the catcher boat than the maximum 

 size of 20 tons established for each skiff. Re- 

 strictions were also placed on area of operation 

 of these two new classes of motherships. Regu- 

 lations as to place of operation were designed 

 generally to limit them to the southwestern 

 Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans. 



The regulatory system had become some- 

 what outmoded and unwieldy by the early 

 1960's. The basic fisheries law was inadequate 

 for proper regulation of the new motherships 

 and the need for regulation of the new "39- 

 ton" fleet was becoming apparent. The former 

 medium-sized vessels that had been allowed 

 to expand to over 100 tons but held below 200 

 tons in size, about 150 in number, were proving 

 to be uneconomical. Not large enough to 

 operate effectively on grounds south of the 

 equator, they were too large to compete ef- 

 fectively with the large number of "39-ton" 

 "free-entry" craft and less than 100-ton li- 

 censed craft on grounds adjacent to Japan. 

 The price of licenses continued to rise to a 

 peak of about $1,200 per vessel ton in 1962. 

 Few owners of these "in between" craft could 

 afford to purchase supplementary tonnage for 

 craft enlargement at these prices. For these 

 and other reasons, the realization became 

 general that a new legal framework for ad- 

 ministration of the fishery was needed, a con- 

 dition that was true of other fisheries as well. 



A revision of the basic fisheries law by the 

 National Diet in August 1962 provided a new 

 framework. In reference to the tuna fleet, the 

 new law codified the system for motherships 

 described above, rationalized a number of com- 

 plexities that had developed in the licensing 

 system, and lowered the age at which a vessel 

 could be replaced to 4 for wooden vessels and 

 8 for steel vessels. The only aspect of the new 



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