Each partner vessel undergoes a 130-point inspection and vessel upgrades far exceeding Coast Guard standards

One of the primary ingredients in the special sauce that makes Sea Services North America unique is its focus on safety.

Each vessel working with the Sea Services co-op undergoes a 130-point safety inspection by a certified third-party marine safety inspector and overseen by Sea Services personnel. In addition, vessels working with Sea Services get equipment and technology upgrades as necessary to meet stringent offshore wind industry standards.

Together, these safety inspections and equipment upgrades result in one of the safest work environments on the water, far exceeding U.S. Coast Guard requirements.

“When you’ve been out there and know how fast things can go wrong, you appreciate the need for safety equipment and safety training,” said Gary Yerman, longtime commercial fisherman and co-founder of Sea Services North America. “Providing other commercial fishermen with this new opportunity for extra income has been rewarding, but I’d have to say the safety work has been the most rewarding aspect of my Sea Services experience.”

With his decades of experience in commercial fishing up and down the East Coast and his long list of contacts in the industry, Yerman leads the effort in identifying vessels and owners who would be good candidates to participate in the Sea Services co-op.

Yerman and Rodney Avila, a legendary New Bedford, Mass.,-based fisherman of more than 60 years and Sea Services’ Crew and Vessel Safety Manager, perform a pre-inspection of a vessel to ensure it’s a good match.

“We’ve seen these guys out there for years so we have a good idea which vessels are well maintained and which ones are likely to pass the MISW – or maybe need just a little work to pass it,” Avila said.

Avila was referring to the Marine Inspection of Small Watercraft process, which is just the starting point for vessels in the Sea Services co-op. The MISW is performed by Marine Safety Consultants of Fair Haven, Mass., a certified safety inspection firm. Some wind farm developers have their own standards that are higher than the international MISW standards and even those of the U.S. Coast Guard. Sea Services requires many items on the equipment checklist to meet international SOLAS (Safety of Life at Sea) standards, developed in response to the Titanic sinking and updated as technology advances.

Yerman knows the 130-point checklist by heart and will happily run through it if you ask him.

The list covers everything from documenting that every internal compartment has two emergency escape routes to the availability of firefighting equipment even with a loss of power onboard. The first aid section requires that a SOLAS-certified “medicine cabinet” is onboard, ensuring that a physician and crewmen are on the same page in working with medical equipment through radio communications in case of a serious injury.

Vessel integrity is inspected to ensure all through-hull fittings are installed correctly and have been properly maintained.

But it doesn’t stop with successful inspections.

“We require drills and equipment testing every day and these drills and tests are logged for auditing by the wind farm companies,” Yerman says. “We’re the real deal. We’re serious about safety. The wind companies are serious about safety.”

EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon) units are inspected at the start of every trip, radios, navigation technology, and other items are tested routinely. All crewmen are briefed daily on the “passage plan” so anyone onboard can take the watch if necessary.

In addition to EPIRBs, Sea Services requires the use of SART (Search And Rescue Transponder) units for a Man Overboard incident in the dark. These units send a signal that shows up on radar to help direct search efforts.

Another aspect of the Sea Services “special sauce” is providing safety equipment – and crew training – when it does not exist.

Sea Services, together with wind farm developers, has provided tens of thousands of dollars in equipment upgrades, whether it be safety items, navigation updates or general equipment that crewmen need to work with every day.

“Working with offshore wind has been a great source of income for a lot of these guys dealing with the ebb and flow of the fishing business,” Yerman said. “COVID crashed the market; the Fulton Fish Market was like a ghost town and a lot of the markets still haven’t recovered fully. Squid went from $1.50 a pound to 60 cents and the cost of fuel and other supplies went up. Then we come along and we’re a lifeline for them. They’re still fishing, but this fills in the gaps. For some of these guys, 60 to 70 percent of their income is from offshore wind.”