Land & Sea: Wooden vs. Steel Longliners

This 1980 episode of Land & Sea opens with the scene of a champagne bottle exploding on the bow of a new longliner.

The show explores the tension surroundingwooden and steel-hulled longliners at a time when boatbuilding design was evolving to match new fishing technology.

Owner Charles Hussey of Port de Grave isn't botheredby the $500,000 price tag for his new, wooden, 17-metrevessel, the Eastern Harvester, built in Arthur Petten's boat yard in South River.

The rising pricesof these new vessels is controversial, and many fishermen wonder if they should be purchasing longer lasting steel vessels for that amount of money.

The next longliner launchtheLand & Sea crew shotwas the Beulah Land, designed and built by the Kennedy Brothers of Hibb's Cove.

The show then movedto Henry Vokey's shipyard in Trinity, and capturedthe community's excitement as two boats are launched one after the other: the $700,000 Sea Voyageur for skipperMontroseGengeof Anchor Point, and the Cape Ray II forRufusGengeof Cook's Harbour.

At that time, provincial regulations limited the length of vessels to just under 20 metres.

Bauline'sOrman Whelan's new Avalon Harvester was at the top of thatlimit, and the boatwas so heavy a tractor hadto be brought in to push itdown the rails into the bay.

The Land & Sea crew wentsouth in this episode to Bayou la Batre, the headquarters for steel-hulled boat building.

The Alabama townis known worldwide for the creation ofsteel shrimp boats. Perhaps those boats inspired the only Newfoundland boatbuilder at the time to make his first steel vessel, the Iron Cow.

The show ends with the crew back in Newfoundland, asSpringdale's Cyril PelleyasksskipperRay Newman of Little HarbourDeep if heappreciatesthe vessel's stability in rough seas.