. Coast watch. Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology. "I can insure all the men in my fish house for what it costs me to insure one man on a fishing boat," says WilHam Smith of Luther Smith and Son Fish House in Atlantic. Smith and his father own a fish house and five boats. He's paying $2,900 per crew member for P&I insurance, and his boats carry five- and six-man crews. It's a cost Smith's business must absorb. "There's no way to pass the expense along to the middle man or the consumer," he says. Moon Tillett of Moon Tillett Fish Co.
. Coast watch. Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology. "I can insure all the men in my fish house for what it costs me to insure one man on a fishing boat," says WilHam Smith of Luther Smith and Son Fish House in Atlantic. Smith and his father own a fish house and five boats. He's paying $2,900 per crew member for P&I insurance, and his boats carry five- and six-man crews. It's a cost Smith's business must absorb. "There's no way to pass the expense along to the middle man or the consumer," he says. Moon Tillett of Moon Tillett Fish Co. in Wanchese agrees. "Everything we make goes back into the busi- ness," he says. "There's nothing left at the end these ; To reduce the possibility of lawsuits, Tillett and Smith are more careful about the men they hire to work on their boats. "I don't think about hiring people who have an injury history or who have sued before," Smith says. And to reduce the risk of injury to his mate, Lewis keeps his boat in good condition and handles dangerous equipment himself. "I only allow my mate to cull," he says. Despite precautions, fishermen get only slight reductions in premiums for good safety records, Smith says. "All of my men carry survival suits, and I have a life raft aboard every boat," he says. "But I get very little credit for those ; Clinton Willis, president of the Carteret County Waterman's Association, is even more negative: "Insurance companies don't want to write insurance for vessels no matter how safe they are or what we do to make them ; Fishermen also complain that insurers take a national approach to the fishing industry. They say there is no breakdown for regional differ- ences and types of fishing. They claim that North Carolina crew members tend to be more knowledgeable about fishing, less accident prone and less likely to sue than their counterparts in other regions. &quo
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookcollectionunclibra, booksubjectoceanography
