CLEANING UP DIRTY FISHERMEN
CAN BE QUITE AN EXPERIENCE
Fred Dyson – Dyson's Starboard View – Messing About in Boats
A faithful reader from Southeast wrote, asking for advice on getting her husband clean after he has been fishing for a week.
This is an important question. Small boats often have a very limited fresh water supply and very few have a shower. Blood, slime, salt water, engine oil, fish scales, and sweat combined with exhaustion, heat, terror, and vomit make for fragrant sailors and an amazingly durable coating on the epidermis.
We consulted with several commercial fisher-folk around the state and were given the following divergent counsel:
Capt. William (Bull) Bulwarks c/o 'The Elbow Room" in Unalaska tells how he does it in the Bering Sea: "I just put 'em out naked on the trawl deck and hose 'em down with the wash down hose with the nozzle set for blastin'. Have ta' watch the pressure 'cause it'll knock the little guys plumb over the stern. Sometimes we put a line on 'em.
"Then I mostly let the cook go at 'em with a deck brush. She's kin'er crabby, but will forego her bonus if I let 'er scrub the crew every week er two. Helps her disposition for quite a spell afterwards. The crew gets real rosy skinned and noisy if they're at it too long in winter."
Capt. Morgan from the "Red Dog" in Naknek says he likes to use 'modem technology' to clean his crew. "I use spray-on cleaners," Morgan says. "I started out using oven cleaner on 'em and then a putty knife to lift off the worst of the dirt and scum on their hide.
''But, lately, I been using a new product that works better. I now use industrial strength Gasket Remover. Works real good. I'll bet the CAT dealer thinks I am overhauling my engine every three days. Some of the new hands gripe a little, specially the ones from Outside that been to college and all, but they soon toughen to it."
I asked my old buddy Savior Pappetti how he kept his crew clean and he said, "Well, first off, I use prevention by making 'em turn their underwear inside out every week so's that it di'n't stick to 'em too bad. Then I make 'em drag their clothes behind the boat in a brailer for a while and then they stay pretty clean."
The most effective plan for dealing with really grungy fishermen came from a seiner in Kodiak named Canadian Joe. Joe says that he wets his crew down with diesel oil and then gives them a brisk brushing with a stiff wire brush on his right angle grinder.
This is the same brush that he uses for knocking the rust off of his steel-hulled boat, so he has lots of them on board. He says the crew doesn't like it much but they will go through anything to get some shore time. He says he is real proud of how it gives the crew a "right healthy glow to their skin".
Obviously I do not endorse or approve of any of the above methods and I don't suggest that any readers use them.
Some readers have sent some new nautical insults:
"He broke his shear pin"
"He's got birds on his antenna"
"He's hard aground and don't know it"
An Eagle River reader has challenged me to a match race in the spring. He and a buddy paddling a canoe will try to beat me rowing. He demands that we have identical canoes and I am demanding that the paddlers have to be old, fat, and ugly to keep things equal. I will keep you posted on that one.
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