During the second part of KSTK’s “In the boatyard” series, Garret Vincentz talked about Lady Jane, a purse seiner he’s had for the last decade. He, his wife Jerrine and other crew members were prepping the boat up before they launched for shrimp season last month. Not only has Lady Jane fed Vincentz and his family over the years, but she’s also saved a few sinking boats. KSTK’s Colette Czarnecki sends this audio postcard from the Wrangell boatyard.
Garret Vincentz
We’re working on boats, that’s for sure.
We just pulled out of the water yesterday, but have been working on it since the day I bought it about 10 years ago.
My name’s Garret Vincentz, and the boat that we’re standing next to is the Lady Jane.
Her construction
This boat was built in 1969. Yep. Steel. It’s had parts and pieces replaced, actually, like right there on the stern, you can see a big piece of plate that was replaced the year that we got it. It’s always had a pretty good maintenance schedule. Seems like it’s in good shape.
It’s black and gray and right now a couple varying shades of rust, but hopefully we’ll have that all taken care of here in the next couple days, if it keeps raining.
This boat is 58 feet long. It’s a limit seiner, that’s the biggest that you could fish in Southeast Alaska Salmon fisheries. It’s constructed of steel (and) it’s a traditional style seine boat, meaning it doesn’t have a whale back design. This thing around the rudder back here, it’s called the beaver tail, and that just helps keep the net out of the wheel and the rudder while we’re hauling during purse seine operations.
“it’s a little bit smaller operation.”
It’s a commercial fishing vessel. We are getting ready for our shrimp season coming up in the middle of May, and then after that, we’ll start purse seining. That goes through till the end of August, and then we’ll be power trolling with it through the end of September, and little bit on and off during the wintertime. Mostly salmon and spot prawns.
We have five for purse seining, that’s including myself, and then for shrimping, it’s myself; generally we’ll take a couple other crew this year. It’s gonna be my buddy Lou; Jerrine and myself out there shrimp, so there’ll be three of us. And then when we’re power trolling, usually it’s just myself and my wife.
It’s hook and line fishing. So, yeah, it’s a little bit smaller operation.
Migration
It was built down in Oregon, and was built as a dragger down there, and then it migrated its way up here and fished out of Southeast Alaska for a long time. It’s fished everything from crab on the west coast of Washington to salmon up here in Southeast.
The gang here – my wife and a couple of my crew – are prepping the bottom for paint.
We just got done polishing up the wheel, and I’ve spent most of my time today in the engine room working on some of the valves and stuff that run the various plumbing systems. It’s a good time to find out if there’s any bad spots in the hull when it’s not sitting in the water, so we just get in there and start going to town on spots that we want to make sure it’s in good condition.
“It made my life…it’s made my career…keeps us fed.”
I’m from the East Coast originally, and started fishing in college. Got a degree in aquaculture and fisheries from University of Rhode Island, and a buddy of mine was fishing out here in Alaska and said, ‘Oh, you should really come check it out.’ And I came out for a summer, and then never really looked back.
She’s been there to save a couple other boats from sinking. That was big. You always find yourself dealing with big projects on these things. I can remember having it so torn apart and watching it come back together, and putting together a great season. And, yeah, all those things are special about it.
It made my life, yeah, yeah, it’s made my career. You know? Keeps us fed. Thanks Lady Jane.
