“S.D. BOAT YARDS RUSH BUILDING OF FISH FLEETS – Contracts Now Total $3,000,000; Firms Obtain Materials – San Diego boat building yards, confronted with the task of rebuilding the port’s depleted fishing fleet, are constructing or have under contract to construct a total of $3,000,000 worth (equivalent to $52,891,856 today – ed.) of new craft, it was disclosed yesterday. Spurred by the government’s request for more seafood to meet civilian and military demands, shipyards have been granted priorities for material to rush construction of tunaboats and other fishing vessels.
47 CRAFT TAKEN
Forty-seven San Diego fishing craft have been commandeered or requisitioned by the U.S. Navy since Pearl Harbor. For two years the commercial boat building industry in San Diego has been in the doldrums while ship plants concentrated on construction of vessels for naval and military services. Today the picture is changed. San Diego boat building plants now have contracts for the largest number of fishing craft for any single year in the industry’s history.
SEVEN BOATS ORDERED
Mr. George Campbell, of the CAMPBELL MACHINE CO. boatyard at the foot of Seventh Ave., announced that his company is building or has under contract a total of seven tunaboats. Six of these each will have a registered tonnage of 460 tons, will be 143’ overall and will have a capacity of more than 2,500 tons of fish. Each will be fitted with 600-h.p.supercharged engines. These boats are being built for JOSE MONISE, ANTONIO OLIVEIRA, SALVATORE INACIO, MANUEL, FERNANDO, JOE, and FRANK MEDINA; JOAQUIN MEDINA & SONS, and JOE S. ROGERS. The Campbell Machine Co. also is to build a 55’ boat for ANTONIO TAVARES, to be used in the fresh fish trade.
TWO CRAFT CONTRACTED
The LYNCH SHIPBUILDING CO., foot of Twenty-Eighth St., although working on Navy contracts which will keep the plant operating at top speed for 18 months, is building two 96’ fishing boats for MANUEL ROSA and JOHN CARDOZA, and have several other fishing craft in prospect.
At the SAN DIEGO MARINE CONSTRUCTION CO., foot of Samson St., a 95’, 130-ton tunaboat is under construction for the COAST FISHING CO. of San Pedro. Keels of two more vessels are to be laid before midsummer.
The first fishing craft built by the HARBOR BOAT WORKS, foot of Twenty-Sixth St., in several years, the ‘JOSEPHINE’, will be launched next Sunday (i.e. April 9, 1944 – ed.).
VESSEL COSTS $21,500
This vessel, built to the order of Sam Bompensiero, is a 47’ craft and costs $21,500 (equivalent to $379,058 today – ed.), and a 75’, 80-ton boat for Mr. W. Williams, costing $95,000 (equivalent to $1,674,908 today – ed.) is to be launched in July.
Mr. Wade Ambrose, WESTGATE SEA PRODUCTS CO. President, declared steps must be taken to conserve the supply of skilled fishermen if the present shortage of seafood is to be alleviated. ‘There is no use building new fishing boats unless there is sufficient personnel to man them,’ said Ambrose.
LONG VOYAGES PLANNED
San Diego fishing boats this season will operate will operate as far south as Costa Rica. Waters further south (and especially in the prolific fishing grounds in the vicinity of the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador) are restricted and no boats will be permitted to operate there until after destruction of the Japanese fleet.
In accordance with O.P.A. (i.e. Office of Price Administration, which set price limits and rationed ‘essential items’ via a point system during the War, doing so to control ‘supply and demand’ by freezing prices and thereby preventing wartime inflation – ed.) prices, San Diego fishermen this year will receive: $325 per ton for albacore; $200 for yellowfin, $180 for skipjack; $145 for yellowtail, $155 for bonita, $190 for bluefin tuna, and $22 per ton for sardines.(equivalent to $5,730, $3,526, $3,174, $2,556, $2,733, $3,350, and $388 [respectively] today – ed.)”
(*Source: San Diego UNION & Daily Bee newspaper – Sunday, April 2, 1944 – Pg. 31)