Point Judith gets out-of-town boost

The port of Point Judith, which has seen a steady reduction in the size of its local fishing fleet since the 1990s, received a much-needed economic boost this year from out-of-town vessels.
Hailing from mid-Atlantic ports from Wanchese, N.C., to Cape May, N.J., these vessels began coming in the spring and used the Narragansett port through the summer in many cases to offload their squid or scallops and to take on fuel, ice and supplies.
They came for one simple reason, they were following the fish. Fishermen from North Carolina to Newfoundland this year noticed a significant change in the distribution and movements of fish in the northwest Atlantic.
“It seems the fish are heading to the north,” said Beaufort, N.C., fisherman Joe Rose, who’s been chasing fish since 1965. “That seems to be what’s happening lately. Fluke, croaker, squid, spot – all moving up.” Joe is owner-operator of the trawler Susan Rose, a boat he’s owned since 1979. He was offloading his trips of squid all summer at the Town Dock, a large Narragansett fish wholesaler.
“But we’re also up here, squidding, because the fishery managers won’t allow us to work on anything else down South,” he said, referring to tightened restrictions on fish quotas in some of those fishing areas.
This past summer, Rose sent many thousands of pounds of squid up the Point Judith dock and into the Rhode Island economy. It’s been easy for him to do so because Point Judith is set up to handle squid in volume. The processors, the inventory managers, are there. There’s pride in the port when it comes to squid – enough pride to get the attention of some Rhode Island legislators, who failed in a bid this year to make calamari the state appetizer.
Meanwhile, the local fleet size is down – way down – from a high of 70 or so offshore trawlers in the 1990s to a present-day low of 25-30. This trend in consolidation has affected fishing ports up and down the East Coast.
A port that loses too many vessels – or too many fish houses – is doomed. Point Judith has lost many vessels to either the scrap yard or into fisheries in other ports, like the Cape May scallop trade.
“Our fleet has really been cut down,” said Point Judith fisherman Jeff Wise. “So it’s good to see the extra fish running through the port. I think everyone benefits.” Wise, 47, is captain of an offshore trawler, the Lightning Bay, owned by Town Dock. “But the one problem I do see is that we’re all going after the same biomass of fish. We’re all on top of each other.” The past few years, the squid, scallop, and fluke resources have been most abundant between Long Island and the waters east of Nantucket and Cape Cod.
“The shelf down off the mid-Atlantic hasn’t been as productive the past few years,” Wise said. “There’s a definite shift going on. It could change. In the past, many boats from the Point Judith fleet would spend three months in the fall fishing out of Cape May.”
Four or five mid-Atlantic vessels this year unloaded approximately 700,000 pounds of squid into Point Judith, according to estimated landings. Mike Roderick, Town Dock’s director of purchasing, said this year’s squid run has been slower than the past three, which were banner years. The ex-vessel price has ranged anywhere from a $1 to $1.50 a pound.
Once the product leaves a vessel’s fish-hold, the supply chain kicks in. With each step, from the lumpers (dockside workers who unload the fish-holds) to processors to truckers, the value increases. The fisherman’s rule of thumb for this multiplying effect is that every dollar of fish landed in Rhode Island turns into $5 for the Rhode Island economy.
Then there’s the interconnectedness of the port. Boats actively fishing require numerous supporting businesses – fuel, gear, ice, trucking, ready access to global shipping, etc. – and those shore-side businesses need the fish money generated on the boats for survival. Everyone has a stake in not only the survival of the different fishery resources but in the ports themselves. Having the boats is something like increased foot traffic at a local mall helping all the stores.
These boats buy lots of diesel fuel – between $45,000 and $70,000 depending on horsepower for three months of squid fishing. They buy ice at $60 a ton – 10 and 25 tons per boat, per squid trip. Groceries, the boats budget at $125 per day for a five-day trip. Then, since things break on fishing boats – constantly – the boats have a monthly budget in the thousands of dollars for fishing supplies (like rope, wire or chain); for engine parts and maintenance; for local welders and divers and mechanics.
Rose and his crew arrived in Point Judith in June. Before leaving earlier this month, he made one to two trips a week, squid fishing between Nantucket and Long Island. “Point Judith is like a home away from home,” he said in late August. “We’re used to this size port down home. But still, I haven’t seen home in two months straight – starting to miss it real bad.” Point Judith doesn’t generally traffic in scallop meats, but this year saw an extra boost from those fishermen too.
Most of the scallop bottom is east of Nantucket in a spot called the Great South Channel. The mid-Atlantic, in areas called Hudson Canyon and the Elephant Trunk off the Delmarva, used to be thick with scallops but this year the vessels normally fishing those areas were fishing off the New England coast.
The sea-scallop trade in the U.S. is effectively dominated by two ports and by a small handful of deal-makers. New Bedford and Cape May are where the action is. The boats that have been using Point Judith are almost all owned by two New Jersey seafood companies.
Eric Reid, owner of Deep Sea Fish, a small wholesaler in Point Judith, this year has been offloading seven New Jersey and Virginia scallop vessels. He’s been doing it the past five years, seeing a few new vessels each year.
“The center of the scallop universe is not Point Judith. We provide the boats access to their traditional scallop markets,” Reid said. “They like it here. It’s a lot quieter than New Bedford.”
Reid’s company, Deep Sea, acts as a toll collector when the scallops pass from the vessel across his dock and through his building to a truck waiting at the loading bay. The truck then heads for Interstate 95, south for Cape May, north for New Bedford.
Even though the boats have run approximately $10 million in sea scallops down the highway this season, according to estimated vessel-landing reports. Point Judith sees the benefit.
Each scallop vessel bought a Rhode Island landing permit. Each vessel bought fuel, ice, shackles, bags, wire, gloves, oil, food for up to 12 days – and never mind what a crew of seven might spend “out on the town” after 10 days of cutting scallop meats and towing dredges around.
“The boats are important. They add value to our economy,” said Mike Roderick. “Sure we want the product. But it goes beyond that. The other day I saw a scallop crew walking up the road here in Point Judith. They were going into the new breakfast spot [the Two Gulls Café], and I’m sure they were all going to order more than a few pieces of toast.” •

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  1. Interesting piece but I find it puzzling that no explanation is offered for the shift in species fishermen are observing. Several prominent studies this year, including in the journals Nature (Cheung et al) and Science (Pinsky et al), have linked the movement of fish along the Atlantic coast to warming waters due to climate change. Last year the Northeast US saw the highest sea surface temperatures on instrument record (going back more than 150 years), an event scientist Andy Pershing at Gulf of Maine Research Inst. called an “ocean heat wave.” And temperature buoys this year indicate another warmer than average year. This dramtic change in our ocean ecosystem has profound implications for our coastal economy. It is a glaring error of omission to not mention climate change in relation to the changes fishermen are seeing with their own eyes.