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Most Alaska fishermen know that top quality seafood—and top prices for their catch—begins with properly chilling their harvest aboard their vessels while at sea.
As the number of commercial fishermen who refrigerate their catch at sea continues to increase, so too has the need for help troubleshooting and maintaining their onboard refrigeration systems, especially when fishermen are far from port.
Since 2005, the Alaska Sea Grant Marine Advisory Program (MAP) has partnered with Integrated Marine Systems, Inc., to help some 220 Alaska fishermen better understand, troubleshoot and maintain their onboard refrigeration systems—training that has decreased downtime and increased fishermen's abilities to troubleshoot minor problems and communicate with technicians onshore.
MAP and Integrated Marine Systems will bring their popular training workshop to Kodiak November 29, 2011, beginning at 8:30 am at the UAF Fisheries Industrial Technology Center across the bridge on Near Island.
The one-day workshop will teach fishermen how to maintain, operate and troubleshoot onboard fishing vessel refrigeration equipment. Additional topics include refrigeration theory, system winterization, controller programming, and system sizing. Participants will use a stand-alone, marine refrigeration unit for hands-on training.
MAP began the refrigeration training partnership to fill the need for hands-on training for fishermen seeking to better maintain their equipment and do basic troubleshooting while at sea. Workshops are always full. In 2010, 50 skippers and crew took the eight-hour course. In post-workshop evaluations, participants gave the training high marks.
Said one Petersburg fisherman, “I’ve been fishing for over 35 years, and this class has finally given me the answers I need to run and troubleshoot one of the most important and mysterious pieces of equipment on my boat.”
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