22

PST Fo

'...Worst Vessels You Ever Saw...

Old Tubs'

Rotten ■fEP. NOTE Following Vs rxccrplet! from an inter view* with Frank Kennedy of Villas, one of a series conducted by Dr Thomas Chelius of Atlantic Com munity College and Cape Mav County marine agent Stewart Tweed as research for a history of the county's co m m e rc ia I fishing

industry

lijl*rvli*wpr: Wr’re int«*rviruing Frank Kcnnrd) who has a Icing history of commrrtial fishing in his harkground and also Is a boat maker, uoodcarvrr, par excellence ... fell us in general about your tfarkground ... Kennedy My' family started in this area. I guess, in. 1931. My uncle, (ills Peterson, was one of the first founders of the pound boat fishing in Wildwood My < grand father had the only ship's chandlers' stores that I've known to Ik* in Wildwood I: Mow old were you when you slarled in the business? K I was about seven nr eight I used to have to clean '.he scales and clean up the bait Well, it was I'nion Fish on Park Boulevard < in weekends, people from Philadelphia would come down You packed the fish up, wrap ped 11 In them days you didn't have the ice chop pers You had to stand there with an ice pick and chop ice all clay You got 50 -Cents for the day Big

money'

I Hid you go out cin a lot

of boats?

K Before I went to Korea I did a lot of cod fishing, day fishing - out at 2 3d in the morning and back at 9 at night I went in the service for four years, back out of the service, and decided to become a Sea I lope r And I worked the Atlantic (Tty area. 1 guess, four or five years The price of scallops got to the point of 39 cents a pound and it wasn't even wor-

thwhile to start up and go out after therti From there I decided to go shrimping in Ma ta moras. Mexico. Brownsville. Texas I spent four or five years between Florida and Mexico shrim ping . The clamming industry ripened up in Wildwood Came back to Wildwood and decided to go clamming Worked the clam boats for almost seven years I: Is that when you decided to leave ... K Decided to build ship models Ha. ha, ha There was more money building ship models than — No, today there is a lot of money to lie made in fish, but it's overworked, overfished and everything else. There's too many people out in fishing boats ... I: Why did you pursue a career like that? , K I enjoyed it. A fisher man is nothing more than a prospector looking for gold ‘Cause over that next wave, man, there's going to be a big school of fish and a big pile of money You get this in your head and sometimes you come in after a bad trip and you swear you're never gonna go out again For four or five days you hang arouno the dock and the first thing you know, you re rigged up.' ready to go back I: Back in the days when you were out commercial fishing, was the profit split the same a^ it is today? K No The company nfade more than anybody else They were always charging for unseen things It was like the old say mg, The company store owns your soul" ^ I: What would the company do? Hire its own captain? K The captain always hired the crew The com pany would hire the captain I: They weren’t owneroperated? K Very few. years ago,

would be owner-operated. Now. today, it’s mostly all owner-operators Nobody stays too long If the boat starts dropping down in price, you move on to a high flyer boat I: What do you mean, a high-flyer? K: the highest paying boat on the East Coast The guy that's got a good crew, a good captain, knows how to catch fish. I.ow to catch fish and make money That’s the name of the game The "Victory" out of Cape May was a high-flyer, scalloping for years. You had a waiting line to get on there You hoped somebody dropped dead so you could get on the boat, or break a leg or fall overboard That's the only way you could get on there I: What makes a captain a better finder of fish than somebody that's just not successful? Was it luck? K It's luck It's knowledge of the sea It's knowledge of the weather It's sometimes scat of the pants luck Some captains can buy boats and run them into the ground Other guys can buy boats and be multi millionaires I: So the captain, his knowledge comes from experience. I guess? K: Sure, in other words, years ago it took six. seven years before you even thought about asking for a mate's job Now it takes six weeks and you can ask for a mate's job Years ago, it took 12 years before you got enough guys to sing for you to become a captain you go anywhere on the East (‘oast right now 1 bet the average captain's 21 years old Where does this 21 year-olt*. get his ex penence'’ ' I: In regards to rules that were set when you were out on the boat as opposed to the rules that are set now, what’s the difference between them? K The rules when I was a kid — there was no drink

ing aboard the boat. As a matter of fact, there was no booze except one bottle kept in the captain s locker in case somebody got hurt. Many a time your crew was so cock-eyed drunk you had to go around, find them and get them on board the boat But by the time you steam cd the 48 or 50 hours to wherever you were going to fish, they were all sober and on the deck But today, there's booze aboard the boat There's narcotics all over the place Accidents — it's just constantly on the radio. You hear these kids being called for the Coast Guard They got hands caught in the rigging or leg caught in this This don't happen if your mind is clear. I: What you're saying is that the captains are generally young, they’re inexperienced, and as a result of that ... K You're getting a very haphazardous crew ... They’re not dedicated fishermen. They’re in i* because there’s a dollai to be made and they’re in and gone. As soon as they make a few bucks they disappear I: As far as you were concerned. was commercial fishing a year 'round activity? K: If you' followed the business, yes You could stay here and cod fish in the winter if you were man enough. It's a cold job out there Be a smart man and go south in the wintertime Ha. ha, ha I: How about the types of vessels that were used to catch fish back in the days when you were involved in commercial fishing? K: The worst vessels you ever saw It was rotten old tubs. You couldn't get any subsidies 1: You must have been really interested in the boats. I mean you’re carving them. You're obviouslyenjoying doing that. K I'd like to do the whole history of Cape'May County — the pound boats, the draggers. the eelers, the little clammer, the guy that stands back there in Egg Harbor Bay with his tong: I: Your family was in the pound fishery? K: Union Fish Co., right I: How many nets did you have up there, roughly? K: Oh. gee. I couldn't even tell you I can remember as a kid taking nets down where all the

motels are now, along Dia mond Beach We used to have an old truck, an open truck. The nets had to go to be tarred. I can remember that It’s a lousy job You had to go down and tar all the nets and let them dry and load them all back up on the truck. That was when it was called squatters’ land down there Anybody could go down there Maybe in those days you'd pay eight or nine hundred dollars for a net But you got to remember, in those days the average man made his own net. The old squareheads, going back to the difference between men, that man would stand there and make a net, in the wintertime if the weather was bad Today, he would go out and buy a net because half the kids don't even know how to mend a net today I: I guess that most of those guys that were in commercial fishing hack then sort of grew up in it? K Well, when you went out years ago — when I started you got nothing for the first trip If you went 10 days, you got no money You got fruit, and got grub and got a bunk But you didn't get any money And if you were any good, and the captain decided to keep you, the next trip you went on what they call a half share You worked 10 times harder beca use everyone was expecting more out of you. And after that trip you got a half share, and if the guys liked you. they might kick in a few bucks each and that gave you a little extra. But it was generally the third trip before you went on a full share (Today) you tell a kid you're not going to get any money for this trip — this kid's gonna look at you and laugh. I mean you're not gonna have no kid You're not even gonna have a kid at half a share. Ha. ha, ha I: Would you say there was any class system among fishermen? Did they socialize together? K No. no Your average run-of-the-mill fisherman, years ago. was dirt He was strictly a creek man The creek didn't go into upper class restaurants or upper class bars The creek is referred to as Otten’s Harbor or any creek that you work at You stayed at that

end*'cause you're all fishermen Why would you want to go up to town’’ You had nothing in common The fisherman is always the bottom of the pole, for years. I mean . the fishermen, going back when I was a kid. was a tough, hard working man And nine times out of 10, I guess he was uneducated, really, when I think back on it. I: fhcre’s a lot of truth to the stories that fishermen would come in with a couple thousands bucks in their pocket and ... K: Be broke in two days. Yeah I worked with a guy could spend - buy Botany 500 suit, go out and spend six. seven hundred dollars in two days, ended up coming back on the boat dressed in his Botany 500 and Arrow shirts and go to work He wouldn’t take a thing with him Next trip, buy another Botany 500 and an Arrow shirt and that's the way he lived Ha, ha, ha I: Let's sort of sum it up. What's your opinion of what's gonna happ°n in commercial fishing industry in this area? K: It's going back to the little man. It's going back to the small dragger In this area It has to unless the government does something with the water ways ... I: You mentioned that the little man really didn't own the boats in the past — it was the company's. Do you see that happening? K The little man's going to own his own boat. I: Still selling to the dock? K: Still selling to a dock He won't take freedom Freedom is the biggest thing in the U S. ... I: You mean once you get your own boat, you’re not gonna want to go back working ...? K No, you would never go back to work for anybody It's like me I guess I have to go back to work for somebody, but you know, building ship models, you're supposed to do that when you're 70 years old, you know, when you retire You sit down and build a ship model But I started when I was 20 years old and I like to keep doing it, but with the cost of everything I got to go out and find myself a job again That's the way it works

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