In Massachusetts: On the Beach

The sun is high, the weather clear and, according to the National Weather Service, likely to stay that way for several days. Salvatore "Sam" Favaloro, 60, should be out at Georges Bank, some 160 nautical miles from his home port of Gloucester, Mass., fishing for cod and haddock in his 70-ft. trawler Cara Lyn. Instead, he is tied up at a dock in Gloucester's inner harbor, worrying about how he is going to pay for the parts he needs for Cara Lyn's engine.

Ed Boynton, 37, should be out working too. But he is perched in the wheelhouse of his 50-ft. Sissel B, entertaining his six-year-old son Lars. Sam LoGrasso's boat, the 71-ft. Italia, sits at its dock while he, just as idle, soaks up the warm summer sun outside the St. Peter's Club.

More than 30 Gloucester skippers and their crews have been unable to work since early July. Dozens more, perhaps as much as a third of Gloucester's 160-boat commercial fishing fleet, once one of the nation's primary providers of fresh fish, could find themselves idle before summer gives way to fall.

Gloucester's men have been suffering for years as declining stocks and stringent regulations have cut down on their catches. But the fishermen who are staying in port these days are doing so because they cannot get or afford insurance for their boats and because, in most cases, they cannot sail without it. "I don't know what to do," says Favaloro, spreading huge hands scarred by a lifetime of handling nets and lines, and relating how the cost of his insurance has doubled since 1981. "Either I borrow on my house to buy insurance or I leave my boat at the dock and lose both my boat and my house. It's a gamble, and either way I lose."

Leonardo Taormina, 42, has been told that he must pay $52,000 for the same coverage he could barely afford last year at $22,000. "There's no way I can pay that and make money," he says. Because the price of fish is based on auction prices at the Boston Fish Pier, he explains, fishermen cannot simply raise their prices to pass along increased costs. Nor can Mark Godfried, 49, meet the cost of coverage for his 50-ft. Stella G. After spending more than $20,000 converting the craft from a side trawler to a more efficient stern trawler, he was told that his premiums were rising by 70%. "That just put me on the beach," he said. Godfried bought a port-risk policy, which covers his boat only as long as it remains tied to a dock, and took a job ashore.

Some Gloucestermen bitterly blame their plight on the insurance companies, whom they perceive as greedy and heartless. But many concede that the premium jumps are justified. "In a way," says Joseph Giacalone, 52, whose 74-ft. St. Peter, built in 1927, is one of the oldest boats in the fleet, "I guess you could say that the fishermen, or at least some of them, brought this on themselves."