33 KODIAK, Alaska – In early March, instructors at the Coast Guard North Pacific Regional Fisheries Training Center (NPRFTC) prepared crewmembers of the Coast Guard Cutter Stratton to safeguard Alaska’s living marine resources.
Commissioned in 1995 in Kodiak, the personnel at the NPRFTC provide instruction to surface and aviation law enforcement crews, command personnel and supporting staff to promote maritime safety, protect valuable resources, and maintain a level playing field for the fisheries throughout Alaska, which are considered to be the most abundant and economically significant waters in the U.S.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in 2018, the Alaskan fishing fleet provided 58% of the stock to the U.S. fisheries and seafood industry.
Warren Good arrived in Kodiak in 1972 and, like a lot of other young men in those years, went crab fishing.
Kodiak was booming, deckhand jobs were easy to get and fishing was grueling but fun, if you liked hard work. And the money was good â it was not unheard of for 21-year-old deckhands with a scant year of nautical experience to make $100,000 in a single four-month king crab season.
The dark side of the high times was the casualties.Â
In the years before the Commercial Fishing Industry Vessel Safety Act of 1988, commercial fishing was far and away the most dangerous job in America, and the deaths of Alaskan commercial fishermen drove that statistic.Â