Anybody here affected?:
King Cove is one of only three towns of any size with services on the south side Alaska Peninsula and Aleutian Islands. It’s one of the few towns in remote Alaska with a real economy and a successful fishing fleet.
A lot of state and federal money has been invested in King Cove over past years: new airport, new hydroelectric plant, sewer and water plants, freight dock, two small boat harbors, a new subdivision with new housing, and so on.
King Cove has services for vessel transiting to and from Western Alaska: fuel and water at Peter Pan; mechanics; electronics; a bar; a couple of restaurants; good air service to/ from Anchorage; freight service from Seattle by Coastal Transportation; freight service from Seattle and other parts of Alaska by Samson, and various others.
These seafood plant closures throughout Alaska are going to drastically reduce the tug and barge freight volumes.
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The picture that headed the article bring back memories:
That looks very similar to the “basbåt” used by Norwegian seiners in my young days (1950-early 60s):
Used by the “Bas” to fined a suitable school of herring and direct the net boats to start run out the sein net, circling the school:
With the introduction of Power Blocks the “Basbåt” got bigger engines and propeller. They were then also used as towboats to keep the “mothership” from drifting over the net while scooping the catch up from the net.
The BasbĂĄt disappeared when side thruster and sonar became common on the seiners in the early1970s.
Today the herring fishery is done with much smaller crrews and FAR less hard work:
These are “seine skiffs” for the salmon seiners in King Cove. They are powerful and expensive aluminum boats.
Yes I’m familiar with those from visiting large Tuna Seiners around.
The Norwegian “Bas” boats ended up with very large engines and propellers for towing, but never got to this level:
PS> Offshoots from the “Bas” boats are still used as workboat on Sesmic vessels and in the aquaculture industry:
