A third group is composed of ovners with a primary occupation 

 other than fishing, fish processing, fish distribution, or vessel 

 maneigement . This group represents the majority of absentee ovners 

 vho axe engaged in a great variety of occupations — skilled workers, 

 artisans, technicians, businessmen, semiprofessionals, and pro- 

 fessionals. Members of the group may have some business interest 

 in the industry as suppliers or servicemen or no interest at all 

 except the investment in vessels (see list of occupational activities 

 of vessel owners in supplement referred to in Preface). 



Although vessel ovmership is a chaxacteristic common to all 

 three groups, interest in the fish market is quite divergent and 

 even conflicting. In the center of the fish market is the group 

 of fish dealers and processors who identify themselves as fish 

 buyers. They enjoy a position of control by virtue of their 

 limited number, the nature of their business, and their relative 

 financial strength. They are able to import fish, or purchase 

 domestically^'caught fish from the vessels they themselves own or 

 control or from vessels owned by the other two oimership groups. 

 The latter two groups represent the fish sellers at large who 

 have little or no control over fish prices because they individually 

 contribute a smaJLl fraction of the fish supply. Even the interests 

 which the fish sellers have in the industry are not identical. 

 While the owners for whom fishing is the primary occupation have 

 their very livelihood at stake, the interests of the majority of 

 the owners in the third group are largely peripheral, weak or 

 dormeuit. Many absentee owners have little knowledge or interest 

 in fishing operations and the problems of the industry. For 

 others, fishing lies on the border line between being a secondary 

 means of livelihood and a pastime . 



The above sketchy description of the market structure may 

 require numerous qualifications for marketing analysis and other 

 purposes, but it adequately points out the absence of a homogenous 

 group with identical interests. The type of fishing engsiged in 

 together with the type of gear used and other factors contribute 

 to local or area differences in vessel-owner interests. Such 

 conditions as these may in the past have adversely affected the 

 insurability of commercial fishing vessels. 



2. Navigation versus fishing . The physical inadequacies of 

 most vessels and the lack of knowledge of seamanship among the 

 majority of captains were amply demonstrated in the previous 

 chapter. But unless the reasons for these differences are dis- 

 cussed, the real roots of the problem cannot be located and 

 evaluated nor can effective remedies be found. 



Qk 



