ROCKLAND — It’s always in the back of the mind of every commercial fisherman or lobsterman as he or she throws off the lines and heads out to sea — the possibility that they won’t come back. It’s a risk they take every day.

At the recent 2017 Maine Fisherman’s Forum, Mike Jackson, President of Grundéns USA, spoke about the dangers of falling overboard.

A participant in the “Stories at Sea” panel, he has a unique authority on that particular topic, having survived going overboard not once, but twice, in his career as a commercial crab fisherman in the Bering Sea.

By the time he was 28, Jackson had been crabbing commercially for 10 years.

On a November night he’d been working with his crew on a 98-foot crabber on the Bering Sea. The wind was blowing 45-50 knots and seas were running 25-30 feet with steep, breaking crests and frequent snow squalls.

Jackson, like everyone else on his crew wore no life jacket.

“No one wore them at that time,” he said. “My wife had bought me one but it was tucked away under my bunk.”

With little sleep over the course of a few days, the crew was overly tired. One crew member had failed to lock a hydraulic control valve in a secure position, a dangerous error that caused a series of mishaps to send a 32-round buoy into Jackson and knock him overboard.

His clothing was barely enough to protect him from the numbing cold and he was fast losing his strength to hold on in the waves.

Only luck and the fast-thinking instincts on the part of the skipper saved his life. Before hypothermia set in, he was rescued by a stainless steel hook “which hauled me up like a 200 pound halibut” he told the audience.

After that unnerving experience, he didn’t go on deck without a life jacket again at a time when no one still wore one.

He endured the usual jibes over it.

“I didn’t care,” he said. “And the reason I didn’t care is because of my overboard experience. I knew with a life jacket that I could survive and so could someone else.”

Turns out he didn’t know how fortuitous his decision to go against the grain would be.

Two weeks later, aboard the same boat with the same crew, another terrible mishap occurred when another crew member fell overboard. Jackson, the only one wearing a life jacket, knew he was the only one who could get to him and provide the buoyancy to keep him afloat in the pitch black, among yet another heaving sea and raging 50-knot winds.

Once again, Jackson was able to save both his own life and that of his friend. (Read the entire story on Grundéns website here.)

The Northeast Center for Occupational Health and Safety was on hand at the Fisherman’s Forum to talk about the sobering realities of what fishermen and lobstermen face out at sea.

Statistics show that commercial fishing fatalities are among the highest (31 times higher than the average industrial fatality rate) and that for New England fishermen, falling overboard is the leading cause of workplace fatalities. Yet, so many lobstermen and fishermen still do not wear personal flotation devices.

The studies the NCOHS did found that are three basic reasons for that: Workability (uncomfortable devices and the high cost associated with them), Risk Diffusion (the perception that one won’t get hurt if they do everything right) and finally Social Stigma (People will make fun of you for wearing one).

Jackson has had personal experience with all three factors and from the outset of founding the company in 1991 with his brother, Dave, he has worked on numerous ways to prevent these fatalities.

“When I first came up with a solution for a PFD that would work for fishermen like me, the thing that resonates with everyone is the idea of ‘Coming Home,’” he said. “The touchpoint for them is the people who are depending on them to come home. The conversation isn’t just about them. It’s about all of those other people whose lives would be devastated if they didn’t come home. Trying to get people to get to look at it from that lens changes the narrative.”

In the presentation, NCOHS announced their current plans and studies to discover the most practical form of a PFD for fishermen. An audience member asked Jackson if Grundéns made clothing that encompassed a PFD within.

It’s a complicated subject and simple answer is yes, Grundéns does have several configurations, including an inflatable yoke that slips into a pair of bibs and a vest (that’s now off the market for more testing) called the Stormy Seas PFD. 

“I had the idea fishing out of Kodiak for the Stormy Seas PFD and made a crude prototype, basically taking the design from a commercial airlines, combining it with a Mae West vest and incorporating it into something we wore on deck all of the time,” said Jackson. “It inflates with both a manual airtube and also a tear-away flap for a C02 cartridge.”

Jackson was thinking about practicalities of working aboard a vessel wearing this vest and wanted it to be a multi-functional tool for fishermen, allowing them to dive into the water without inflation if need be to rescue someone, then, inflating it at the necessary point.

The difficult part is that Grundéns PFD configurations are not a one-size-fits-all along with other stringent requirements that would make them Coast Guard-approved.

“In the commercial fishing world, people can recognize if something has value, because they’re out at sea all time and know it makes sense, but there are many people who have the perception that if it’s not U.S. Coast Guard approved, it’s illegal to to be worn,” he said. “The irony is, the Coast Guard would not approve our products but they did buy them for their personnel. Regardless, as we always tell people, have redundancy on your boat. Have a Coast Guard approved PFD, and then wear anything that’s the most comfortable. If you find yourself in the water, the only thing that’s going to do you any good is whatever type of PFD you choose to have on at that moment. If your spouse wants to make you a sweater out of bubble wrap, wear it.”

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com