04-08-2025, 10:51 AM
This post was last modified 04-08-2025, 10:59 AM by PiratesCut. Edited 3 times in total.
I lived on the Vineyard as a boy, Edgartown, but when I grew older I came to like Nantucket better, (we love Wauwinet) less commercial, still way pricey though.
I’d like to take a few minutes to tell you a story about selling lobster rolls off the boat in Nantucket.
It will take some back ground to tell it well so bear with me....
I was an offshore commercial fisherman for many, many years.
Years ago it was not all that an uncommon thing to see big fishing boats rafted up outside the palisade in Nantucket during big winter Nor’easters or sometimes a few boats just came in for a night of fun and fighting at the Chicken Box.
Put a hundred drunk fishermen on island, well, the island knows we are there for sure....?
Hiding in Nantucket from a ripping gale was so much better than laying too, or even worse, jogging out heavy weather.
Banging your head into 25-30 footers for a day or three, not. much. fun. (Fun-fact: Nor’east winds here never lasts less than 3 days!)
Anyway, back in 1978 maybe 79, not sure, I was working the engine and deck of a 98 foot double drum stern trawler named the Captain Mano. It was the dog days of August and I had signed on at the custom house in New Bedford as captain even though I didn’t skipper the boat. You had to be a US citizen to hold the papers so a few Portuguese boats would use me to do this when the skipper took a month or so off to vacation back home in the Azores.
I promise I’ll get to the point, “lobster rolls” patience....
The government had begun to put quotas on what we could catch. (this is important because it explains why we ended up spending a few days in Nantucket at trips end).
We were only allowed to take 8,500 pounds of Yellowtail Flounder for any “one trip”. No big deal....
On the other-hand we were allowed to take 20,000 pounds of Cod, Haddock or Pollock in any “one calendar week”, silly government boys.
So, we’d throw the lines on Saturday, the end of one “calendar“ week. The next seven days would be week #2 and making port for the following Monday morning auction would be week #3.....?
Now we could land 60,000 rather than 20,000 pounds of each of those 3 ground-fish. Skippers are not stupid people unlike, well, you get it I’m sure. ?
The rest was pretty much catch what you can....
After steaming 8-12 hours or so depending on the tides, and just as the sun was rising we set out the net just East-Sou’east of the Great Round Shoals fairway buoy located a bit North of Great Point Nantucket
We were using the big net called a Rock Hopper Otter Trawl in an area well known for Summer Cod.
It was now going to be a non-stop, around the clock operation of handling the gear for we six men us onboard.
I was up top, just aft of the wheelhouse squaring things away when the Sun came into full view as it perched on the waters surface for a moment. What a gorgeous morning!
The sea was like a pane of glass with a slight swell coming in (somewhere, far offshore it was blowing hard for such an Easterly swell here in August).
For no reason, while standing there looking East I just sang out the tune of “oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day, I’ve got this beautiful feeling, everything's going my way”.
Sounds corny, I know, but that’s the facts.
Here’s where it got weird, about ten minutes later I was back on deck getting ready to throw an eye splice into a new heaving line for the bag end when the skipper came running on deck yelling, fish, fish, fish, haul back!!!
Sure enough, we were on the Cod. The net was so full we had to haul the bag end over the side rail three times to dump it and empty the net enough so the bag could finally fit up the stern ramp under the net drum.
Net empty, we set it back and got to work. Over the next 48 hours or so the net kept coming back stuffed near to the wings, not sure how many tows we made. You don’t know what back pain or a tired body is until you’ve spent a full day bent over the checkers ripping and gutting Cod, WOW!
I said it got weird and it did. The Cod finally dried up and we steamed up to the Nor’east parts for Haddock while still clearing the deck, that had been so full for a time the fish were literally spilling over the rail when she rolled to starboard (we had a bit of a list on her) on that light swell. It was crazy!
We finally got finished, had a feed and set the net out again and five of us turned in. It was not to be, not 15 minutes after my head hit the pillow unconscious the skipper is yelling, fish, fish again, haul back. ??
Now we were on the Haddock. Rinse, repeat, over and over. In four days we put over 85,000 pounds of fish in the hold.
Everywhere we went it was the same thing, FISH, it was nuts, absolutely nuts! We were zombies on automatic. Never before or since have I worked so hard, for so long!
Looking back, I don’t know how we did it, I really don’t.
I think it was was five days before any of us got any real sleep. We’d worked for Pollock and the 8,500 pounds of Yellowtail as well as Greysole Flounder when the skipper finally shut her down so we could recover.
It gets foggy here, the days blur but I know it was decided to steam to Corsair Canyon to tow for lobsters because the hold was rapidly nearing full and we were in danger of running out of ice but still had days to stay out because of quotas. 30 tons of ice we’d gone through.
We now had an estimated 165,000 pounds on board, much more and she’d puke…..
It wasn’t over.....damn.
We set out again along the canyons and not only were we getting 10-12 baskets of large losbsters for a 3 hour tow but 15 or more baskets of doormat sized Blackback flounder as well.
What made things worse was now the huge, barnacle (some, 5 times the size of a hersey’s kiss) covered boulders down there were tearing the belly out of the net each tow, so we had to set one net off one drum and while two guys dealt with banding the lobsters, sorting the flounder etc., two others spread out the ripped up net for overhaul.
On and on it went, set one net out, then the other, rinse, repeat for the next 36 or so hours.
We were not only near out of ice but we were also running out of gear to repair the nets. Dozens of rolls of twine, a dozen new bellies, (our fingers and hands ached from handling the needle and pulling the net taught so we could sew new sections in correctly. We were running out of hardware to rebuild the sweeps as well.
Finally the skipper called it.
We gathered in the galley because the ongoing issue was we had too many days left before we could come back to offload what we had on board because of quota restrictions.
It was the cook who suggested hiding in Nantucket and the skipper immediately said, “let’s go”.
We took turns at wheel watch for the 10 hour steam to the island and we all got to finally get some true sleep.
Nantucket, at last.....”Lobster Rolls”…….soon, promise!
When a 100 foot dragger ties up at the end of the pier outside the protective palisade of the marina, it is truly an island spectacle!
Word goes out and it seems the whole island shows up. Hundreds of people swarm the docks, laughing, pointing, cameras taking pictures by the thousands, guys aggravated because the ladies are like, oh, check these guys out. ?
The crowds wandered off after some hours and we all just crashed again, I mean crashed. Next morning I had the 6-9 am watch. Around 8 the cook tells me he’s running into town, he and the skipper have an idea but he won’t say what. A couple of hours later he’s back with 12 big boxes of rolls, hot dog, hamburger, hard rolls, anything he could buy, mayo, dill and paprika.
We had about 12,000 pounds of lobsters on board in 4 boxes, each holding about 3,000 pounds. Some lobsters as large as 15 or more pounds (they grow big in the cold, deep waters along the canyons, a one pound lobster is about six years old, do the math).
Around 11am we started steaming and shelling, chopping up those beautiful bugs, and cookie did his magic.
I was the one to walk the dock just after noon, telling people we were serving overflowing lobster rolls, $7.00 each. The first 10 people got theirs free.
A literal stampede quickly began for the boat and business boomed!
We nearly emptied and cooked one of the small tanks of lobster, about 1000lbs or so.
Around 3:30 pm the authorities showed up to shut us down.
It took longer for them to show than we expected and they explained they had no choice when the 3rd restaurant called to complain. Seems we put a serious dent in their business that day.
They were pretty cool though and told us they actually thought it was great because of all the excitement on the island and the experience vacationers were getting. (Island politics, would this happen today? not a chance!!)
Of course we fed the four police officers on the boat. We also sent them each home with a twelve inch roll stuffed with five pounds or more of lobster tails and claws.
We had maybe 50 rolls left so we promised the cops not to buy more, we couldn’t anyway,
Cookie had cleaned the island storehouse out, bread was delivered daily by the ferry.
Anyway, that’s my Lobster Roll telling.
Long story, quick *****y ending….
Cheers
BTW, we each made near
$500 cash…….big $$$ in 1978!
I’d like to take a few minutes to tell you a story about selling lobster rolls off the boat in Nantucket.
It will take some back ground to tell it well so bear with me....
I was an offshore commercial fisherman for many, many years.
Years ago it was not all that an uncommon thing to see big fishing boats rafted up outside the palisade in Nantucket during big winter Nor’easters or sometimes a few boats just came in for a night of fun and fighting at the Chicken Box.
Put a hundred drunk fishermen on island, well, the island knows we are there for sure....?
Hiding in Nantucket from a ripping gale was so much better than laying too, or even worse, jogging out heavy weather.
Banging your head into 25-30 footers for a day or three, not. much. fun. (Fun-fact: Nor’east winds here never lasts less than 3 days!)
Anyway, back in 1978 maybe 79, not sure, I was working the engine and deck of a 98 foot double drum stern trawler named the Captain Mano. It was the dog days of August and I had signed on at the custom house in New Bedford as captain even though I didn’t skipper the boat. You had to be a US citizen to hold the papers so a few Portuguese boats would use me to do this when the skipper took a month or so off to vacation back home in the Azores.
I promise I’ll get to the point, “lobster rolls” patience....
The government had begun to put quotas on what we could catch. (this is important because it explains why we ended up spending a few days in Nantucket at trips end).
We were only allowed to take 8,500 pounds of Yellowtail Flounder for any “one trip”. No big deal....
On the other-hand we were allowed to take 20,000 pounds of Cod, Haddock or Pollock in any “one calendar week”, silly government boys.
So, we’d throw the lines on Saturday, the end of one “calendar“ week. The next seven days would be week #2 and making port for the following Monday morning auction would be week #3.....?
Now we could land 60,000 rather than 20,000 pounds of each of those 3 ground-fish. Skippers are not stupid people unlike, well, you get it I’m sure. ?
The rest was pretty much catch what you can....
After steaming 8-12 hours or so depending on the tides, and just as the sun was rising we set out the net just East-Sou’east of the Great Round Shoals fairway buoy located a bit North of Great Point Nantucket
We were using the big net called a Rock Hopper Otter Trawl in an area well known for Summer Cod.
It was now going to be a non-stop, around the clock operation of handling the gear for we six men us onboard.
I was up top, just aft of the wheelhouse squaring things away when the Sun came into full view as it perched on the waters surface for a moment. What a gorgeous morning!
The sea was like a pane of glass with a slight swell coming in (somewhere, far offshore it was blowing hard for such an Easterly swell here in August).
For no reason, while standing there looking East I just sang out the tune of “oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day, I’ve got this beautiful feeling, everything's going my way”.
Sounds corny, I know, but that’s the facts.
Here’s where it got weird, about ten minutes later I was back on deck getting ready to throw an eye splice into a new heaving line for the bag end when the skipper came running on deck yelling, fish, fish, fish, haul back!!!
Sure enough, we were on the Cod. The net was so full we had to haul the bag end over the side rail three times to dump it and empty the net enough so the bag could finally fit up the stern ramp under the net drum.
Net empty, we set it back and got to work. Over the next 48 hours or so the net kept coming back stuffed near to the wings, not sure how many tows we made. You don’t know what back pain or a tired body is until you’ve spent a full day bent over the checkers ripping and gutting Cod, WOW!
I said it got weird and it did. The Cod finally dried up and we steamed up to the Nor’east parts for Haddock while still clearing the deck, that had been so full for a time the fish were literally spilling over the rail when she rolled to starboard (we had a bit of a list on her) on that light swell. It was crazy!
We finally got finished, had a feed and set the net out again and five of us turned in. It was not to be, not 15 minutes after my head hit the pillow unconscious the skipper is yelling, fish, fish again, haul back. ??
Now we were on the Haddock. Rinse, repeat, over and over. In four days we put over 85,000 pounds of fish in the hold.
Everywhere we went it was the same thing, FISH, it was nuts, absolutely nuts! We were zombies on automatic. Never before or since have I worked so hard, for so long!
Looking back, I don’t know how we did it, I really don’t.
I think it was was five days before any of us got any real sleep. We’d worked for Pollock and the 8,500 pounds of Yellowtail as well as Greysole Flounder when the skipper finally shut her down so we could recover.
It gets foggy here, the days blur but I know it was decided to steam to Corsair Canyon to tow for lobsters because the hold was rapidly nearing full and we were in danger of running out of ice but still had days to stay out because of quotas. 30 tons of ice we’d gone through.
We now had an estimated 165,000 pounds on board, much more and she’d puke…..
It wasn’t over.....damn.
We set out again along the canyons and not only were we getting 10-12 baskets of large losbsters for a 3 hour tow but 15 or more baskets of doormat sized Blackback flounder as well.
What made things worse was now the huge, barnacle (some, 5 times the size of a hersey’s kiss) covered boulders down there were tearing the belly out of the net each tow, so we had to set one net off one drum and while two guys dealt with banding the lobsters, sorting the flounder etc., two others spread out the ripped up net for overhaul.
On and on it went, set one net out, then the other, rinse, repeat for the next 36 or so hours.
We were not only near out of ice but we were also running out of gear to repair the nets. Dozens of rolls of twine, a dozen new bellies, (our fingers and hands ached from handling the needle and pulling the net taught so we could sew new sections in correctly. We were running out of hardware to rebuild the sweeps as well.
Finally the skipper called it.
We gathered in the galley because the ongoing issue was we had too many days left before we could come back to offload what we had on board because of quota restrictions.
It was the cook who suggested hiding in Nantucket and the skipper immediately said, “let’s go”.
We took turns at wheel watch for the 10 hour steam to the island and we all got to finally get some true sleep.
Nantucket, at last.....”Lobster Rolls”…….soon, promise!
When a 100 foot dragger ties up at the end of the pier outside the protective palisade of the marina, it is truly an island spectacle!
Word goes out and it seems the whole island shows up. Hundreds of people swarm the docks, laughing, pointing, cameras taking pictures by the thousands, guys aggravated because the ladies are like, oh, check these guys out. ?
The crowds wandered off after some hours and we all just crashed again, I mean crashed. Next morning I had the 6-9 am watch. Around 8 the cook tells me he’s running into town, he and the skipper have an idea but he won’t say what. A couple of hours later he’s back with 12 big boxes of rolls, hot dog, hamburger, hard rolls, anything he could buy, mayo, dill and paprika.
We had about 12,000 pounds of lobsters on board in 4 boxes, each holding about 3,000 pounds. Some lobsters as large as 15 or more pounds (they grow big in the cold, deep waters along the canyons, a one pound lobster is about six years old, do the math).
Around 11am we started steaming and shelling, chopping up those beautiful bugs, and cookie did his magic.
I was the one to walk the dock just after noon, telling people we were serving overflowing lobster rolls, $7.00 each. The first 10 people got theirs free.
A literal stampede quickly began for the boat and business boomed!
We nearly emptied and cooked one of the small tanks of lobster, about 1000lbs or so.
Around 3:30 pm the authorities showed up to shut us down.
It took longer for them to show than we expected and they explained they had no choice when the 3rd restaurant called to complain. Seems we put a serious dent in their business that day.
They were pretty cool though and told us they actually thought it was great because of all the excitement on the island and the experience vacationers were getting. (Island politics, would this happen today? not a chance!!)
Of course we fed the four police officers on the boat. We also sent them each home with a twelve inch roll stuffed with five pounds or more of lobster tails and claws.
We had maybe 50 rolls left so we promised the cops not to buy more, we couldn’t anyway,
Cookie had cleaned the island storehouse out, bread was delivered daily by the ferry.
Anyway, that’s my Lobster Roll telling.
Long story, quick *****y ending….
Cheers
BTW, we each made near
$500 cash…….big $$$ in 1978!
