May 20, 2025
By Alison Lorenz, WSG Communications Project Coordinator
Skills and Drills students and Maw with one of the practice vessels.
“Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” The student called a distress signal, indicating their boat had an emergency. Fortunately, there was no real danger at Washington Sea Grant (WSG)’s South Bend office. Students were practicing mayday calls as part of WSG’s Skills and Drills training, a new course designed to equip aspiring commercial fishermen with the skills they need to succeed.
Washington state supports a vibrant commercial fishing industry that sustains thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in economic activity. Yet a “graying of the fleet,” or increase in the average age of working fishermen, and other pressures have left the industry in need of new workers. In response, WSG pursued and was awarded a grant from NOAA’s Young Fishermen’s Career Development program to improve access to commercial fishing careers in the Pacific Northwest, developing two new programs: the Washington Fishermen and Crew Conference and Skills and Drills.
The course, explained Robert Maw – WSG fisheries specialist, Skills and Drills’ lead instructor, and a commercial fisherman himself – is designed to fill the gaps in an industry that is mostly family-based. Entering the world of commercial fishing takes a large amount of capital, as it requires buying a vessel and the permits necessary to operate. These assets are therefore often passed down within families. But when fishermen want to hire additional workers, even if young people are interested, they often lack basic knowledge of maritime skills like boat safety and maintenance or fishing gear use and repair.
Learning to mend nets.
“Our goal is to break the ice, so someone could walk on the boat and not be totally naive,” says Maw. “If they’ve seen how to tie knots, mend nets, know their way around an engine room, that helps the boat owners to hire them.”
The demand for a course like Skills and Drills was clear right away. Offered for the first time, the course filled all its spots. Some students came having never set foot on a boat. Others had been sent by their captains or came of their own accord to improve specific skills. Regardless of their background, everyone was enthusiastic and ready to learn. And the WSG fisheries team, with a breadth of expertise and experience, was ready to deliver.
Day one of the two-day class was split into two: the morning was for all things boat, while the afternoon and evening focused on gear repair. Students learned triage repair for both metal and fiberglass boats as well as boat vocabulary, practicing on three different vessels made of different materials and with different layouts. A whole session on net mending taught not only knot-tying skills, but how to see the patterns in a net that guide where each knot is placed. Some skilled net menders make up to 60 dollars an hour, and that opportunity alone was enough to draw one student to the class. Maw explained that venues to learn net mending are few and far between, but “once you know it, you can fix crab pots, you can fix gillnet gear, trawl gear, you can make your own hammock, anything.”
A student puts one hand in a scupper and a foot in a bight.
On the second day, Jenna Keeton, WSG fisheries specialist, shared about her experience as a deckhand in Alaska to help students set expectations for life at sea. Instruction then shifted to actually running a boat safely, including touring engine rooms, navigating, and signaling to other vessels. This also included cleaning a boat and handling fish properly, a session led by WSG fisheries specialist Brandii O’Reagan that rounded out the representation of the WSG fisheries team.
Finally, it was time for the students to demonstrate all they had learned. Maw set up his pupils on a platform called Goosechase. The app offered teams of students different missions they could complete to earn points, all meant to show off their new skills. Students submitted photos and videos of themselves with one hand in a scupper and one foot in a bight, mending nets, tying six different types of knots in 90 seconds, and – to come full circle – making a mayday call. They all passed with flying colors and took photos with their certificates when the course was finished. Skills and Drills will be offered again next year, with the WSG fisheries team already brainstorming and using lessons learned to improve.
“It was nice to see that people from different walks of life were interested and willing to learn,” Maw says. “It was fun to engage with folks that like hands-on, being challenged, thinking outside the box. It was nice to see there are young people still interested in the industry.”
Skills and Drills students with their certificates of completion.
###
Washington Sea Grant, based at the University of Washington, helps people and marine life thrive through research, technical expertise and education supporting the responsible use and conservation of coastal ecosystems. Washington Sea Grant is one of 34 Sea Grant programs supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in coastal and Great Lakes states that encourage the wise stewardship of our marine resources through research, education, outreach and technology transfer.
Join the conversation: instagram.com/waseagrant and Facebook.com/WaSeaGrant.
MAY
2025