Commercial Fishing: $65-Million Industry

By E.J. DUFFY "You give me a couple of Budweisera and I can tell you some stories,” Frankie Peabody bartered in a friendly Carolina drawl as he paced the dock at Lund's Fisheries where his “Yvonne Michelle” was tied up, but getting

, ready to put to sea. Peabody was feeling more awkward ashore than usual The 88-foot trawler named for his 11-year-old would be heading north for scallops before the sun came up, but he wouldn't be aboard again. For the past few weeks, he had l been in West Cape May mowing i his lawn and doing whatever other j chores he couldn’t avoid between ^ ” calls to Elmo Horton in Alabama. Horton built the "Yvonne Michelle” and is how working on Peabody's new tawler. Peabody thought it best to stay home and take care of the details, but he wasn't used to the things that need doing around the house. Since he was 16, Captain William Francis Peabody, now 39, has been at sea, fishing the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean or Florida Keys. Land was a port to come back to every month or so when you needed to sell your catch and sip some beers. The sea has been a more familiar home and fishing has been the kind of heavy work he knows best. For the last decade or so. he has owned his own fishing boats — the "Wilma Ilene,” named after his wife, and the "William F, Peabody," after himself — nauticle parents to "Yvonne Michelle." Peabody's accustomed to a trawler's paced and telling others what needs to be done. He doesn't particularly like cutting the grass, but he has to be home to talk turkey with Horton Horton operated Horton Boats out of Bayou Batra, Ala. He's building Peabody another 88-foot trawler for more than $500,000. The new boat, which Peabody said he'll name either "Capt. Peabody" or "Miss Wilma Ilene, " won’t resemble the “Yvonne Michelle” except in size. Unlike' the trawler he’s owned for four years, the new boat will be missing the raised “fo’c's’le" to have save construction costs. That means even tighter quarters for Peabody and his nine-man crew who store their gear and bunk in tiered berths within the cramped "fo'c’s’le” for weeks at a stretch — unbathed, unshaved — while dredging scallops from the sea bottom. From his former home in North Carolina, Peabody had been fishing off New Jersey for seven years and tying up at the Cape (Page IB-Please)