Being a fisherman involves a lot more than just catching fish. To be a “highliner” — someone who consistently brings in a lot of fish — you need your boat to be a well‑oiled machine. Maintaining and improving the systems on board is crucial so that, during a short summer salmon season, you can take advantage when the fish are biting. Not only is it important that your boat and its many systems run smoothly to catch fish, but safety is also at stake. A breakdown at the wrong moment can put your boat — and crew — at serious risk. Many fishermen learn and fix their systems on their own because it’s hard to find mechanics, marine electricians, and the other tradespeople who work on boats at a moment’s notice when something breaks. Each time something goes wrong and you’ve completed repairs before, the next repair comes faster and more smoothly, with fewer headaches. So the best fishermen are also the best mechanics, or at least they know their systems well enough to fix them in a pinch.
Sometimes boat projects require services that can’t be completed by the captain alone. Cleaning the bottom of your boat improves efficiency, allows you to replace zincs, which are sacrificial metal anodes that protect boats from electrolysis. There is also time to inspect the prop, rudder, and make sure everything looks good before going back in the ocean. . There are also fittings that allow water into the boat for cooling hoses and for washing down the back deck. These can’t be serviced while you’re afloat, since you might spring a leak and sink at the dock. These repairs require the boat to be hauled out. Commercial fishing boats are too heavy for trailers like many smaller recreational vessels, so haul-outs use a travel lift with heavy-duty straps to lift boats out of the water. These lifts must be able to handle boats weighing up to 80,000 pounds. It’s no small feat; it requires specialized heavy equipment and operators you can trust to keep your boat from tipping over on shore. The alternative is the “grid,” where you tie your boat to a ramp and work on it in a short tidal window. This works for quick repairs, but if something goes wrong, time and tide wait for no one. There is also danger of your boat tipping over and it’s difficult to paint a boat that's just out of the water.
We had a commercial haul-out in Sitka for decades, but in 2018, the owner/operator of Sitka’s last boat haul ceased hauling boats to transition the yard into a cruise ship dock and storefronts. No private land or yard operators were available to replace this loss of service, and the closest alternative haul-out facilities for Sitka’s more than 600 commercial fishing boats are more than 100 water miles away. That’s a long trip if the boat isn’t under its own power because something is broken. Even if it’s just for routine maintenance, those days of travel and fuel then have to work on your boat in a different port.
This posed a major challenge for our fishing fleet, putting many family operations at risk in favor of cruise tourism. Thankfully, Sitka’s Assembly understood how important these services are for our fishermen and recognized the gap immediately. They listened when fishermen advocated for a city-run haul-out. At Sitka Seafood Market, we knew what our fleet needed and wrote a letter to the Assembly with a $10,000 donation toward the cause. It was clear that the community supported the project and we were happy to do our part.
After determining that a haul-out was needed, the difficult work began: figuring out who would operate the facility and how it would be built and funded. All of this was run through our local assembly so there were many voices in any decision being made. Kudos to our efficient local government that recognized the need of its community and were able to find the almost $12 million to make a haul-out operational in Sitka. Now we have a full service haul-out along with welders, electricians, hydraulic repairmen, mechanics, and more to work on our boats out of the water. A familiar face to many of you, Eric Jordan of the F/V I Gotta, was the first boat to be hauled out this year. This is a huge win for a small community that cares about its fishermen and their livelihoods.
