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By Mark Edward Nero The business of modernizing equipment that has become outdated over time is constantly evolving, with companies around the world continuously looking for ways to improve boat engines and ancillary equipment. These same companies are also introducing new marine propulsion technology to reduce consumption and emissions while increasing power. This is good for commercial fishermen, as new, better and faster tech on a boat can mean staying one step ahead of the competition. Fishermen’s News reached out to various companies around the globe to ascertain what direction the marine propulsion industry was heading, and here’s what some of them had to say. KEM Equipment Kodiak Marine, a division of KEM Equipment has begun offering two high tech gasoline engines for sale in 2...

By Margaret Bauman For millions of wild sockeye salmon returning to Bristol Bay in 2020 it will be the traditional journey, but for thousands of people coming to harvest and process the world’s largest run of red salmon it will be a fishing season like none other. Veteran harvesters like Robert Heyano of Dillingham, said he plans to fish the Nushagak area of Bristol Bay, just as he has since he was a boy on board his dad’s drift gillnetter. “I’m not looking forward to it this year, not with this virus,” he said. “I’d like to see the fishery conducted in a safe manner.” Heyano said he had not heard fishermen say outright that they would not fish this year because of COVID-19. “It all depends how safe they feel,” he said. “If we could focus our energy on the safest practices that wo...

By Karen Robes Meeks Innovation has always been part of Integrated Marine Systems’ history. The company originated from the corner of a shipyard in Port Townsend 30 years ago, where the business had been outfitting vessels with chilled sea water systems as Port Townsend Boatworks – IMS’ predecessor. Through that process, the company saw improvements that could be made in the equipment that was being installed. “It was kind of an incubator,” said IMS Founder Mark Burn, who cut his teeth as a fisherman working on boats in Alaska as a teenager. “In 1989, we started working on some of those improvements and the first thing was a chiller that we developed for refrigerating seawater.” Today, IMS continues to innovate as a leader in providing refrigeration systems on the West Coast a...

By Mark Edward Nero The coronavirus global pandemic turned the food supply chain on its head during the first quarter of 2020, but one thing it didn’t have an adverse effect on was the demand for cold storage, which continues to grow for the commercial fishing industry. According to market research and consulting firm Reports and Data, the global cold chain market, which was valued at $197 billion in 2018, is expected to reach $358 billion by the end of 2026, at an annual growth rate of 7.7 percent. The market for seafood in particular is expected to be high in the future, with demand growing in part due to advancement in processing, according to Reports and Data. Also, according to another firm, San Francisco-based Grand View Research, the North American market for cold chain ...

U.S. Navy officials doing the groundwork on future military war games in the Gulf of Alaska are being challenged by several conservation entities who contend the Navy should prepare a revised draft supplemental environmental impact statement. The Navy contends that the document is at an appropriate level of analysis because there are no major changes in proposed future training activities included.Still all public comment received on the draft document will be addressed in the final EIS/OEIS (overseas EIS), Navy officials said.According to the letter sent in mid-February to the Naval Facilities Engineering Command Northwest, concerns from the conservation groups include potential impact to fisheries, marine mammals and seabirds who live in and migrate through the Gulf of Alaska, where th...