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The 184-foot factory longline vessel Northern Leader combines diesel electric power and a low-impact fishing method to land quality product with a lower carbon footprint. Alaskan Leader Fisheries photo.
One indicator of the health of a fishery is the number of new boats being built for it, and design trends of those boats add more to the story. North Pacific fisheries journalist and author Peter Marsh estimates that between West Coast and Alaska boatbuilders, somewhere close to 30 new gillnetters will enter the healthy Bristol Bay salmon fishery in 2021.
“And this is a slow year, due to the pandemic,” he says.
February 26, 2021 By H. Nelson Spencer
Cooper Marine & Timberlands Corporation (CMT), a part of the Cooper Group of companies based in Mobile, Ala., recently took delivery of the first of two vessels from Blakeley BoatWorks, a sister company out of Mobile as well. The twin-screw towboat will serve the company’s fleets between Baton Rouge, La., and Head of Passes on the Lower Mississippi River.
Blakeley delivered the new boat, the mv. Mary Lynn Cooper, a few months ago. The other boat, the mv. Gretchen Cooper, is expected to join CMT’s fleet soon. At 110 feet long and with 3,400 hp., it will be larger than the Mary Lynn and is believed will be one of the first inland waterway vessels to be powered by Caterpillar Tier 4 compliant engines.