With the recent sale of its three factory trawlers and catch quotas, the struggling Renton, Washington-based Fishing Company of Alaska will see more than three decades of operation come to a close, according to the Seattle Times.
Ocean Peace and O’Hara Corporation each purchased a portion of the company’s assets for an undisclosed price; two of the Fishing Company of Alaska’s trawlers will go to Ocean Peace, according to Mike Faris, chief executive of the Seattle-based business, while the other vessel and half of the fishing quotas now belong to O’Hara Corporation, confirmed executive vice president Frank O’Hara Jr.
“We could not be any happier for our company, all the crew and our customers and vendors,” O’Hara told the Seattle Times. While O’Hara Corporation is headquartered in Maine, it has an operations base in Seattle, and O’Hara confirmed that the new vessel will be one of five fishing for the company in the Bering Sea.
Both companies, Ocean Peace and O’Hara Corporation, have plans to update and improve their newly acquired trawlers.
“We will invest heavily in the vessels and bring them up to the level of safety and efficiency that we are real comfortable with,” Ocean Peace’s Faris told the Seattle Times.
The Fishing Company of Alaska once had six vessels and played an important role as a trawl harvester in the Gulf of Alaska, the Bering Sea and off the Aleutian Islands, reported the newspaper. However, high-seas disasters shrunk the company’s fleet and, in one case, resulted in lives lost – the sinking of the Alaska Ranger vessel, which was lost in 2007, left five crew members dead. Last year, another of the company’s vessels, the Alaska Juris, sunk off the coast and, while no fatalities occurred, the U.S. Coast Guard is investigating the incident.
Fishing Company of Alaska’s fleet was involved in the harvesting of yellowfin, sole, mackerel and other fish that are processed and frozen at sea.
