Mikael Stone Summer Reading

Mikael Stone
9-8-16
Summer Reading

This summer I read two articles in the Commercial Fisheries News.
 The first Article I read was by Brian Robbins, “CFN Shakedown Cruise”. The article is on Tom Clemmons of Harpswell, ME and his boat the Motivation. The Motivation is a 36' Northern Bay lobster boat. The Motivation’s hull was built by General Marine in Biddeford,ME, they are the owners of the mold for the 36’ Northern Bay. Once they built the hull for the Motivation, they sent the hull to a shop where the Motivation would get finished off by the owner Tom Clemmons and his fellow friends Roger Graves and Jim Barclay. In the article they talked about the C-18 1001hp Caterpillar engine that was rebuilt and "sweetened up" by Minott’s Diesel Service. The C-18 pushed the Motivation to a top speed of "52.9 mph" which is very fast for a lobster boat. Brian Robbins also talked about how the Motivation related to a car he had in the 70s. They talked about how fast the Motivation goes and how different it is compared to the lobster boats they had in the 60s through the 70s.
 The second article I read was by Sandre Dinsmore, Lobster Market Report. In the Article she talked about how the lobsters weren’t as "plentiful" as past years, shedders were more weak this year, so they won't live as long in crates when they are geting processed so they had to be shipped faster to make sure they arrive alive. This year more hard lobsters were caught than in recent years as well. In the article Dinsmore talks about how bait prices were higher this year because the trawlers that go out and get the fish for the lobstermen weren’t catching as much fish as in past years. The lobstermen still had enough bait but it got more expensive because of the shortage. This year lobstermen had to equal out the shortage by using hard bait, one problem with hard bait is all of the waste that is produced after using all of the bait. This year the lobsters also ran early, which means lobstermen caught more shedders earlier in the season . This is different from past years because, last year the lobsters ran later in the season. The bad thing about the lobsters running earlier was that the price went down, but once the lobstermen started to catch less, the price went back up. Currently the price in Vinalhaven,ME is $4.40 for soft shell lobsters and $6.60 for hard shell lobsters.
These two articles connect directly to my life because I am a Lobsterman and both of theses articles have lots of stuff to do with lobstering. The Second article (Lobster Market Report) is something that concerns me because the lobstering and the lobster market is how I make a living.