The share system for dividing the cash re- 

 turns is used generally throughout the industry 

 wherever two or more men work in one boat. 

 A typical sharing system is that of the diving 

 boats. At the beginning of a 5-month trip, the 

 boat is, in a sense, turned over to the crew who 

 are then responsible for any repairs and loss 

 of gear during the trip. Returns are usually 

 divided into 12 shares, but before these are 

 distributed among the crew, costs are deducted, 

 such as food, diving dress if needed, boat fuel, 

 replacement of broken gear, minor engine re- 

 pair, diving ropes, etc. The remainder is then 

 proportioned as follows: 



1st diver (who may also 



act as captain) 2 shares. 



2nd diver 2 shares. 



Engineer 1-1/2 shares. 



Lifeline tender 1-1/2 shares. 



Cook 1 share. 



Deckhand 1 share. 



Boat 3 shares (with 



1/2 share going to the captain). 



Take Per Unit of Effort and 

 Historical Analysis 



The diving boat is used here as the fishing 

 unit. It usually employs six men and spends 

 about 100 days at sea each year. From sales 

 slips in the Tarpon Springs Sponge Exchange 

 for the 1955 and 1956 landings, it can be cal- 

 culated that 4.5 hooking boat units land as 

 many sponges in 1 year as one diving boat. 

 Since individual sales by hookers on the Ex- 

 change may represent the efforts of just one 

 man, or, as in some cases, the take by two 

 or three small schooners with crews of up to 

 five, the hooking boat unit represents the 

 efforts of more than two men in a dinghy. 

 The consistent use of a ratio of 4.5 hooking 

 boat units to 1 diving boat unit, however, 

 gives as accurate a comparison as is pos- 

 sible to obtain with the available information. 

 When all small boats along the Florida coast 

 are licensed, it will be possible to obtain a 

 ratio of effort of two- man hooking boats to 

 one diving boat. 



Division of the shares may vary slightly, but 

 the above is the general pattern. 



Amount and Value of Sponges Sold 



Until 1951 sponges were sold by the pound. 

 This practice had certain disadvantages be- 

 cause of the large number of grades that were 

 set up and the obvious drawback in making pos- 

 sible (and almost encouraging) the loading of 

 sponges with foreign material. The weight of 

 the sponges was also affected by the amount 

 of water contained. 



In 1951, the method of selling sponges was 

 changed to price per piece, and cleanliness, 

 shape, and texture of the sponges were used 

 as the criteria for value. Unfortunately, any 

 comparison between yearly take before and 

 after 1951 is confused by the change, but for 

 the sake of continuity, the take from 1951 to 

 the present has been converted into pounds and 

 presented in figures 18 and 19 on this basis 

 along with the data from the years 1917-51. 

 The take of the three principal species — wool, 

 yellow, and grass — are represented in figure 

 19, which is the graphical representation of 

 table 11. 



By dividing the total number of diving boat 

 equivalents into the total catch by pieces or 

 by weight, the average catch per unit of effort 

 can be determined. The results give a good 

 indication of the density of the sponges on the 

 bottom, because the yearly effort, unless 

 severely hampered by weather, will be about 

 the same. In the long run, this information is 

 the most reliable that can be obtained for any 

 analysis of the biological situation. 



The data on take per unit of effort are given 

 in table 12 and figure 20. Previous to 1938 

 there was considerable fluctuation in the return 

 per unit of effort, the average take per diving 

 boat equivalent being about 5,100 pounds. In 

 1936, the year the beds off the Ten Thousand 

 Islands were first harvested, the return per 

 unit of effort went up. The effect of the 1938 

 disease was an abrupt drop in the return per 

 unit of effort, which continued to drop as the 

 number of boats increased. Since sponges in 

 deep water had been killed off by the disease, 

 the intensity of the fishing effort on the 

 shallower grounds was greatly increased and 

 was probably about four times that previous 

 to the disease. 



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