They spent the primary two years canvassing the lobster docks of New England, delivering a message of security and soliciting opinions from fishermen on which private security units would swimsuit them greatest as they plied their commerce upon the water.
The oldsters from the Lifejackets for Lobstermen marketing campaign had a difficult mission: unfold the phrase to greater than 500 lobstermen of the life-saving advantages of sporting private flotation units whereas fishing.
They usually weren’t certain how they’d be obtained by the lobstering neighborhood that largely has resisted sporting lifejackets and different security units as a result of they have been uncomfortable, impeded their work or have been thought to be too costly.
“After we first hit the street, we weren’t certain what to anticipate,” mentioned Amanda Roome, a fieldwork analysis coordinator with the Lifejackets for Lobstermen program. “From Day One, the lobstermen have been very open to speaking with us and attempting on the totally different types of lifejackets.”
It seems they have been obtained fairly properly.
In 2019, three years into the venture, the Lifejackets for Lobstermen researchers from the Northeast Heart for Occupational Well being and Security took their act on the street.
They loaded up two vans with varied fashions and types of non-public flotation units, from inflatable beltpacks to flotation bib pants, that greatest met the lobstermen’s expressed wants and preferences.
Starting in April 2019, the vans traveled about 10,000 miles all through coastal New England, revisiting 61 separate ports, together with Gloucester, Manchester and Rockport.
When the odyssey resulted in November 2019, Lifejackets for Lobstermen had offered 1,087 lifejackets and different private security units.
The most well-liked alternative amongst lobstermen was the Stormline Flotation Bibs — which accounted for 544 gross sales, or virtually precisely half of all these units bought.
It was adopted by the Mustang Elite 28 inflatable PFD (103 offered) and the Kent Rogue II flotation fishing vest (99 offered).
The one-time 50% low cost supplied by Lifejackets for Lobstermen to business lobstermen and business fishermen with lobster bycatch permits helped push gross sales.
However the organizers additionally had the numbers on their facet.
They’d knowledge that confirmed that, from 2000 to 2016, 204 U.S. business fishermen died after going overboard. Nearly 60% of the incidents went unwitnessed and 108 have been by no means discovered.
Of these 204 business fishermen who died, none wore a lifejacket or private flotation system.
They identified that the on-the-job dying price for business fishermen is 31 occasions greater than another business.
And preliminary knowledge from 2016 to 2019 present that 26% of all man-overboard fatalities within the Northeast concerned lobstermen.
The Northeast Heart for Occupational Well being and Security, a not-for-profit that makes a speciality of points associated to business fishing, farming and logging, mentioned it plans to proceed the Lifejackets for Lobstermen program.
It has additionally joined forces with fishing stakeholders, such because the Fishing Partnership Help Providers, to assist embrace the advantages of non-public flotation units in coaching applications.
“As a part of our free programs in security and survival at sea, we are going to proceed this strategy and assist fishermen discover the lifejacket that they may put on,” mentioned J.J. Bartlett, president of the Fishing Partnership Help Providers.
Contact Sean Horgan at 978-675-2714, or shorgan@gloucestertimes.com. Comply with him on Twitter at @SeanGDT
