Francis Meyrick

Chapter 2 -B Your Job Offer: PAY? HOW MUCH and WHEN?
(Will you be an employee or a sub-contractor?)

There are two different pay structures: 1) straight salary, and 2) pay per tonnage caught.
Or a combination of both.

1) Straight salary is exactly that: $3,500 per month. Or $7,000 per month.
If the ship breaks down: sad, but not really your problem. If the captain can’t fish to save his life, oh well, too bad, it doesn’t affect you.
2) Tonnage. This is usually combined with some basic pay. You might be offered, say, $4 per ton caught, or $8 per ton, plus basic pay.

Personally, given a choice, I’d go for straight salary every time. You know exactly where you stand. Tonnage is fraught with problems. In the old days, the eighties, tonnage was great. Catches were more plentiful, there were fewer ships, and helicopter pilots on tonnage could make a bomb. These days, it’s not so good. More ships, keen competition, reduced profit margins… Just not so good.
If you have a choice, go for straight salary. A pilot or mechanic in US Dollars in as far back as 1995 to 1997 was making $3,500 to $4,000 per month. The lowest in those days I heard was $3,000. Highest was $5,000. There was not a lot of variation across the board for pilots and mechanics. If anything, pilots were and are quite a bit easier to find than mechanics. Sorry, pilots, but it takes a lot longer to train a decent helicopter mechanic than it does to train a driver!
I always sorted the incoming mail into two piles: pilot resumes and mechanic resumes. The first was often a stack. The second pile was never a stack, and often enough consisted of one miserable letter. I soon learned to really appreciate experienced mechanics.
The situation was rather more varied for dual rated pilot-mechanics. As of January 1997, tops I knew of was $7,000 to $7,500 per month. Steve Hoffman paid his pilots the best. With a generous bonus if you stayed a year. One pilot-mechanic I knew was making $8,500 per month! And his machines were flawless. I understand Hansen Helicopters still work a bonus system as well.

Today, July 2009, when I look at various bulletin boards and websites, I’m rather surprised.
It seems to me the money has not changed. Despite inflation. Indeed, the pilot-mechanic pay appears to have gone down.
I see $5,600 per month being offered.
This trend probably reflects diminished profits. Or more competition for the available jobs?

Note that ‘cabin-fever’ has had a result that many of the captains much prefer having a pilot-mechanic. If you have two guys sharing a cabin on a foreign boat, for long months, and they just don’t get along, you can imagine the tension. Occasionally, this boils over into heated arguments, even the occasional fist fight…. Captains know this, and hence often will prefer a pilot-mechanic. This arrangement will also save one airfare. One hotel bill, etc.

I have never worked for tonnage. It follows that I am probably biased, and you should bear that fact in mind as I struggle to give you an accurate presentation below!
Problems:
1. What happens if the ship fails to catch fish through no fault of the helicopter crew? Maybe something breaks down. Then what? You earn little or nothing? Is that fair? You’re still sitting out on the Big Pond scratching your… chin.
2. There often tends to be a delay in payment, whilst the tonnage is being ‘calculated’. Mostly, it seems to many, pure nonsense. Just an excuse to delay payment, maybe by several months.
3. If I have heard it once, I’ve heard it a dozen times: angry crews who discover much less in their pay packet than expected. Why? Because of so-called “Undersize Fish “…. Needless to say, this is only discovered many months later, when it gets hard to do much about it.
4. What really annoyed me a few times was this: the companies who make you a complex offer of salary plus tonnage, and then, when you politely say “Thanks but no thanks! “, they change the offer to straight salary!
This is exactly what happened to me. It was an American ship. I declined both offers. The impression I got was that when you have NO tuna flying experience, it’s real hard to get taken seriously. Once you are experienced, however, especially after a year at sea, then you went straight to the top of the list. Now they want to hire you, because you are much less of an unknown, much less of a liability. But first they will make you a dubious offer and see if you will take it! Like I said, I didn’t like them, and declined both offers. Many months later I visited a pilot on one of their ships. What an eye opener that was! The disgruntled pilot told me he was on ‘basic plus tonnage’, and not doing very well. (That was the offer I had refused!) What had subsequently really annoyed him was that he had discovered that other pilots working for the same company, on other boats, were being paid straight salary! That is simply not fair. That smacks of trying to pull the wool over a guy’s eyes. If you are mug enough to take a lousy deal, well, they’ll give you one! Real nice.
5. Some of these guys appeal straight to your greed. “Tonnage is great! It’s the way all our guys go! If the ship catches a thousand tons a month, you can earn x billion zillion dollars…..etc, etc. “
Bull. Manure. The only answer is: “Yes, and if we catch a mermaid I’ll marry her and go make lots of little mermaids. “

The most a ship I was on on ever made in one single month was 1250 tons. That was part of a really good year on the Hsieh Feng 707, during which we averaged 700 tons per month. Today, that is good going. More ships, less fish.
I have seen ships take three months to fill up. Nice, big, modern ships. That’s maybe 250 tons per month.
So if anybody starts giving you the 1,000 tons per month story, just laugh.
Don’t get me wrong. There may well be still some good ‘basic plus tonnage deals’ out there, and I’m not saying that everybody who offers you ‘basic plus tonnage’ is a lousy, stinking crook.
But… too many variables. I would suggest ‘forget it’ unless you are really desperate for work.Shop around. If you already have tuna flying and maintenance experience, you should have no problem finding work for straight salary.
If you are an experienced mechanic, boy!, there should be lots of openings.

As for the question “when’. When do you get paid. Promptly monthly please! Check it! Get your girlfriend or wife or mistress or mother to fax you or email if it’s overdue. You need to know. You need to be asking for it.
Perfectly respectable and honest companies can have cash flow problems.That’s okay. But tell me! Explain to me beforehand that my money will be two weeks late. That’s okay. But rest assured that i will start screaming merry hell otherwise!
Going back to the example I quoted above. My unhappy friend on ‘basic plus tonnage’ had already discovered that his pay was much later than that of the other pilots who were on straight pay! Surprise, surprise.

Remember how lucky you are when you find a decent employer who treats you well. Your only response is to work as hard as you can to satisfy the customer. Invariably that may mean putting up with some creature discomfort, and swallowing some ‘guff’. But for the money you can earn, maybe tax-free…
I’ve said it before: Love your boss! Baby that helicopter! Be nice to the captain!

One argument you might come across goes like this. They will tell you that you are not an employee, but a sub contractor. And that therefore you cannot be expected to be paid straight away, because in the real world, subcontractors everywhere are always waiting for their money! There is some truth in that, but I would answer that that is all fine and dandy, but I need my money. And I’m not staying if it’s going to be slow!

Finally, be sure you ask about trips home. Who pays the round trip airfare! Do you have to work a minimum time period? Not everybody automatically picks up the tab. If you get laid off after a few months, what will happen then?
How often will they let you go home? I liked to think of a minimum of six months out on the boat in one go, followed by three months off without pay. But that has stretched to nine months on the boat.
On one occasion, I was out straight for one year.
I met one pilot, working off an American boat out of Samoa, who worked a trip, maybe four to six weeks, and then got an airfare home. It sounded great, he said, but by the time he had recovered from the jet lag, mowed the lawn and paid the bills, it was time to urn around and fly back to the ship! He didn’t sound too impressed with his lot in life.
Personally, at the time I liked a minimum of six months on. After that, I worked a month at a time, until I got fed up and decided I needed a holiday. I don’t think employers are going to like it much if you stay less than six months. They don’t like the turnover. There is one exception to this: if you can find a good friend to team up with, and relieve each other. As long as you both hit it off with the captain!! In that manner, you could each work three or four months, and then take off the same amount of time. Not a bad life style.
I have also worked 28 days on and 28 days off, flying in Africa. That was fun for two years. Of course, by the time you fly from the USA over there, and back, you are actually working 31 days on for 25 off. Here in the Gulf of Mexico, in Oil and Gas, most people work 7 days on and 7 days off, or 14 days on and 14 days off.
To work tuna boats and do six months on and three months off falls into the peculiar (wonderful!) life style of the commercial helicopter pilot.

We are the modern equivalent of the ancient Nomads…

Francis Meyrick
(c)

Last edited by Francis Meyrick on September 14, 2009, 11:20 am

Moggy’s Tuna Manual Ch.3-A Landing Video discussions

There are some great tuna helicopter videos around, and I’m hoping people will send me many more links and photos, so I can include them here. For the purpose of discussion, a few things:

1) remember that the video often doesn’t tell us the whole story about the direction of the wind, and its strength. We therefore don’t quite know what our friendly pilot was exactly dealing with.

2) in describing the source direction of the ‘Ocean Wind’, we are using the clock code.
Twelve o’clock: the wind is coming from directly ahead of the ship
Six o’clock; the wind is coming from directly behind the ship
Nine o’clock: the wind is coming from the left (port side)
Three o’clock: the wind is coming from the right (starboard side)

3) in describing the direction of the relative air flow (forward speed of ship plus Ocean Wind married together) we use the same clock code.

4) It gets a little complicated, because although the Ocean Wind is pretty much a constant at your time of landing, the Relative Airflow changes all the time. (depending on speed of ship and heading)

5) Again, I don’t want any new tuna pilot to accept everything I say.
Far from it. This is all about you becoming aware of the issues and considerations, and then making up your own mind.
I have been in enough bar room sessions, to know that what is ‘obvious’ to one pilot, is a load of absolute codswallop to the next guy.
So just make up your own mind, and don’t… mind me.

VIDEOS I LIKE:

VIDEO 3-A/001 Hughes 500 landing on a calm blue sea with ship moving forward
(Jacko757)

What I like about this is the way he doesn’t pussyfoot about crossing the deck edge. His DECT is absolutely a minimum. Compare that with video #6. I like this. A nice, smooth, descending approach. I bet he had plenty of power in reserve. Slightly odd little right turn there, nothing serious. High marks.

Video 3-A/002 “R44 aterrizando en barco atunero despues de lance. ”

Nice high approach, keeps right on coming, swinging nice and wide from well off the starboard side (not hugging the ship), no pussyfooting about, coming on down, you sense a low power setting. Knows what he’s doing. High marks.

Video 3-A/003 R-22 “Aterrizaje en un barco atunero “

Complete with TWO sets of Holy Rosaries hanging from the compass. This dude came prepared, and isn’t taking any chances.
In an R-22, power management is even more critical. I like this. He gets on with the approach, you get a sense that it was smooth and in balance. No hesitation. Knows what he’s going for. Minimum DECT.
Maybe I would have swung out wider from the ship a little (not so close) and maybe I’d have come in a tad higher. But high marks.

VIDEOS I HAVE RESERVATIONS ABOUT:

Video 3-A/031 Hughes 500 landing from PORT SIDE and doing a fast pirouette

Most landings on tuna boats take place from the starboard side, like video #1 and #2 above. My guess would be 90% of all tuna landings.
But coming in from the port side is at times a good way to do it.
Notice the ship is making a set. I don’t know the wind state, but I’m just guessing he came in from the port side because the wind favored that approach. No, he’s not showing off doing that fast little pirouette over the deck. He’s minimizing the HOGE time that he’s got to spend half over and half off the deck. In case of engine failure. Again, the ship is not moving, so the Ocean Wind and the Relative Airflow are one and the same. If the ship WAS moving forward, then an adverse Ocean Wind from three or four o’clock would start being offset by the helpful wind component generated by the forward movement of the ship. Most of us are not too keen about coming in this way when the ship is moving at speed.
It’s usually not necessary either. Note also, although it’s a calm sea, that there is already a slope on the deck. Imagine a heavy catch plus a choppy sea plus a strong crosswind… that’s when you’ll really see some interesting slopes. Beautiful control. Lovely to watch.
Would I fly like that? No, not really. I’ve done the same thing at times, but I’m not really comfortable with such an enthusiastic approach. I’m much more conservative. My instinct is slower, more gentle, more calm. I’d probably still come in from the starboard side, very cautiously, and end up with a ‘skiing down the mountain’ landing. What he is doing looks like a barrel full of fun, and there is ample evidence of great dexterity and skill. But I would worry that I’d be very poorly placed in the event of some kind of failure. That fast approach, rapid turn, ‘half hovering’ over the helideck whilst turning… not quite my cup of tea.
But a lot of guys would disagree with me!

Video 3-A/032 Hughes 500 landing with a bunch of Koreans milling about on the helideck

I guess they were making some final adjustment. I like this video because it does obviously show a prolonged HOGE due to the helideck being obstructed. He’s well in the ‘avoid area’. He knew it, he was just trying to get them to move. Note the abrupt left (power) pedal input. On that day, it looked real nice weather, and it did no harm. However, if the ship was doing 16 knots into a 20 knot wind, the unthinking application of left pedal (combined with a slow, HOGE approach) can abruptly get you into a world of hurt. We talk about this at length in Ch.3-B. Even just carrying too much left pedal as you slow down and enter HOGE in those circumstances can cause your tail to suddenly kick left. If you were just crossing the edge of a small deck, with a load of aerials and steel tubing waiting for you… (ouch)

VIDEOS I DON’T LIKE:

Video 3-A/071 “Hughes 500 landing on a tuna boat outside of Guam ” (guamwalker)
Check out the HOGE, high power setting, low approach, close in to ship, protracted DECT, and the borderline brutal left pedal ‘kick’ on the dogleg; a risky habit indeed, which, if unchecked, can get a pilot into big trouble.

Video 3-A/072

(guamwalker)

Same pilot as in 3-A/007 I’m thinking. Now you get to see that brutal left pedal kick from inside the cockpit. Classic example of everything what-not-to-do. If he worked for me, we would be having a serious talk.

Any more videos, anybody?

Francis Meyrick

Last edited by Francis Meyrick on September 21, 2009, 9:29 pm

Landing on the Chi Tai 866, 30th January 1998

PART 3 “Moggy’s Tuna Manual ” “Handling your helicopter “

Chapter 3-B Wind, waves, and wild decks

Few things can compare
with this crazy dare;
if you crave the ultimate trip
go land, my friend, on a ship,
on a wild and stormy deck
rolling around like heck.

Now that we have talked about ‘LDP’, and the ‘relative wind’ and now that we have suggested that ‘sliding down from the sky’ (300 to 500 feet per minute rate of descent) with a relatively low power setting is better than ‘high hovering out of ground effect, horizontally with a lot of power’ , let’s slowly build up the picture for you of some very common tuna helicopter accident scenarios.
I’m betting at this stage that some experienced tuna helicopter pilots reading this, already know exactly where I’m going with this. Some of these guys, whose participation in this discussion I really welcome, would be just as able to write this chapter as I am…! These guys, like myself, have probably seen this type of accident occur. For the new tuna pilot, and especially the 200 hour new guy, I will try to the best of my abilities to spell it all out slowly.

Okay, the effect of wind. Any pilot will welcome some sort of headwind component as he comes in for landing. The stronger the headwind on final approach, the closer your LDP will be -horizontally- to the helideck. A nice strong wind will please an experienced Bell 47 or Robinson Rotorhead. He can keep translational lift nearly all the way down, so his reserves go up! Anyway,it’s fun.
A nice strong wind that pleases the experienced ‘Tunahead’ helicopter pilot may not please a nervous newcomer, a “anchovy head “, because the strong wind will almost certainly whip up some merry waves. Now the deck is pitching, rolling and maybe heaving fifteen or twenty feet up and down, all at the same time. (If these terms confuse you, just think of an airplane; the nose (bow) of the ship pitches up and down, and the ship rolls from side to side. ‘Heave’ is when the whole ship, not just the bow, rides up on the swell. It is often associated with quite a pronounced,juddering ‘smack‘ as the ship rides down, and an impressive bow wave plus a lot of spray.

Now. Helicopter accidents are often not the result of a situation you have never been in before. Helicopter accidents are often the result of ending up in a situation in which you have been hundreds and hundreds of times before. Without a problem. Then, along comes a very small difference. If you fail to recognize that subtle difference, that concealed threat, that is when you can get hurt. Remember the accident/safety poster I talked about?

“Been there, done that,
Been there, done that
Been there…. (yawn, bored)
Been there……………OOPS!! “

STAGE ONE:
When you first start out, you tend to approach a pitching,rolling, heaving helideck SLOWER than normal, and SHALLOWER than normal. It’s understandable. This means you are pulling more power, you’ve got less in reserve, you’re less well placed to cope with problems. You’ve got less ‘spare height’ (height in reserve) to deal with engine failures, or go arounds. Agreed? You are entitled to disagree!
(If you do disagree, then you will disagree with the next section as well)

STAGE TWO:
This slower, more shallow, more cautious approach may be no bad thing in a way, but after you have built up some confidence, I suggest you will discover that a pitching, rolling, heaving helideck (even with impressive bow waves and lots of spray blowing around) after a while… doesn’t make a whole lot of difference! Your confidence is building, and that’s good, but a hidden gremlin is still waiting for you.
I have really tried to study what I do instinctively now. My approach angle is just as steep. I have a positive rate of descent. (I’m not high hovering out of ground effect with a lot of power). I come down quite rapidly and positively, no messing about, and at the very last stage I maybe pull in a little more power, and cross the deck edge of the helideck a little slower and more cautiously, but that’s about it! My rotordisc/deck edge overlap time (DECT) is maybe a little bit longer, but ‘not a lot’. The actual touchdown is quite positive, no messing about, no attempt at a ‘featherlight’ touchdown.
It’s more along the lines of:
(assuming you have an appointed deck helper, which you should!)
Bonk! We’re down. Bellyhook please! Thank you. Tiedowns please!
(Note that if the captain will NOT give you a dedicated deck helper, who leaves the net -or whatever he is doing- the moment you appear in the sky, then you must drastically curtail the weather and wind conditions you fly in. I always had a deck helper.)
(the belly hook is just what it says: your helideck helper quickly attaches a line to your bellyhook, then runs back to a manual winch. He winds that in -quickly- and now you are safely attached -still turning and burning- to the ship) (see Note 1)
It may sound odd, but you get kind of blase about a ‘wild deck’. By the time you’ve done it a few hundred times…
Hey! No big deal…

“Been there, done that,
Been there, done that
Been there…. (yawn, bored)
Been there……………OOPS!! “

It’s understandable that you start feeling like an expert. A pro. As long as you make a good touchdown, even if the deck is rolling quite crazily, and even if you go from looking down into the waves and then up into the sky, although one is ‘alert’ it ends up not being the ‘heart in mouth’ experience it was when you first started out. Right?
Hey! No big deal…

Usually there is a net or a coiled rope to land on. I wouldn’t like to land on wet steel. That gets very slippery.
You very rarely slide on a net. It has happened to me, both before the belly hook was attached, and just afterwards (before the tiedowns were attached) and such a slide gets your attention.
I keep everything spinning at full rpm, even after the bellyhook is attached. Before the four tie-downs are attached.
The reason for that is this: If necessary, I could still punch the bellyhook release on the cyclic, and lift straight off. I’ve never had to. Close, but never. I keep a close eye on my helideck helper, and the moment the first of the four tie-down is attached, THEN I roll the throttle back. Only then. Once that first tie-down is attached (in addition to the belly hook) as far as I’m concerned, I’m down for the duration! If the machine was to really slide badly with only one tie-down attached (plus the bellyhook)… well, I’d yell like hell for the other three tie-downs! Again, it’s never happened to me.

It may sound odd to the pilot who has never flown off a boat: how can a pilot be perfectly relaxed and happy, when he is rocking back and forwards, blades still turning…? You get used to it! Not a big problem. You think…

“Been there, done that,
Been there, done that
Been there…. (yawn, bored)
Been there……………OOPS!! “

You do have a lot riding on that belly hook. That may be the only thing holding you from sliding at those extreme angles.
How much will the deck roll? With a load of fish hanging off the port side, you will be very, very impressed. Sometimes you will see an inclinometer on the bridge, or a device that measures the roll rate. How far will it go? It depends on a variety of things, such as:
* design of the keel (faster ships, narrow keel, more unstable side-to-side)
* weight of the fish in the net
* recovery stage of the net (how close is that tonnage to the center of gravity of the ship)
* sea state (a ship at rest hauling in the net will usually drift across the waves, making things worse)

Eighteen degrees, twenty degrees, more…..
It WILL get your attention.

A great photo of a sloping deck by Philip Bell

Helideck helpers always seem to start fiddling about with something inconsequential, instead of getting on with the important job of attaching the tie-downs, when the weather is at its worst. It gets to be really annoying when you realize that the helicopter is sliding, or straining hard against the taut belly line, and that mister deck helper ‘rotorfodder’ has his back to the helicopter and is just taking his time, fiddling about. That is when you might be tempted to take a lungful of air and let rip.
“GET MY F…ING TIE-DOWNS ON…!!! “
If a belly hook or a belly line should fail…. I’ve heard thirdhand stories of this happening, and that must be really interesting. Mercifully it is a rare occurrence.
Don’t think that every time you land on a ship, that the deck will roll that much. You may do several hundred landings, and not encounter anything too bad. That’s when you start thinking:
Hey! No big deal…

But rest assured, ONE DAY… sooner or later, you WILL arrive back with twenty minutes fuel, and see the worst of all those factors described above, working in unison, to really rock and roll that helideck.
It might not happen for months and months, but sooner or later, you WILL ‘land and slide’. You need to be able to NOT be surprised when you touch down, slide, and need to lift off again. Keep the cyclic vertical (relative to the deck), pull collective, and get out of there. More than anything else, don’t be surprised. Accept it. You are now slithering across the deck, even with collective full down, and it doesn’t look like you are going to stop. This is NOT the time to pause for a reflective moment, smoke a Hamlet cigar, finish your sandwich… just LIFT OFF (cyclic vertical to helideck initially, followed by slight forward cyclic input), and GO AROUND.
Once you have done it once for real, you will know it’s no big deal. But he who hesitates…is lost.
Now we have warned you in detail about one common tuna helicopter accident scenario…

This is a good time to caution you about what has also happened to many, many tuna pilots.
It’s happened to me. It’s annoying as hell, but it’s part of being a tuna helicopter pilot. Think about it beforehand, be prepared to react to it. Again, it’s not a time to smoke a cigar or finish your sandwich…
In my case, the time I remember best was when I was landing to pick up my captain, who was visiting another ship.
He was gambling again, losing all his money.
I always do a fly-by. I want to make sure they know I’m there, and about to land. I did on this occasion. I might as well not have bothered. I had just touched down, I had just rolled the throttle back to ground idle, (big mistake) and the moron below at the helm (probably the third mate’s assistant) spotted tuna off the port bow. Fully pre-occupied with that, and that alone, they hauled around. I mean, they hauled around. I immediately slid -violently- across the deck. Towards an obstruction.
The port navigation light if I remember.
It was a case of just violently whacking the throttle open. It’s a horrible sound, as tortured couplings scream in protest.
I’ve seen it described as a ‘snarling snatch‘, which seems a good description. The abrupt torque application does not do your drive train any good at all. But nor does crashing. You just have to lift off as best you can, as quickly as you can.
It’s rare, but it happens. You can swear and yell, but when people are tired, up early, and totally obsessed with catching fish… don’t be surprised what they will do.

Some helidecks and some helicopters are not equipped for belly hooks. The hook on the helicopter, and the cockpit controlled release mechanism costs a good few thousand dollars. This is too much apparently for some helicopter companies! If I was faced with a ‘no belly hook installed’ situation, this would radically affect my willingness to fly in certain sea states. I mean, it’s one thing to study a wildly rolling deck, time it, slap her down, and have a well trained deck helper dart out and attach a belly cable. Within a few seconds, ten perhaps, (once the helper has attached the hook, run back, and wound in the cable) you are reasonably securely fastened to the deck.
The worst risk period only lasts those ten seconds. Compare that with NO belly hook. Well, now you’re dependent on the deck helper attaching the four tie down straps. It takes longer. And you can seriously roll around with only one or two straps attached. So the window during which you can get caught by a serious rolling motion of the ship, is extended.
What, no belly hook and no deck helper at all? That’s totally insane. Are you going to do a two minute cool down? I hope so. Or you are going to coke your turbine blades. So you are going to wait for two minutes, totally unsecured, rocking and rolling, and then calmly climb out and go fetch your tie-downs? In a situation where the ship has fish in the net and is close to bringing them on deck? Are you going to finish that frickin’ sandwich first as well???
You are nuts. Or your captain is. To hell with that. I would have that situation changed in a hurry, or only fly in real calm weather, or walk the walk…

Bar talk is good for helicopter pilots. It gets you thinking. You will make up your own mind. I don’t want you to accept everything I say. But I’m hoping you will find it helpful to recognize the issues before they come hurtling at you, one after the other. Now, you will hear guys who have totally different views on how to approach a wild deck. They talk about coming alongside, studying the deck, and then sliding horizontally over onto it.
Sure, you study what the deck is doing. But that takes a few seconds, not twenty or thirty. Sure, you try and hit it right, and not when it’s rolled over at an extreme angle. But I really don’t think the approach considerations are radically different from what we talked about before! With a wild and rugged sea… why extend your time in the ‘avoid area’ of your height velocity diagram, hovering HOGE alongside ‘studying’ the deck? I would say ‘get on with it!’.
The landing is more critical. You must be positive. Don’t pussyfoot about. Get it on. Forget about style and finesse! And certainly: don’t start trying to do an extended hover! You will be asking for the deck to rear up and smack you on one side of the floats, or even come awfully close to the rotor disc.
That’s what I think anyway. Roll on the discussion. I welcome opposing viewpoints!

A heaving deck is worth respecting. The story goes that during the Falklands War, when Britain and Argentina were going at it over some cold, wind blown, rocky islands in the South Atlantic, that a British Royal Navy Sea King helicopter, loaded up with commando troops, lifted off an aircraft carrier. That’s an awfully big, heavy helicopter, coming off an awfully big, heavy boat. Right? It was a rough sea. So rough in fact, that the aircraft carrier was lifted up faster than the helicopter was ascending. It punched the Sea King right out of the sky, over the side into the drink. Everybody on board was killed. You will see my point. What is your little flying bubble going to do if it gets clobbered by your boat ? And how stable is that old tub of a fishing boat going to be? If a bloody big aircraft carrier can surprise two helicopter pilots, you sure as anything could -if you’re not paying attention- get surprised by your cute little purse seiner toy.

Notice the ‘bullet nose’ just visible under water

If you study your purse seiner, you will see many of them have a ‘bullet nose’ which is normally well under water. It’s part of the design for streamlining the hull under water. By the time the ‘bullet nose’ is rising clear up off the sea, and you can distinctly see daylight under it…and then it crashes down, sending white spray all over the decks…. that’s heave!
But don’t let it intimidate you. Once in a while, the ship really lunges up at you. But the effect is just like a sudden excessive rate of descent. Your reaction is the same. Up collective! So in practice, my mind isn’t distinguishing between what I am doing and what the ship is doing. I don’t think: “Oh my gosh, the ship is rearing up, now what shall I do? “
You just decide you don’t like the rate at which the deck is coming up to meet you, and you do something about it.
Simple thought process!

A new pilot here in the Gulf of Mexico came up to me with a question about landing on a ship.
He had not had a good experience that morning with two successive boat landings, and he was due to do head back again for another go. From our conversation, it was immediately obvious that he was uncomfortable. It was also apparent that he was studying the waves and the horizon, and then interpreting from that what the deck of the ship was doing relative to the horizontal. Hmmmm….. I told him to try a different technique:
“To hell with the waves and to hell with the horizon; just concentrate on the deck. If you don’t like the rate of descent, do something about it. “
Later that day he was back, beaming. All pleased with himself.
“That worked! “, he said.
This may not work for everybody, but I suspect it is possible to make things way too complicated, and to end up looking everywhere, instead of concentrating on…. the deck.

There is always going to be, sooner or later, that ‘coming out event’ in any tuna pilot’s life.
When you experience something that will provide you with endless bar stories. And an insight into a whole new world.
Hopefully,you will have a hundred or so routine, hum drum, ordinary boat landings behind you first. No big deal.
But when a purse seiner has its nets full, and they are just beginning to bring the catch on board, it will want to list to port quite spectacularly. Now you are looking for various factors to combine, to give you a thrrrrrrill.

* tonnage of fish in the net; the more the worse the roll; imagine 200 ton hanging off the side of a 1100 ton boat!
* how close are they to just about to bring the fish on board?
* design of the keel; fast boats have narrow keels, and more roll
* strength and direction of wind
* wave state
* speed and power of the winches
* design of the ship above the water line; Center of Gravity, arrangement of power block

The ship may roll back and forth, and this may really impress you. The ship will also likely end up across the waves. I’ve seen that happen many times. The helideck may go from nearly level to 20 or 25 degrees of roll. Here is another neat place where you must not try and hover! I have heard of guys getting a kick in the but as the ship rose up and swiped the rear of their floats, whilst the front of the floats were still four to six feet off the deck. What is your biggest worry in that situation? Tail rotor strike! I’ve heard many third hand stories of crashes due to this, but I would welcome some first hand corroboration.
The funny thing is, that with practice, these ‘slope landings on a rolling deck’ become lots and lots of fun.
There is nothing the ‘landlubbers’ can boast about that compares with this!
(except perhaps a high speed helicopter law enforcement pursuit!)

Some people talk about ‘ski-ing down the mountain’. (It’s actually more like ‘slithering very carefully down the mountain’, in order to prevent setting yourself up for a roll-over accident. But the word ‘ski-ing’ does convey the general idea very well) (you will hear it alleged that this term was dreamed up by some dozy Irishman, but I officially deny all knowledge)
What they mean by that is that they are not trying to touch down in the middle of the helideck. That would involve a slope landing with a difference: the slope is moving, undulating, and doing so in an erratic and unpredictable fashion!
What they do is that they land “on top of the mountain “, the deck edge on the approach side, (starboard, right hand side – mostly, not always) with the floats just on the deck, and the tail rotor stuck safely out over the Ocean. Then they calmly wait until the boat rolls to its steepest, and simply ‘ski’ down the mountain. (read: “slither very carefully “) It works really well. You can wiggle the pedals as well. The only problem is that sometimes you ski a bit fast, and then you can’t stop, even with collective full down. The collective in this situation almost works like the gas pedal in your car. If you lighten the load on the skids by raising collective, you will ‘ski’ (slither) faster. And the other way around. Usually there is no more than a six inch ledge around the helideck, so it’s quite easy to clear. Plenty of collective, ready with the ‘power pedal’, cyclic vertical for the initial lift-off, and then plenty of forward cyclic to keep the tail rotor away from the deck, and “Zip! ” off you go for another play! Sounds a little crazy, and people get excited about the subject. I watched one pilot beating the table with his fist and shouting that this was “impossible “.
No, it’s possible. Easy even, when you get used to it, and whole lot safer than wobbling about in the middle of the deck, trying to perform a ‘classic slope landing’ on a deck that’s rolling to 20 degrees or more. But, for sure, it’s a technique you must build up to very slowly and carefully. I cannot possibly over-emphasize the need to be super cautious. A Bell 47 float will pretty well bump over most (not all) deck protrusions, but a Hughes 500 SKID (different design) will NOT. Watch very carefully for anything that might possibly cause a roll-over. Again, if you want to start an argument in a bar, just bring up this technique. There will be guys who will say “Sure, I’ve done it. When the boat was really rolling like crazy. It’s okay as long as you are very careful. A lot safer than trying a slope landing… ” There will also be guys who will jump up and down, and tell you “it can’t be done “, or “it can’t be done safely “. “Don’t do it… “
I caution you to be super careful. But I would be amiss if I didn’t give you the heads up on this, and give you the chance to think about it.

A picture is worth a thousand words, and sooner or later somebody will send us a link to a YouTube video that shows this same exact thing.

Sometimes the deck will not ever roll level at all, but stays keeled over at a constantly changing angle.
Again, this is very disconcerting until you get used to it, and after that it’s glorious fun. You modify the ‘ski-ing down the mountain technique’ a little, that’s all. You land on the ‘pinnacle’, which is the approach side of the helideck, sticking up.
It’s the highest point of the helideck now. For a second or two you are balancing (perfectly under control) around a fulcrum on the very top of the pinnacle, with only a very small part of your floats making contact with the ship. Your tail rotor again is stuck happily out of the way over the water. Now you simply carefully lower (around the fulcrum) the front of your floats down so your floats are now parallel with the sloping deck. And ‘hey-ho!’, it’s ski-ing time again!
(read: slither very carefully down the mountain)
As long as you ‘think tail rotor’ and never haul back on the cyclic, you’re safe.
Pilots who’ve done ‘forty hour helicopter add-on’ ratings to their fixed wing Commercial License (a stupid system, says I), seem especially prone to hauling back on the cyclic at all sorts of inappropriate moments. (I speak from some interesting CFI experiences of mine…) Especially guys with taildragger time! Bad news on a tuna helideck! Kick that habit!

This is perhaps a good time to chuck in an anecdote from the Gulf of Mexico, to illustrate a point made above.
Remember where I was talking about the collective lever in some circumstances working almost like a gas pedal in your car? The more ‘up’ it is, the quicker you go, and vice versa? This at first glance puzzling statement is well worth re-visiting, especially for the new tuna pilot, the sprat ‘anchovyhead’. Remember, we are trying to get you to think things through for yourself, and to visualize situations developing, from the comfort of your armchair, before… the real, real thing.
I try hard to be approachable for the new guys. Many are intimidated by the hierarchy, Lead Pilots, Area Managers, Instructors… Some of these are very approachable and human. The odd one… Well, the nett result is that a new-hire pilot who makes a mistake, and gets away with it without actually breaking anything, will probably sooner or later be looking for a ‘Father Confessor’. It’s a very human reaction, especially when our young friend doesn’t quite understand what the friggin’ hell… actually happened. One such worthy did me the great compliment of choosing me, and I always feel both honored by the trust and very anxious to help. This young lad had frightened himself. It had happened on a platform here called “Vermillion 245 “, which is a mean, tight, badly obstructed helideck, about eighty miles out. He had been landing in winds gusting up to 38 knots or so, and well, the landing had not worked out. He said he slid sideways, and nearly hit solid steel with the tips of his rotorblades. I asked him as gently as I could how close he got. Our company requires thirteen feet of rotor clearance. (Ha! Don’t expect that on every tuna boat!) He looked awfully sheepish, and admitted it couldn’t have been more than three. Maybe less…
What was worse, in his mind, was that he couldn’t quite the hell understand what had happened. I told him he was doing the right thing, asking, and together we sat down to figure out what was going on. It took a little while, but what we came up with was this likely scenario, which has some ramifications for your tuna boat flying.
Firstly, he had been pre-occupied by the position of the fuel hose.
Coming in on a northerly heading (030 degrees or so), he would have known the fuel hose was on his left (awkward, for the refueling point on the Bell 206 is on the right).
Secondly, he was pre-occupied by all that steel stuff, on his left, rearing up at him, on a small (by Gulf standards) helideck.
And the next thing, he was sliding sideways, and scaring himself!
Experienced pilots will already be able to guess what probably happened:
1) pre-occupation with fuel hose: tendency to turn a little left towards it, to ‘make the refueling a little easier’.
2) pre-occupation with steel obstructions: tendency to turn a little left, to ‘see it better’.
3) But now the crosswind component is building up. We’re no longer perfectly into wind.
4) There are buildings to the north of the helideck. Risk of weird currents and vortices.
5) The result? A slide towards the left. The helicopter is being pushed towards the very obstructions he was worried about.
6) The key question: where was his collective? Up? Down? Half up?

On the last question, he thought about it for a while. The very fact that he needed to think, already told me the answer.
He eventually reckoned it was not all the way down. And that… will do it. Yep, you will slither, very easily.
You have GOT to get off the ‘gas pedal’. Whether you are slithering forwards or sideways, you still need the weight of the whole helicopter on the skids. He was happy, once we talked it through, and off he went a wiser pilot.
Now I know it’s SOOOO easy to snort at this, make judgmental comments, and generally complain that this is just ‘basic flying’. Listen, amigo: how many people get hurt -or even killed- by mistakes during ‘basic flying’? It’s easy to criticize, but it’s perfectly likely that he had never -ever- before encountered quite that particular set of circumstances. Very, very human.
On the tuna boats… you really want to be aware not only of the fact that the lever needs to be all the way down for you to stop slithering forwards or sideways. How-EVER… you ALSO need to be aware and NOT be taken all aback if you find yourself in a situation where the lever IS all the way down, and you are STILL sliding! That precise moment is a real bad time to have a brain short circuit, because you have never seen that situation, and never ever thought about it…

We’ve made the statement that ‘any pilot will welcome some sort of headwind component as he comes in for a landing’. I’d like to go through that a little more in detail. Usually there is a windsock on the very bow of the ship. Think of that as ‘twelve o’clock’. The helicopter parked on the helideck has got its nose parked towards ten-thirty o’clock, and its tail towards four-thirty o’clock. (looking down from God’s balcony) There are some weird exceptions to this.
Now. Coming down the latter stages of your final approach you are affected by an airflow which is the resultant of the forward speed of the ship and the prevailing wind. Right? Okay, you may well have some (or quite a bit) of right cyclic in, and be shushing along sideways as well as continuing your approach forwards and down. Now if that resultant airflow is coming from somewhere between ten o’clock and twelve o’clock, then you might be forgiven for thinking that such a relative airflow is ideal, right? Well, it is, up to a certain point! (more below…)
If the resultant is coming from, say, two o’clock, you need to start considering another possible problem. Basically, there will be a limit to the amount of ‘into wind’ ‘right cyclic’ you can apply. If you have a very strong resultant wind coming from your right (on final approach), you might run into a situation that will surprise you the first time. Remember the helideck often slopes slightlyup towards the bow of the ship. You can easily enough touch down right float first, with full right cyclic applied. So far, so good, you might think. But, as you lower collective, you are in effect also at the same time reducing the ‘effective’ tilt of the rotor disc into wind, or, if you like vectors, you are reducing your forward bow-facing thrust vector. If that makes sense.
CAUTION: The net result… can be a nasty ‘slither’ to the left, towards the back of the helideck, and towards the aerials and the radar/Immarsat dome! If you’re not expecting it, and you’ve never even thought it through beforehand, it can be frightening. If you hesitate with the lever neither up or down, you can really slither back. Usually, once the lever is up or down, the slide will stop. Usually. The problem of course is ‘what if it doesn’t’! In that case, you’re really misjudged the situation. You would not be the first tuna pilot to lift off again in a panic, your disc close to expensive aerials and radar domes, and inexpensive but terribly solid and unyielding steel!
Yes, I’m laboring the point. You will see now why I brought in that Gulf of Mexico anecdote about our friend on Vermillion 245… It’s an important concept, and has caused many, many accidents.

There have been cases of guys sliding rearwards, hitting the tips of their rotor blades, and still lifting off (in a panic) with their damaged blades. There have also been cases of guys electing to stay put on the deck, and they have slithered aft, demolished stuff in a shower of sparks, and just left it there! Your mechanic will not be pleased!

With experience, you will read the signs beforehand. I was flying along this morning, past the Losap Atoll near Truk (just thought I’d drop that one in, all nonchalant, y’ know), and I was trying to figure out what sort of damn lies I was going to tell you today. I noticed that it’s not just a case that there is more foam and spray on the waves that tips me off that the wind has picked up seriously. But what starts ringing alarm bells is when the foam really ‘hangs around’. What I mean by that is that the foam doesn’t get gobbled up by the next wave that comes along. It rides up and over the next wave, and sometimes it persists for a whole bunch of waves. Now I know the wind has really picked up! If the wind is that strong, and the direction of the relative airflow over the helideck IS two o’clock or so, then simply ask the ship to turn more fully into wind. Now the relative airflow, that resultant, is more like twelve o’clock, and you don’t need to carry all that into wind ‘right cyclic’.
You can also ask the ship to slow down. Half speed will do nicely. Too slow, and the ship seems to roll a lot more.

Two issues at this stage!
(i) Judging wind strength and direction
(ii) ‘asking the captain to change course for you’

(i) You will judge wind direction from the spray pattern. The spray and the foam are not blown forward by the wind as you might expect. It’s more a case that the wave moves forward in the direction of the wind, and the spray and the foam ‘fall over backwards’ on the wind side of the wave. This provides a strong indication as to where the wind is coming from. I note the direction of the directional gyro. Say ‘030’. Then, no matter how I twist and turn, a quick glance at the directional gyro reminds me of where the wind is coming from relative to my flight path. You should always be aware of the direction of the wind -like any helicopter pilot- and be aware that it can change! You will learn to judge wind strength remarkably accurately by the amount of foam and spray. There is just a certain ‘flow’ of foam and spray across the waves, and the way it ‘hangs around’ that warns you when things are getting really neat. Fun flying. Practice! Experience!

(ii) (Heck, I’ve had more arguments with pilots about this one…) There is nothing wrong with asking the ship to turn. Or asking the observer to ask the ship. Or, if your observer speaks English when he wants to, and not at all when he doesn’t, just point vigorously at the ship and make a turning movement with your hand! In the direction you want.
He knows…
The problem is… guys that have been out here a long time rarely can be bothered. You get that comfortable with your machine, you just tend to plonk it on and forget about it. Occasionally I will ask the ship to turn, but not very often. (they always do, by the way, without a grumble).
On starting the blades, I might ask the ship to turn or slow down, because I worry about a tailboom strike at very low rotor rpm. But it doesn’t happen very often that I feel the need to ask for this.
Now when I started out on the Tuna Fields, it was a whole different kettle of fish! I very often asked the ship to change course for me. Hell, I was nervous! Mostly they did, and occasionally they didn’t – at first. I would ask my observer to ask the ship to turn. He might be in a bad mood, and decided he didn’t understand. Okay… Then I would circle. And circle. And circle. And the fuel guge would go down. And down. And down. Until my observer suddenly remembered he could speak English again. “Why you no land? “
“I need ship to turn! Strong wind! Fong tai-tah! “
There would follow the Asiatic equivalent (I think) of “Move the friggin’ship! ” Problem solved… By the time I was no longer a “sprat fishhead “, I was much more confident. I’d usually just plonk her on.
What I was actually doing, not consciously, but just sensibly, was ‘flying to my limits’. The smart way, I reckon.
Now some guys come out to the Tuna Fields, and they seem to think (or, worse, are led to think by other pilots) that they are letting the side down if they ask the ship to turn. That it’s some kind of ‘admission of failure’. That ‘real Tuna heads’ never -ever- ask the ship to turn.
Poppycock. “Safety First “. If you think you’re getting in a bit deep…. head for the shallows a bit.

Every night at 19.00 hrs, or thereabouts, if there’s other helicopter purse seiners about, around here we listen in on the two meter frequency 144.475 MHz. Sometimes it’s nice to yap. Sometimes it’s nice just to listen. Sometimes you don’t even let on you’re there, and find yourself quietly creasing up all the time.
Thus there was a forty-five-ish helo driver up one night, who I shall call ‘Bill’. (Not his real name)
Bill was out on his first fishing trip, on a Bell 47G2. He was enjoying the microphone. He had been on a tuna boat about three days. Bill was kinda… well, he wasn’t unobtrusive, put it that way. He told everybody that wanted to listen, and even those who didn’t, how he had over ten thousand hours, and had flown everything from Chinooks and C-130’s on down. The more you listened to him, he knew everybody, was an authority on everything, and his acquaintances sounded like a roundup of all the leading lights of the helicopter industry. It sounded just a little bit… like that he was going to do us all a favor and show us how it’s done!
A while later, Bill went to bed, and his mechanic came up. At this stage, sitting up on the helideck in my machine, enjoying the night, and the distant -almost lost- lights of resting ships, I started laughing to myself. It wasn’t what he said. Rather, it was what he didn’t say. I shall call our mechanic Alan. Several people questioned him.
“Hey Alan! Sounds like quite a pilot you’ve got there! “
-Yeah.-
“Sounds like he’s seen some stuff, eh? “
-Yeah.-
“You don’t sound too happy, what’s up? “
-Don’t ask.-
“Uh-oh. Like that is it? “
-Yeah… it’s like that…-
Now I should mention I know Alan, and he is a really good wrench. He’s also got some five years of tuna experience. He’s seen lots and lots of pilots. There’s a man who can really, really help a newbie Tuna pilot.
If… the pilot asks, and listens.

The next morning… it was windy. It was real windy. Forty plus knots. Spray flying about the helideck. Long shuddering crashes reverberated through the whole ship, as she rode up and up on high waves, crashed back down again, struggled on up… and crashed back down again. The sea state was rough. BIG waves. My observer, an old hand, would not have flown if the captain had ordered him. And anyway, I wouldn’t have dreamed of flying. It’s virtually impossible to see fish or logs anyway when the sea is that wild.
As for Bill… you guessed it. He was flying! I was curled up comfortably in my cabin, reading a good book, so I sadly missed it all. Bummer. But I heard all about it afterward -in glorious technicolor- on our chat frequency 144.475.
Poor old Bill tried a tailwind approach, with forty knots up the chuff. He tried a whole bunch actually. He went around three times, fishtailing merrily, and lost rotor rpm so badly on one go around that one float kissed the wave tops. His mechanic had several heart failures, all on the same morning. Then Bill, when he finally slithered to a terrifying stop, got out and started shouting at the mechanic! The machine had ‘no power’ and the mechanic was obviously a completely incompetent moron!
I would love to know how many times good helicopter mechanics (a pilot’s best friend) have been accused of incompetence on the subject of Bell 47 engine power! It’s not a turbine… it’s not a Huey you’re flying. There’s enough power to do the job if you’re careful, sensible, and current. If you’re not current, or new to the game, just build up slowly.
It’s really not that difficult, and there’s no great mystery about flying helicopters off tuna boats!
Mostly, it’s just common sense.

Occasionally, you will hear stories from pilots who say that their captains will not turn the ship.
It’s difficult for me to comment, because I’ve never experienced utter non-cooperation. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, because a purse seiner is twisting and turning all day long! It’s not as if it’s some huge Ocean Liner heading for one place only, and nowhere else. But I wonder to what degree what is perceived (by pilots) as ‘utter non cooperation’, or, to put it another way, ‘sheer bloodymindedness’, is often just a lack of understanding, lack of communication, or a complete frustration and bewilderment with these weird and wacky pilots! I will leave it there for now, but I want to return to this important subject under ‘communication with the captain’.

I fly a lot of tuna approaches with a tailwind component (rather than have the ship turn), but I have built up to it slowly. I STILL have my limits, and there is a point beyond which I will not go. Turn the ship please!
I learned one lesson about tailwind approaches when I had only had a few hours on the Hughes 500, and I was fresh off six months and 350 hours of Bell 47 Tuna time. I did a tailwind approach to the deck, and ‘lost it’ just crossing the deck edge. The tail kicked out violently to the left, and I went around having frightened myself! It’s the only time that’s ever happened to me, and it reminded me of guys who have been flying a slow, gentle old Piper Cub, and then climb into a hot-rod Pitts Special. A Pitts is a lot ‘shorter coupled’ than a Cub (the rudder is much closer to the vertical axis), and it just requires a faster and more positive reaction on the pedals. In a similar way (I think) the Bell 47 has a much longer tail than a Hughes 500. I reckon you’ve got to be just that bit quicker on the pedals with a 500 on a tailwind approach.

Some guys… will pooh-pooh all this ( “tough guys “), and proudly state that they will approach the helideck with any strength tailwind. Don’t listen to them. On two occasions, after some of these heated bar flying sessions, I’ve later had guys come back and admit to me that they had afterwards ‘run out of left pedal’ (power pedal) and scared themselves! Now, all of a sudden, they realized what I was warning about! Oddly, there always seem to be the guys who want to come across as ‘tough’. Helicopter tuna boat landing problems are best dealt with calmly, and rationally, by thinking about the aerodynamic issues. The advice just to be “tough ” was handed out on a forum a while ago, and I see it drew a pretty furious reply from another tuna pilot. I see his point: your helicopter doesn’t respect you, no matter how tough you think you are. She just answers to your hands on the helm. Remember, remember, as you approach from the starboard side for landing, the aerials, the radar dome and all that other expensive stuff is on your left. So if you’re running out of left pedal, that means your tail rotor is heading for trouble!

This is the right time to refer you back to where, in Chapter 3-A, I said:

“You will also see another, very important reason later on, why we try and fly an approach with a low power setting, and why we try and avoid coming over the edge of the deck pulling a whole armpit full of collective. I shall come back to this mysterious reason later, which I shall technically call the “Oh Shit! Now what?! reason “.
That reason – which we shall go into in Chapter 3-B – is tied up with the problem of ‘relative wind’…. “

I was watching another pilot, a truly charming Korean gentleman who I shall call Mister Kim. (not his real name)
I really liked him, he was always so pleasant, soft spoken and charming, but he also worried me.
He had been, for the longest time, the practitioner of a vertical landing. He was one of a small number of pilots who would arrive overhead at 200 feet, and then basically just ‘hover-waffle‘ on down. Well, some of the guys had been talking to him, and he was trying a different technique. In a more orthodox manner, he was now approaching the ship, in his Hughes 500, from the starboard side. Unfortunately, he was using the low approach, described previously. At times, his technique bordered more on the super low approach, also described previously. His ship was a sleek and fast Korean vessel. She was making a good sixteen knots. Into a twenty knot headwind from just right of the bow. From about two o’clock direction.
And she wasn’t slowing down.
That’s a relative wind of….? Yup. Thirty-six knots or so.
And here comes Mr Kim. Hughes 500. Low and slow. Because he’s nervous, he’s taking his time. Good thought, but not a good time to pussy foot her in… He’s approaching the helideck, more or less level…. I’m nervously watching… he starts sinking just a little bit… I’m thinking to myself “Don’t pull any more power, Mr Kim!!! “…. he pulls a little more power to pop back up to the helideck….. and the tail kicks violently left, just as he’s crossing the deck edge!

RANGARANGARANGA!!!!….RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!

I watched, mouth open in horror, as he crashed good and hard! His tail rotor had just demolished the antennae, chewed its way through whatever tubing it could find, and the helicopter fell heavily onto its left side, broken blades spinning wildly. He stayed on the deck. Lucky…. it could have “walked itself off “, with the broken blades doing the walking!
Pretty soon all the noise stopped. Eventually, dear old Mister Kim could be seen, clambering out of the wreckage.
He was shaken, but alright.

That night, on the two meter chat frequency, the word went around that he had suffered a tail rotor failure.
Not so, I argued. I saw it. That was not a tail rotor failure. It was a pilot failure. People argued. It got technical.
Then it got heated.
So armed with all the discussions we have had, how would you assess this event? Was it a tail rotor failure?

It is possible to get really technical about this, and if you so wish, you can draw all sorts of vector diagrams.
I prefer a more simple, intuitive explanation. A pilot’s thought process.
I have said many times you don’t want to be ‘high hover taxying’ in to the helideck, HOGE, in the ‘avoid area’, with a lot of power. You don’t want to be pulling a whole lot of collective. You want to be on a positive, stabilized, descending approach, with a relatively low or moderate power setting. And with this accident,you see another really good reason why.
The helicopter, the slower it goes, loses its own forward momentum, and loses its own established airflow. It becomes more and more influenced by the Ocean wind. But in this example, that Ocean Wind is coming from two o’clock! It’s coming from the right of the nose (bow) of the ship. Pretty well a direct cross wind for you! And you are going slower, and slower, pulling more and more power??
I know you’re trying to be careful… but you’re not helping yourself. Your helicopter wants to yaw into wind. Weather vane into wind. But you don’t want that, so you’re applying left (power pedal) to keep your nose pointed in the direction of travel towards the helideck….there comes a point (a horrible point) when you are basically asking too much from your poor little helicopter. You are overpowering the ability of the tail rotor system. The little Hughes was doing its best…. but the last straw, the straw that broke the camel’s back (and the rotor blades, and most of the rest of the helicopter) was when Mister Kim (on a low, more or less level with the helideck approach) sank down just a tiny little bit. And corrected for this, (while I’m thinking : “NO,NO! “) by pulling “just a little more collective “. If you’re lucky, you’ll feel the left pedal hit the stop. If you’re not, like poor Mister Kim, or if you don’t react (because you have never read up on this situation, so you don’t really know what the hell is going on…)

RANGARANGARANGA!!!!….RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!

Make sense? I sure hope so. This is a common, common “Oh Shit! Now what?! accident cause.
This accident had an interesting sequel.
A few years later, I was Chief Pilot with Tropic Helicopters, and I received a resume from… mister Kim.
He’d been fired, I think he’d broken something else this time, and he was looking for a job. A few weeks later, he was on Guam, and he called and we visited together. Such a nice man.
I brought up his accident.
He smiled, that serene, calm, Oriental smile, and said politely, in his broken English:
“Tail rotah- failyah…. “
No, Mister Kim, I said, not tail rotor failure. And I explained, carefully. When I was finished, he smiled, politely, and said:
“Tail rotah- failyah…. “
I sighed, got a pencil and paper, and made some elaborate drawings. I tried to explain very, very clearly, what I’d seen myself. When I was finished, I got:
“Tail rotah- failyah…. “
I didn’t employ him…

I once visited with a Hughes 500 pilot, who couldn’t believe his ears when I told him my ship was willing to turn into wind when asked. He sort of stared at me with disbelieving eyes, and seemed to think I’d stumbled on the Holy Grail! A ship willing to turn into wind for the pilot! Unbelievable! He told me I was ‘very lucky’! Hm! More on this later, under ‘communication with the captain’. For now, let me say I think it’s flat wrong -and highly dangerous- for fresh Tuna pilots to go out there, new to the game, and operate in the mistaken belief that ‘whatever situation the ship is in’ they just have to passively accept this, and make the best possible landing attempt.
Or, worse, just ‘tough it out’.
It’s your life! And your passenger. You are entitled to cooperation, if you politely request it. If you don’t get it, then radically -radically- limit sea state and wind strength you will accept for flying. And tell them why.

It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that all ‘nice winds’ come across the ship’s bow. Preferably somewhere between ten and twelve o’clock! Ah-ah! Not so!
A really neat situation occurs quite frequently when the ship is moving along at 14 knots one way, downwind, and it has a similar strength wind up the stern! Guess what. The helideck is wind calm. Easy. Great for starting up and shutting down your rotors. No risk of ‘blade sailing’ especially on shut down. If you were to ask the ship to turn into wind, or if the captain decided to try and ‘help you’, you would have something like 28 to 30 knots to contend with.
Hard work in a Bell 47. ..
If the ship is doing 14 knots, and you have 20 knots up the stern, you’re still much better off landing with a 5 or 6 knots tailwind component, than getting the ship to turn into wind and taking 34 knots on the chin.
Remember also that the ship may ‘ride’ much smoother going downwind. You would not be the first Tuna ‘anchovyhead’ pilot who asked the ship to turn into wind, and then found out to his dismay that it was now pitching and heaving like a walrus on a pogo stick.
You’re much better off accepting a small tailwind component. It’s really nice standing on the helideck, not being blown about, watching wild waves and spray lashing madly about the place. All cocky, you even decide to triflow the strap packs.
You get up the ladder with your spray can, and then the captain spots a breezer behind the ship somewhere, hauls around on the helm, and there you are, you dumb schmuck, with the deck leaning over crazily, perched precariously on top of a rickety old step ladder! Yep, that’s you, clutching wildly for support, with 34 knots whistling around your ears and the ladder sliding, wondering what the blinkety-blink-blink made you ever decide to set foot on that blinkety-blink-blink (PEEEEEP!!!) #@!!FK@!N old Taiwanese tub in the first place! Ah, my friend, such is the pilot-mechanic’s life on the open Ocean!

Finally, you may wonder what happened to Bill.
Our hero, described above, of the “I’ll show’em ” Bell 47 multiple go-around airshow.
As I understand it, he just did the one trip, six weeks, and quit! Back to Chinooks, I guess.
His final comment, on the subject of those who would make their living off chasing the Tuna, is noteworthy:

“These people are weird! ”

Francis Meyrick
(c)

Note 1: The belly hook installation costs money. It has to be FAA approved. Cheapskating helicopter operators have increasingly done away with them. It gets justified with the claim that you “don’t need it “. Poppycock. Not true. Properly used, it is a good/great additional safety tool in severe conditions. Some of us would say “essential “.

Last edited by Francis Meyrick on September 17, 2012, 4:31 pm

PART 3 “Moggy’s Tuna Manual ” “Handling your helicopter “

Chapter 3-A Different techniques for landing

(Been there, done that;
been there, done that;
oh, yawn….! Boring, boring….
been there…………………….OOPS!?????)

In slowly putting together this manual, I have spent some long hours up on the helideck, armed with binoculars, watching the helicopter ‘goings on’ on nearby ships. Ninety nine point nine per cent of the many hundreds and hundreds of landings I’ve seen were routine, professional, smooth, nice looking jobs, often in really adverse conditions, that had all the hallmarks of a ‘good tunahead’.
That point one per cent….
I’ve had my heart in my mouth, and to this day it’s probably still got the teeth imprints on it to prove it!

Boy! I’ve seen one full-blooded crash. And, many times, I’ve seen ’em bounce crazily, yawing sickeningly left-right-left, somehow right themselves, and stumble into a go-around for another attempt at crashing! By the time the pilot admits to you afterward that he got the cyclic shoved hard and painfully into his stomach… that’s a hard landing. I’ve seen downwind approaches, where the guy looks like he’s lost translational lift, lost rotor RPM (Nr), dipped below the edge of the helideck on short finals, hauled around away from the deck… Looking at it from a few hundred yards away on the other side, you just see parts of the disc, the mechanic or deck helper leaping to his feet and running, and then, mercifully, a few seconds later, one little Bell struggling back into the sky!
It’s left me shaking, watching across from another boat, and I don’t know about the mechanic with a close up view! I have heard some good mechanic’s stories afterward though…

Oddly enough, you will hear some guys telling you that helicopters rarely crash on landings on tuna boats.
I don’t know where these guys get their information, but this statement is not correct. It is true that they mostly get away with it, in the sense that they walk (or stagger) away from it! They tear great gouges in the helideck, knock out aerials and radar domes (John Walker told me his gang were averaging one -expensive- Immarsat dome a year), and re-adjust their helicopters in ways not pleasing to the helicopter owner! Astonishingly few get killed during the landing however, despite trying hard sometimes.

So it is fruitful to look hard at the techniques associated with landing our beast on this pitching, rolling, heaving deck, with spray lashing about, and nasty, hungry waves seemingly waiting eagerly for you as you approach nervously on your first few rough weather tuna boat landings!

I’ve written this particularly with low time pilots in mind. The 200 to 500 hour fresh Robbie graduate with his brand spanking new Commercial License. And with the intention of getting you to think things through for yourself. I will list five different approach techniques, all of which I have seen out there, and ask you to read up on each of them. Then I will ask you to mull it over, arrive at your own conclusions, and take a break. Have a cup of tea. Then come back, with some definite ideas of your own about how you feel about each of these five approaches I have described. THEN read my opinion on each of these approach techniques…
And feel free to entirely disagree with me. My intention is to get YOU thinking about the issues. Not to portray myself as some wise old guru who knows everything, because, believe me, I don’t….

First, we’ll talk about a day with a calm sea. No real swell, no real pitch, roll or heave to think about. A nice day to be a tuna pilot! (and a tuna mechanic, if you’re carefully watching your brand new pilot).
To make the conversation easier, I will loosely categorize approaches this way:

1. Low approach
2. Super low approach
3. more or less level (with the helideck) approach;
maybe a slight, slow descent going on
4. high approach
5. ‘very high’ (steep) approach

Comments:
1. A ‘low approach’ is an approach just under the level of the helideck, maybe 15 to 25 feet above the water, requiring a small but definite ‘lift’ of a few feet towards the end to get up onto the helideck. You will see a lot of those.
2. A ‘super low approach’ is just what it says. Almost a high hover taxi towards the ship,maybe 6 to 12 feet above the water.
3. A ‘more or less level approach’ comes in at or slightly above the height of the helideck. No climb is necessary, and if anything a slight descent is taking place along the approach path. If the helideck is at, say, 25 feet, then this approach might start out at, say, 40 feet above the water, and very, very slowly come down to the helideck. The approach angle is very, very shallow however. You will see a lot of these.
4. A ‘high approach’ has a definite, constant, stabilized approach angle. It might start out at 200 feet, 300 feet or more, and reduces smoothly, constant rate of descent, no more than 300 to 500 feet per minute.
5. A ‘vertical approach’. You arrive exactly over the helideck at, say 200 to 300 foot, and do a steady vertical descent.

So, young sailor, what do you think? For now, why don’t you STOP reading right at the end of this paragraph, think about these five methods, and see what you think of each. It really is well worth having a break, making yourself a cuppa tea, and see if you can guess what I think of each method. Remember, opinions vary, many people may well disagree with me, and this is where you are encouraged to start thinking these scenarios through beforehand, from the comfort of your favorite easy chair, BEFORE you go flying off a REAL tuna boat, with maybe 200hours helicopter time, and learning-as-you-go about things you have never even thought about, because nobody has bothered to tell you about them….

PAUSE. THINK!
Hmmmmmm……….!

Welcome back, my friend.
Well, here’s another question for you: What different factors can you list that should come into your consideration?
Avoid area, you say? Good.
Direction of the wind? Yes, absolutely.
Strength of the wind? Yes.
Size and shape of the helideck? Yes….

If you got all those, you’re doing good. But there are more….!
Remember, now you are faced with something you never experienced in your basic Robinson helicopter in your primary training. We will return to this. But first, let’s say something about those five different ways of making the approach.
All of which I have seen, for real, many times. Let me give you some ‘food for thought’ and the chance to chew things over again. Remember, form your own opinion. This is not ‘the gospel according to Moggy’….
(Remember also, right now, for the moment, it’s a reasonable day, with no significant pitch, roll, or heave to talk into consideration.)

1. low approach
Brrr!!! I don’t like it at all! Talk about living in the avoid area! Remember that sudden ‘partial’ loss of power (reduced power available) is much more common than sudden ‘total’ loss of power. You’re putting yourself in a situation where even the slightest loss of power may wipe out your chances of making the helideck. You’re also heading straight for the side of the ship, with lots of solid steel just waiting to readjust your rotor blades. You’re also making a go-around more difficult, because there’s a damn hulking big ship in the way…

a. If you fly a ‘low approach’ slowly into the bargain… you are really in no position to deal with an engine failure. You are going to crash into the water! Pure and simple.
b. If you fly a ‘low approach’ more rapidly, sure, you may have some air speed, but you’re still going to be in the avoid area. You might spend less time there, but… And also, your judgment when to ‘lift up’ onto the helideck had better be right on, with all that nasty steel rushing towards you!
Note that I spent most of a whole night up with one pilot, discussing this one. He was a high time pilot, with 8,000 hours.
He was also very vocal, and influenced many new tuna pilots with his strong and dogmatic views. He tended to get rather angry with me, when I dared to disagree…
In a nutshell, he always flew his approaches ‘low and fast’. And that is what he strongly advocated. In his words; “If there is any problem, I am going into the water! ” He meant “under control “.
I have my -serious- doubts, and I really did not agree with him. Low and fast? Split second reaction time? But you will still not have enough speed/energy to be able to carry out a cyclic flare, like you do at the bottom of an autorotation. I wonder very much if you have the time to react correctly. So,your engine fails. What are you going to do, now you are low and fast? HOW are you going to go into the water? Try a flare? Ouch! If you have not got the speed, you will not have the required energy. You will most likely ‘fall through’ the flare, and crash heavily. I imagine you would hit hard, tail rotor first…
Will you try a “constant attitude splash-in “? Level the skids, and pull everything you’ve got just before you hit? Yeah, right! I’d like to see you get away with a 30 knot ‘constant attitude’ ‘splash-in’.
Good theory.
Perhaps…

2. Super low approach
Double ‘Brrrrrrrr!’ What on earth are you doing down there? Looking for tuna?
Why? You’re going to be pulling lots of power, you may well lose translational lift a long way off, you’re practically ‘camping out’ in the avoid area. And if you do have an engine failure, it’s not going to be any fun from a height above the sea of 6 to 12 feet. Your reaction time will be almost nil. Added to this, if you’re not experienced, (and even if you are experienced), you should be aware of the various optical illusions that come into play over water. People ‘fly into the water’ all over the world, in every conceivable make and model of flying machine, remarkably often, with no engine failure at all. Just pilot failure. More on this later.
What are you doing down there? Come up!
If you’re flying a Bell 47, or an R-22, two up, on a hot, humid day, start thinking about your density altitude.
You may simply not have the power available to hoist yourself ponderously up to the level of the helideck.
Even if you DO have enough power, this approach method will extend your “deck edge crossing time ” (DECT).
That is that critical time during which your disc is beginning to cross the deck edge, so now you are committed, BUT you are not yet over the deck, and therefore unable to rescue an engine failure,or loss of power…
By the way, DECT is a term I made up for the purpose of this manual, you will not find it in any other text book.
In general, the shorter your DECT, the better, both on take off and landing! You don’t want that to last for half an hour, when you can get it over with in a few seconds.
Conclusion for the ‘Super Low approach’?
Double and quadruple ‘Brrrrrrrr!’

3. More or less level (with the helideck) approach
Maybe now we are getting somewhere. Maybe you even think that this is the way to go? If you do, you have a lot of company. So do a great many tuna helicopter pilots out there. Remember I explained above that I include a shallow approach (a slight, slow, descent) in this category.
Hmmmmm….. Don’t like it….!
You may wonder what I have against it. Broadly speaking, a lot of the points I made above still hold true.
Remember, you can always give up height. Surrender it. But you can’t always get it back, if you need it!
The more reaction time you can give yourself, the better. Using this method 3), you are still poorly placed to handle any sudden power problems or other mechanical problems. You are still using more power than you need. Your chances of making the deck with sudden problems are reduced. Your ‘go around’ -if you suddenly have to make one – is going to be much more of a handful. You will likely need to pull a lot of power…
Also, if you use this method, (remember, we are talking about a reasonably calm sort of day) you will likely lose translational lift while you are still unable to reach the deck. You may suddenly just not have any more power.
Rats!
Now what are you going to do?
You’re still twenty feet from the deck edge, only four feet above it, but suddenly going down rapidly…
You -just- can’t – make – the – deck…!!
Double rats!!!

4. High approach
Go Up, my friend, go UP! A better name for this would be “Normal Approach “, but if I had called it that earlier, I would have given the game away! And I really wanted you to think about it yourself…
Make your final approach a definite, smooth, ‘constant angle’ descent down to the deck.

You do not want a horizontal sideways hover landing with a high power setting! (And certainly no big left pedal inputs on short finals)
We are looking for a stabilized approach, no big changes in attitude, with a gentle, smooth, but positive rate of descent of 300 to 500 feet per minute. You should not be using a whole lot of power at all. That’s good, it means you have a whole bunch in reserve, just in case you should need it!
Your starting point can be where ever you fancy, but personally, I like to be up there! 300 feet, 400 feet, 500!

I am in no hurry to come in for a landing, dragging a whole armpit full of power, with very low airspeed, and starting my approach at forty feet above the water. You will see me draw alongside at a height of hundreds of feet, not dozens, and shush down the approach smoothly and briskly. Plenty of airspeed, nowhere near losing translational lift. A very moderate power setting, nowhere near pulling everything I’ve got. A nice, constant attitude. A minimum amount of time spent crossing the deck edge. (Minimum DECT) . No flare. Nothing dramatic. A nice approach and landing is a most ordinary, hum-drum easy going affair.
Any pilot reading this who has experience in, say, the offshore Gulf of Mexico Oil and Gas environment, will have no problem recognizing this approach. We fly it here all the time. To platforms as well as to boats.
On the North Sea, even when flying a big old bus like the Super Puma AS332L, this was the way the approaches were flown. The Pumas don’t do a HOGE high power setting approach. And they have two engines. So why should you, in a single engine? On the North Sea, we would start our approach from well up, 500 feet or higher. We had a ‘Landing Decision Point’ (LDP) which was 100 feet (above the helideck) and 40 knots. The distance out horizontally from the deck depended on wind direction and strength. Once you flew though your ‘LDP’ you were ‘committed’ to the landing. Sudden loud noises (or loud silence…!), warning lights, bells, etc, were to be ignored! You just had to concentrate on making the deck. Training on the three axis simulator, in Stavanger, Norway, was of course a riot!
On the ‘tuna fields’ you can actually adopt a similar method. What should your LDP be? It depends on you, but 100 feet above the height of the helideck is a pretty good point. Speed depends on type, but 40 knots is not bad for a Hughes 500. Maybe 30 for a Bell 47. Whatever you are comfortable with. It should be well above 20 knots (nowhere near loss of translational lift), but not so fast as to require a horrendous flare at the bottom. In the Super Puma, we would verbally announce ‘LDP’ to the other guy, meaning ‘committed’. Mentally, even flying a small ship, I still click off my own ‘LDP’!

Hang on,you may say, I can still comfortably perform a ‘go around’ at lower than 100 feet.
True, but why should you? If you are coming down, and something starts making nasty noises,vibrating horribly, or generally scaring you, is your first instinct to climb back into the sky?? To see if it is really going to try and kill you?
That sure isn’t my first thought! I’d rather be coming in comfortably high over the deck edge, knowing that even if the donkey quits completely, I can still more than likely ‘shush it on’ somehow. Get down! Then ask questions!
Do you see what I’m trying to get at? Failures often occur when you start pulling power. That extra demand is what does it, and some part says: “Okay, I’ve had enough! ” It follows that ‘where and when’ you start pulling power is important in terms of the relative position of the helicopter to the helideck. The helideck… that lovely place called ‘home’ where you can walk around, all nice and dry, and look at broken bits of helicopter, and say “By Jove! It’s broken! “
Another way… of looking at it is this way: imagine the worst possible place and the worst possible moment for your engine to quit partially or totally. Now ask yourself, IF that worst-case-scenario were actually to happen to you, where would you prefer to be? Then plan your approach accordingly.
Most tuna helicopter landings you will see, come in too low, often FAR too low, pulling too much power, and putting themselves into a situation that is virtually irrecoverable if something quits working.
Go UP, my friend, go UP!

And there is yet another reason to come in higher, in a smooth, stabilized descent, and not come in level with the helideck, pulling lots of power. It’s a very good reason. It’s also a real good reason to think “steady approach ” and not a “hot dog approach “. This reason is called: “smacking your tail boom off the edge of the deck spoils your whole day “.
In the Gulf of Mexico, over the years, dozens, and dozens, and dozens of pilots have smacked their tail rotor and/or tail boom off the edge of the deck, usually by coming in too fast (‘hot-dogging’) and too low (not in a stabilized approach-descent mode). I have seen plenty of photos, where they have dragged their tail rotor right through the horizontal safety fence, (it sticks out around the deck), or otherwise re-adjusted their tail boom, lower fin, not to mention driveshaft and couplings, in a variety of ways not approved by the manufacturer. It’s amazing how often it has happened, how often it continues to happen, and how expensive it is when it happens.
You may wonder how stupid. If that’s what you’re thinking, then you need to have a serious chat with yourself. These guys weren’t stupid. They made a mistake. And if so many young men can make that mistake on approach to a permanently moored oil and gas platform, then you and I, my friend, being simple, fallible members of the same human race, we can do it as well, especially on approach to a ‘bucking bronco’ tuna tub in the middle of a horrible day on the Pacific Ocean.
You have to remember at all times where your tail rotor is, not just in the horizontal dimension, but also vertically.
If you you get into the bad habit of flaring like a son-of-a-(unmarried lady) as you come over the deck… then I suspect you’re putting yourself on a ‘slippery slope’. You will maybe tend to get lower, and lower. And not realize it. And the clearance vertically of your tail rotor and the edge of the deck may slowly be becoming less. And less. Until one day….

5. ‘Very High’ (steep) approach.

Until you’ve seen it for yourself, you won’t believe this. But there are some pilots out there, who will arrive over the helideck on their boat at 150 to 200 feet. And then just slowly hover on down! It doesn’t get much steeper than that.
The problem is that they are so far into the ‘avoid area’ that if something fails, recovery is likely completely impossible.
We had one Korean gentleman who did that a lot. I shall call him Mister Kim (not his real name). He crashed eventually, but not using that method. He made another mistake, and I will talk about that later.

In some ways this section is crying out for some YouTube video recordings. What may be perceived by a new tuna pilot as being a ‘very steep approach’ may in fact be quite a ‘normal’ approach for an experienced offshore pilot.
Again: most tuna pilots come in too low, too slow, with too high a power setting. If something fails, the chances are they are not going to make the helideck. The trick on your approach is to come in higher (go UP!) , with a relatively low power setting, with a positive rate of DESCENT, and with airspeed comfortably above 20 knots. And always ASSUME your engine is going to fail at the worst possible moment. (And know what you will do if it does).

* * * * * * * * *

So now we have covered some basics. Hopefully it makes sense to you, and you are now in your mind trying to imagine what it’s like to land on a tuna boat. Hopefully I have given you some food for thought.
How-ever… here comes a BIG caution. If you remember, in a paragraph above, I previously asked you:
What different factors can you list that should come into your consideration?
And straight off, you came up with:
Avoid area
Direction of the wind
Strength of the wind
Size and shape of the helideck

All valid considerations. But here is something that you likely may not have ever encountered before in your basic Commercial Pilot training: the ship is moving. The ship is generating ‘its own wind’ as it moves forward. Many will do up to 16 or 18 knots. That’s a respectable breeze for a new tuna pilot. But hold on: the Ocean wind is blowing as well!
We have two different winds mixing it together here. One is being produced by Mother Nature. The other is being artificially produced by the motion of your ship moving forward. More than likely, you have not encountered this before. (Even if you are not a new Commercial Pilot, and even if you a few thousand hours, you may still have never landed on a ship underway. It would really not be a good thing, to be coming in for your first landing on a tuna boat, without having thought this one through. It really is a matter of playing it all through in your mind, before you try the real thing on your own.)
The two winds will combine, and there will be a resultant wind over the helideck. A ‘net effective wind’ if you like.
For the purpose of this discussion, I prefer the phrase:
RELATIVE WIND.
And this ‘relative wind’ may be quite remarkably different in direction and strength of the Ocean wind.
We are now homing in on an area where accidents happen. For reasons I will explain carefully as we go along.
You will also see another, very important reason later on, why we try and fly an approach with a low power setting, and why we try and avoid coming over the edge of the deck pulling a whole armpit full of collective. I shall come back to this mysterious reason later, which
I shall technically call the “Oh Shit! Now what?! reason “.
That reason – which we shall go into in Chapter 3-B – is tied up with the problem of ‘relative wind’.
For now, just take a moment to really absorb these two important tuna boat truths:

* we are concerned about the RELATIVE WIND over the helideck. (as per the windsock)
* the relative wind is the nett result of two winds, the free Ocean Wind, and the artificial wind the boat generates by moving

Accidents have occurred in this area, and (as I shall relate later), some pilots (even after crashing!) failed to understand the forces at work…

Francis Meyrick
(c)

Last edited by Francis Meyrick on October 5, 2009, 8:23 pm

Approaching the Calipso by Sven A.Saeboe

PART 2 “Moggy’s Tuna Manual ” “Job offers and job duties “

Chapter 2-A “Your Job Offer: Legitimate questions you SHOULD ask “
(But have some sympathy with the helicopter owner)

So, having read Part 1 of this manual, and seen some interesting articles, in a moment of weakness you decided to apply for a job as a tuna pilot or mechanic. Maybe you’d had a beer or two too many. I know how that goes. Somewhat to your horror, you have had a letter back telling you that they are interested, and suggesting you give them a call.
Oh boy! Decision time.

There are a number of questions that are perfectly legitimate and reasonable for you to ask.
Even if you don’t ask your potential employer all the questions that follow, you should at least ask yourself all of them!
Some are pretty obvious: what’s the pay? How much? Some questions are not so obvious to the tuna newcomer. Those questions that are not obvious at first, have a horrible habit of answering themselves… when it’s all a bit too late. Many a time I have spoken to sadder but wiser chaps who have had a raw deal somewhere along the line.

So what I have tried to do is to list sensible questions. I have also tried to present a fair picture of what you can expect. As in any industry, anywhere in the world, there are good jobs and not-so-good jobs. There are excellent jobs, competed for, even fought over, whose lucky holders (like me!) feel they had won the crown jewels. There are…. also some rough, dangerous, borderline suicidal job openings!
Many employers are really good people. They are eager, borderline desperate for good crews, reliable, honest, skilled…. who can get along comfortably with the captain and the crew. Remember they will be sending you out with a very valuable asset: their helicopter. Many employers will treat you well, in the hope that you will reciprocate. But beware, in any industry, there are always some cowboys.

Back in the nineties’ (it seems like a century ago now) we had a spate in Guam of guys running around owed thirty thousand dollars or more. When ‘the Big Z’ went down, with as many boats as they owned, it crashed the hopes of a lot of guys who had worked long and hard.
I well remember one discussion I had in a late night bar, with a very depressed, borderline suicidal pilot. His plight was that he was divorced (I know how that feels), he needed the money to send home for alimony/child support, and now he had been rooked out of six months of pay. He felt it was six months of life wasted.
“How in hell did you let it run up so much? “, I asked as gently as I could.
“But it was such a good boat, Moggy. Free beer anytime you wanted it. You could go to the freezer and take out anything you wanted, anytime. It was like a luxury cruise ship… “
The answer of course(I didn’t give it!) was that his beer had not been free! By virtue of his forfeited wages, he had in effect ‘paid’ for every bottle and can he drank. And every steak he devoured. Probably at the rate of fifty dollars per can of Budweiser!
I would much rather work on a rough old tub and get paid, than work on the “Queen Mary ” for nothing and drink ‘free beer’…
In this respect, I am going to give the Taiwanese a big positive plug: sure, some of their boats in those days were pretty rough. But they were hard-working people who understood ‘pay’ and the need for dollars! Or else ‘the show can’t go on’.

So rule Number One is: Check your pay!
Confirm beforehand that you may occasionally use the ship’s fax or satellite phone to correspond with your bank.
In the nineties, Satellite fax cost $10. It’s probably way cheaper now, plus most vessels now have email. If anybody grumbles, I’d offer to pay the costs, but you must be given the opportunity to check on bank payments. Never mind ‘assurances’ from your employer, your captain, or the Pope in Rome. You want to see it in your bank, confirmed by your Bank, black-on-white. With a pink ribbon around it! THEN you can be happy.
Again, most employers are excellent when it comes to money. They want you to be happy. If you are good at your job, they will want you to stay forever. Turnover is not good, and fraught with uncertainty and risk. Captains do not like a stream of rookies. If an employer finally…
* has a pilot he likes and trusts…
* has a mechanic who really knows his stuff…
* and the pilot and the mechanic hit it off together well…
* and the captain likes the helicopter crew…
* and the crew like the captain…
Man! He’s in seventh heaven! Such an employer will bend over backwards to keep you!

You can pity your employer in a way. Some pilots and mechanics treat THEM appallingly. I’ve seen some really stupid stuff, and if you go tuna fishing, you will too.
Be on guard, but also do see it from your employer’s point of view. Johnny Walker, the boss at Hansen Helicopters, is not liked by everybody, but he told me some interesting stories about some of the insane, perfectly asinine things he has had his employees do! Giving unauthorized joy rides whilst smoking pot, and then flying into a palm tree?!! Punching a captain over the guard rail into the Ocean… ??
Yes, he’s had more than a few headaches with his pilots and mechanics!

Victor Regis ran ‘Heliguam’ for a few years, until their demise through bankruptcy. They had the Sajo contract. I watched him painstakingly rebuild a Bell 47 helicopter. I thought he did a beautiful job. It looked great, and I can testify to the amount of work and skill that went into that helicopter. I would have flown it in a heart beat. It took some moron pilot only days to fly it (on a nice, sunny day) straight into the water. I heard about it. I never worked for Victor, but I could feel sorry for him.
I happened to be there the day when the sad remains were delivered back to his shop. What was left fit neatly on one single wooden pallet!
It took months, and cost a lot of money in terms of parts and man hours.
So it’s all a two way street. Not all employers are angels. But neither are all employees.

Over the years, there have been numerous cases where pilots, or mechanics, or both together, have stepped (or flown!) off a ship in some foreign port, and faxed their employers: Money NOW into my account, please! When faced with stalling maneuvers, promises later, etc, the next fax or phone call has stated words to the effect of:
“I have with me in my hotel room the tail rotor assembly. If you like, confirm we trade: my outstanding wages for one Hughes 500 tail rotor assembly in full and final settlement! “
It’s amazing then how quickly companies find funds to cover outstanding arrears!
This is all pretty sad though.It should never- ever- have to go that far. The hassle for the crews is no fun, and by the time we start stripping down helicopters…. what kind of job is that?
Everybody stands to lose really. The disgruntled crew may well get their money, but they are getting into real hassles, with potentially severe legal consequences. The helicopter company is going to really lose face in front of their customer.
The captain is going to do his proverbial nut. The image of the tuna helicopter industry as a whole is also going to take a right old knock: what are we? – professionals or fly-by-night con artists?
Crews should check their payments. No matter how anxious you were to get a job, maybe starting out in your helicopter career, with student loans to pay, you still need to get PAID! I have said a few times to my bosses: if you ever have a problem – let me know. Tell me. Say: “Sorry, Moggy, it’s going to be two weeks late. ” Okay, no problem.
“But don’t feed me any blarney! ”

Pay? – One of The Big Questions

I was lucky, and I never had much problems, until the very end, when my employer started getting into more and more severe financial difficulties. Even then, my Taiwanese captain assured me (and I liked him and believed him), that if it came to it, the fishing company would pay me, and deduct that amount from what they owed the helicopter company.
I was being paid $7,000 a month as Hughes 500 pilot/mechanic. Great money for the nineties’. You can imagine though how quickly that can run up. It’s really not too hard to be owed -and loose- $28,000 to $35,000 (or more) in the tuna industry.
You have to stay on top of it.
Pilots in those days made $3,500. Mechanics made the same. Oddly enough, today, 2009, ten years later, it seems those wages have not gone up, despite inflation.

To give you an idea how angry unpaid crews can get.
1) I was in Tarawa when an unpaid, extremely drunk, fighting mad helicopter pilot was chasing his employer around the island. The pilot had a bottle of whiskey in one hand, from which he took frequent -neat- nips, and he was telling everybody (at the top of his voice) about how much he was owed. It really was ugly. I wonder what the locals thought about it.
2) One of the many, many ‘urban legends’ (we call them ‘Ocean Myths’ or ‘Tuna Tales’) concerns an alleged ugly incident that occurred in South America. The story goes that the American pilot and his mechanic both felt they had no choice but to hold the helicopter to ransom. They were owed a lot of money. They had flown it off the ship, and were determined. They finally got most of their money in their home bank accounts, but not before they had been threatened with a gun! Even after they had received their money, they were still so angry and upset, they resolved to fly home at their own expense.
The helicopter operator flew out a replacement crew, who discovered -according to this Tuna Tale- that the departing crew had left a souvenir. They had cold-bloodedly ‘torched’ and incinerated the turbine by means of a deliberate hot start!
You will hear this one feature in many a bar story, and you will hear crews say: “Good for them! “
I don’t agree at all.

Think of the tragedy of it all. If – a big IF- this story is true, this would be an example of the ultimate breakdown in trust between a helicopter operator and crew. Any employer that sends a crew out with a machine as valuable as a helicopter, is taking the first step in trust. Would YOU be happy sending complete strangers off -after a cursory interview and review of their resume- in your $250,000 Porsche? In which you had invested a lot of money, and hundreds of hours of expensive labor? Would you? For months on end? With no real way of checking if they ARE really taking care of it?
I know I wouldn’t…
Sometimes I think we flying dudes have a much better deal than the owner of the helicopter. WE sleep better! For what we were making, certainly in the nineties’, with no commercial risk, no financial investment….we did really well. Our bosses were brave. They would interview us, leaf through our logbooks, fly an hour with us (once!), and turn us loose with their toys! Talk about a sprinkle of Holy Water, an invocation, and…. Good Luck!
If that was me… with what I’ve seen of SOME pilots and ‘mechanics’… I wouldn’t sleep a wink!
Don’t get me wrong: there were -and are- many very fine crews out there, with excellent attitudes. Often people will start out in their helicopter careers on tuna boats, and go on to bigger and better things, with a lot of hard earned experience.
Their sincerity and willingness is unsurpassed.
But people are people. Good people. Not-so-good people. And the odd certifiable head-banger, who should be locked up.
I don’t know if that is still taught, but in the nineties’ it was regarded as paramount that you spray “Triflow ” all over your strap packs and rotor heads. Every night. To protect against corrosion and lubricate.My boss sent me out with cases and cases of the stuff, and I loyally did as I was told. You are talking about fifteen minutes a day, climbing up a ladder, and going round the machine. That would be normally something you would do at the end of the day. I washed my machine every night, I waxed the rotor blades regularly, and I washed the engine. I worried about corrosion. No, I was no saint, but I really tried -to the best of my abilities – to respond to the trust invested in me. And I really liked my boss as well.
Regardless of weather, wind, waves… Spraying Triflow was regarded as an essential item. Well, I didn’t believe the stories I heard about guys who never -ever- bothered. With any of that stuff. Until I heard them laughing about it in a bar! Apparently John Walker had fired some guys when he noticed they were not using any Triflow! So the solution to that problem? You guessed it: Just throw full cans of Triflow over the side into the water, so that the lack of Triflow turnover doesn’t get noticed! It’s hard to believe…

Love your employer. If he is willing to give you a job, pay you regularly, and buy you the odd beer: look after that man! Baby his machine! Treat it like your own, and lavish attention on it. Long may he buy helicopters and employ characters like us! I hope he makes a vast profit! He deserves every last penny of it, taking the risks that he does!

This is probably a good point in the narrative to give some honest ‘plugs’ and say some nice things about some employers. Disclaimer: I have no commercial connection to anybody out there, no commission, no incentive to lie through my teeth. I have been out of the tuna helicopter game for ten years, still flying helicopters, and loving it, but nothing to do with Tuna.
I can’t help you with any personal knowledge of South American operators. Maybe we shall get contributions from pilots and mechanics who do have such experience. Now, GUAM I can tell you something about.
You will read a lot of nasty comments about tuna helicopter operators on various websites. www.justhelicopters.com is always good for the latest gossip and scandal. But let me tell you this for an absolute fact:
In the nineties’, Hansen Helicopters were absolutely SUPERB at paying their pilots and mechanics. They were referred to by some as “The Bank of Hansen “. Payments to accounts were made as regular as clockwork. I have no personal knowledge of what it has been like since, and for that you will need to consult the various websites, or talk with a current Hansen pilot. But I suspect that it will be exactly the same. They took great pride in their payments. If you did a good job with them, they were most anxious to keep you. And keep you happy.
If you are looking for a company to send a resume to, then this will be one.
The ‘Big Z‘ went bust, it was a huge company, and cleaned out a lot of guys for a lot of money. A long, sad saga. Somebody with more knowledge than I needs to write that one up. For the Tuna history books. We can include it later in this manual!
Poor old Heliguam went bust, and owed many long time employees a lot of money. There was a lot of bitterness about it, and many people were furious with Victor Regis. I never worked for him, but he was always charming to me. I could see that there were two sides to that bankruptcy story as well. I told you about the investment of money and time and energy that went into that Bell 47 that was promptly flown into the water. That was just one example. There were others. All of which lost the company a lot of money. Another was problems with collecting payments from a customer. Huge payments. It was a mess.
Many pilots and mechanics lost a lot of money.
Hoffman Helicopters is now defunct, and the owner, Steve Hoffman, an old friend of mine, died some years ago.
Steve would rather have committed ritual hara-kiri than swindle any pilot of his. Great human being, sorely missed. Fabulous helicopters in fantastic shape. I worked for Steve.
Big Eye Helicopters went bust, but everybody got honorably paid out their money. Very fair, very ‘above board’, despite what you will hear! Great helicopters, but troubled by a constant turnover of Managers. Great shame. I flew for them, and loved it.

Tropic Helicopters is still going today.
I want to say more about this company, as you might be considering sending them a resume, if you are looking at getting into tuna helicopter flying. Disclaimer: I worked for Tropic, and I was their Chief Pilot for a while. However, I moved on, and I have no connection with that company now, or any financial incentive from them to say nice things!
My tenure there taught me a lot.
Firstly, the sheer cost of maintaining helicopters. Ask any helicopter operator what it’s like to open a bill from an Allison/Rolls Royce engine shop for a ‘small’ repair. You will be expecting a bill for maybe $5,000 to $7,000. Can you imagine what it’s like staring at the bottom line, when it says: $27,000…..!!!
The sheer cost of maintaining a helicopter is staggering.
Secondly, cashflow gyrations are wild and unpredictable. As part of my job, I got to go collecting checks from customers. Sometimes I was dealing with a large Korean industrial conglomerate, which owned all kinds of industries, of which their tuna fishing fleet was just a small portion. I found the Koreans concerned very honorable, very charming, and pleasant to do business with. But the payments, not surprisingly, went through a central office back up in Seoul. There were inevitable time lags. From a cash flow point of view, it was often either feast or famine. We would be gasping for liquidity, for the dosh to pay suppliers, and our pilots and mechanics. Delays would creep in. We would be behind on paying the guys by a few weeks. I would go down to the offices of certain customers, and play the ‘smiling leaning elephant’ trick. (Be real nice, but real persistent). Then, all of a sudden, I’d be carrying a check back for $450,000!
Feast or famine! The owner, a laid back Australian by the name of Barry Jones, was great to work for. He was so remarkably unflappable! His staff, including myself, would be climbing the walls, and he would always seem to find the funny side! Then we would quickly catch up on the payments. I never -ever- had any doubts about the owner’s integrity.
Barry is as straight an arrow as they make them, but nobody can fully compensate for such wild cash flow gyrations.
And this is where I can see it from both points of view. That of the helicopter operator, and that of the pilots and mechanics.
I once had a bizarre situation , basically a drunk pilot who was flying a helicopter -against direct orders- after a tail boom strike. On a Hughes 500, it is a monococque structure, and repairs are not permissible. This blithering imbecile was telling me he had ‘knocked the dent out with a hammer, and it was okay now’. I flew out to the Marshall islands with a spare tail boom, couplings, and drive shaft. He was most anxious that I did not come. When I got there, I was met at the airport by this -drunk- personage, who tried everything he could to convince me not to go out to the boat. He would have liked very much if I had turned around and flown back to Guam!
Climbing the helideck on his boat, I was absolutely staggered -horrified- to immediately observe that the tail boom was ‘kinked’.
The upper vertical fin was bent over backwards. The lower vertical fin was bent slightly forwards.
And this cretin (a so-called pilot/mechanic) had been flying it like that! Imagine the risk. There is no way the rear coupling was rotating in the same plane. It would have been wobbling on the shaft. Imagine the stresses on the drive shaft! The gearbox input! At those revolutions, there is just no telling how long that party would have kept the music going, but some kind of cataclysmic failure was only a matter of time. I fired him (he was very upset, and went off telling everybody horrible things about me) and changed out the tail boom and couplings.
I then sailed out on the boat.
The point of this anecdote (apart from showing you what idiots are out there) comes next:
I went out there unexpectedly. Nobody knew I was coming. I also went out armed with all the latest payment information, who had been paid what and when. We were actually, once again, beautifully up to date.
Now you should know that the boats are sometimes alone, and sometimes together. It depends on the fishing. At night,some of the captains might get together, for gambling and whatever, and there would be a large gathering. All the pilots then, at night, get on a common radio frequency, and start chatting about everything and anything.
Imagine my surprise as I dialed in, and I found myself listening to a furious anti-Tropic helicopters diatribe. By our own guys! They were busy working themselves into a state, and the rest of the world was listening to all this! What really amazed me was that supposition had become fact. It was obvious that these guys had not checked their bank accounts for a couple of months. Not only were they unaware of payments that had recently been made. They were also unaware of payments that had been made two months earlier! I had all the information in front of me. What really disappointed me was that they would bash their own company so hard in front of everybody else. There were pilots and mechanics there from several other companies, and it was obvious from the conversation we would never get any applications from any of them! I let the whole thing go on for a good while,and then I came up on frequency! Shock and horror! I gave our guys the details of their payments, how much, and what dates. Then I made sure they repeated the amounts and dates back to me. With the whole world listening in! It was amazing, after that, how suddenly all our guys needed to go to bed!
You will see what I mean: people sometimes just want to believe the worst. And talk themselves into believing the worst.

In case you are still shaking your head in disbelief about the character with the hammer and the tail boom.
If you ever meet Johnny Walker or one of the Hansen staff in a bar, buy him a beer, and ask him to tell you about some of their worst experiences with pilots and mechanics. It will be the best value you could ever score for the price of a beer!
Ron Barr, my old buddy, with Tropic Helicopters, is another great candidate for this.
Watch their expressions change as they warm to the theme.
It is absolutely astounding what some pilots and mechanics will do in the name of rotary wing flight!

I have twenty or so anecdotes flitting through my mind as I write this.
Let me pick one, which took place at the old Big Eye base in Guam.
I had arrived back from six months or so out at Sea, and I was in a great mood, going off for a vacation. I was collecting my pay, and getting ready to depart. Another Hughes 500 landed there, off a Korean ship. The Korean pilot, the captain beside him, and the mechanic was lying in the back. There were no seats or seat belts in the back, company policy, to discourage joyriding. A while afterward, my boss came back in.
“Moggy! “
His tone had changed. I looked up in surprise. Gone was the jocular boss. He seemed stressed.
He wanted me to go down and start up the newly arrived Hughes 500. He didn’t want me to fly it, just start it up.
And he didn’t want me to pre-flight it.
When I queried that instruction (no pre-flight?), he was again very sharp with me. He didn’t want me to do a pre-flight inspection. Just a start up. He seemed displeased with something.
I thought: “Well, what the hell. ” And I walked down, made sure the blades were not tied down, climbed in, strapped myself in, and lit the fire. I did notice the boss was watching me closely, leaning against the hangar door.
Before I had even gotten to 25% N1, I was frantically trying to abort the start and shut everything off. The vibration was so horrible, a weird, wallowing, rocking motion, that I was very much alarmed.
It was well and truly frightening.
I climbed out with a look of amazement on my face, saying:
“What the HELL was that!?? “
Roger, bless him,detached himself from where he had been nonchalantly leaning, and said:
“I feel better now. That was my reaction as well. I wondered if it was just me. Thanks for re-assuring me… “
He then asked me to go find the problem. It took me five seconds.
I walked back to the tail, grabbed the tail ‘stinger’, that little arm that prevents the tail hitting the ground during a botched autorotation. and shook it it. To my absolute horror, the entire tail boom moved, whilst the fuselage did not! I couldn’t believe it.
I still can’t.
Further investigation revealed that where the tail boom was attached to the helicopter, all the rivets were LOOSE.
They were so far past the “smoking ” stage (where you see a trail of small suspicious particles indicating something is moving and fretting) that it wasn’t funny anymore. You could actually have somebody move the tail boom with the stinger and WATCH THE RIVET HEADS MOVING!
These guys had been FLYING it that way. For MONTHS!
It cost the company a lot to repair that. Both in time, and lost earnings. It was by no means an easy repair either.
What had happened was that the ‘mechanic’ had been hired in a hurry (that happens a lot) and in his interview had claimed he knew exactly how to operate a ‘Chadwick’, which is the electronic instrument mechanics use to balance main and tail rotor systems. He not only didn’t know, but didn’t ask to be shown. Now the imbalance in the tail rotor system will progress over a period of time. It will get worse and worse. It seems amazing that any helicopter pilot would not feel this. We can only assume that they got used to it.

I hope you will see where I am going with this:
Trust -between helicopter operator and flight crew- needs to be a two way street.

Francis Meyrick
(c)
____________________________________________________________________________________________

Note 1 Input from Joseph Smith

All those who have made it this far, take HEED.
You should surely HEED what Moggy has offered about underwater breathing devices.
After being duly warned by Moggy about the lifesaving properties of such a device, I began investigating them.
I already knew from some Helicopter SAR people I knew about a device called HEEDs.
Helicopter Emergency Egress Device.
It is basically what Moggy described as a mini SCUBA tank.
I kept one on my survival vest, because I like breathing, even underwater.
I only like holding my breath when I want to, not when I’m forced to.
And I only recently gave up holding my breath till I turned blue as a means of persuading someone I am upset with.
So I’m a little out of practice.

Which brings me to relating how Moggy’s advice saved my life, and or limb, and or lifestyle.
In his chapter about what questions are a good idea to ask, he goes to great lengths to talk about pay, and both sides of the employer employee relationship.
There are bonuses offered for completing a contract without days lost for maintenance or damage.
There are bonuses for years on the grounds.
Aside from that there’s not a whole lot of negotiation for a new guy coming to the tuna spotting industry.
It’s mostly take it or leave it.
But for guys returning, they do have some leverage.
If I ever accept another contract, I will be asking more of the questions Moggy advises.
And you can take that to the bank.

Aeroscout

Last edited by Francis Meyrick on August 8, 2015, 9:28 am

Ch.1-E Herding, and the ‘tow-line’; the Brown Ball, speedboats, netboats, green dye, seal bombs, underwater breathing devices

1) Herding, and the ‘tow-line’; speedboats and net boats.

I want to mention at this stage the concept of ‘herding’.
We will talk about it again under Section 3 (Handling your helicopter), but for now I want to touch on ‘herding’ as part of the outline of what the basic job entails.
‘Herding’ as the name implies is the use of the helicopter as a tool to scare the fish.You chase them into the set – if you’re lucky- and once they are in, you try and keep them there. While the nets slowly close…

Many ships never ask you to herd. The American ships by and large seem to regard the practice with amusement. However, the Taiwanese and the Koreans may expect you to herd, and I understand that some other Mexican and South American purse seiners will ask you as well.

The principle behind this is that fish tend to follow the leader. The leader tends to follow the baitfish, until such time as he gets really spooked, and then he just wants OUT of the set. If you can turn the leader, (or the baitfish and therefore the leader) you may turn the whole foamer around. If you play it right, maybe a hundred tons or more of fish will reverse course right back into the set.
The ‘tow-line’, as the name implies, is a heavy steel set of cables playing out off the back of the ship, which literally ‘tow’ the net. When the nets are first going down, and the ship is steaming around in a circle, there will be a huge gap at the bottom of the set (not yet closed), and a second gap behind the ship.
It is this ‘towline gap’ that I have spent many an hour guarding! Hovering at four to six feet, kicking up a huge spray, and sliding sideways up and down the length of the towline. IF… the whole foamer is heading en masse for the ‘towline’ (the still open section in the net ‘curtain’), and only the helicopter is in the right spot, and if you do succeed in turning the whole lot around, it is pretty obvious ‘whodunnit’ and who gets the glory! The reverse also applies!
Yes, there are speedboats running up and down, often more airborne than on the water, trying to do the same job. But they are no match for the helicopter in terms of agility, speed, and noise footprint. There will also be some ‘net boats’ trying to help. These are much slower, small tug boats. They are designed to hold the nets from drifting the wrong way, and therefore can grab onto the net and pull hard with a lot of torque. But they are slow to accelerate, and can hardly be called nimble.
Very often the captain will look to the helicopter as the star player to keep his fish inside the net, in that critical time period when the winches are going crazy, straining to close the net. Anywhere between twenty five and forty five minutes.

The greatest successes for the herding helicopter tend to come unexpectedly, when part of the ‘corkline’ sinks below the surface. The top of the net is marked by a continuous line of hundreds of large, bright, yellow ‘corks’. They are the size of a very large jar, or a small drum. These provide flotation so the net hangs down vertically. You will see them in all the photos on www.tunaseiners.com that picture the net retrieval scene.
Now the ‘corkline’ should not normally go under water. Two factors however can cause this to happen: excessive winch speed, and/or strong Ocean currents. The effect is that the top of the net, rather than resting on the surface, sinks down maybe eight to ten feet under water. This is a perfect escape opportunity for your captive foamer! I’ve seen it happen many,many times. The good news (if you’re not a tuna) is that the helicopter is very efficient at reaching the affected area in a matter of seconds. Well before the speedboats, and way, way before the netboats can come chug-chugging around.
Now you are going to make a lot of noise and try your hand at ‘sterilizing’ that critical escape window that goes down eight to ten feet. All you have to do is shush sideways up and down the submerged corkline, and you will see fish lined up on the inside, wanting to get out, but frightened to get too close to that nasty ‘thing’, making all that horrible noise. Remember sound travels really well under water.

To give you an idea: we had 150 ton in a closed set one day, with everybody very happy, until the corkline sank down! I had just departed on a search flight, and I was gone about three minutes. I got called back by a frantic captain!
For a few seconds, I couldn’t figure what was going on. All I heard over the radio was:
Moggy!…Moggy!….MOGGYYYYYYY!!!……..
I looked at the observer, and he was as puzzled as I was. Then we heard:
“Moggy-Moggy-Moggy!!!….
!…Gott!…Gott!…..Moggy!!….corkline….corkline!!….Moggy!!!
Come back to ship! Come to shipppppp!!!….Moggy-Moggy….
feeshh get out…!!…..Aaaaahhhh!!!! “

You could tell he was just about hysterical. In those days, 1998, that was a cool hundred twenty thousand bucks about to say:
“Arrivederci, suckers! “
You would think a submerged corkline would pop right back up, but this is not always the case. I came back as fast as I could then, and then spent an interesting twenty minutes screaming backwards and forwards at low level, tailspinning, landinglight on, etc, anything I could think of. It worked… Everybody said afterwards that it was weird the way you could see part of the foamer make a dash for an area, and the helicopter cut across and block the escape. A minute later, another section would make a rush elsewhere along the line, and again be turned back.
That day, the helicopter scored big time, and in twenty minutes of efficient work, paid for three months’ worth of helicopter rent! But that is kind of rare to score so well during herding. I have also been in the exact same position, patrolling the corkline, only to have one section of fish succeed in breaking out. After that, you’re finished. History. Fish will follow fish, nose to tail, and you can hover a foot above them, making as much noise as you can, and the chances are you are wasting your time. You won’t stop a full bore nose-to-tail escape!
It’s kind of frustrating -and kind of funny!- all at the same time. They are so beautiful to watch, and you can’t help but wishing them the best as they disappear…
A whole set will empty out in minutes, and -you guessed it- the chopper gets the blame!

Some pilots love herding. Many pilots absolutely loath and detest herding. Some will refuse to do it.
Everybody who has actually done it, for real, (as opposed to the B-S’ers!) has firm views on it, one way or the other!
I have herded extensively in a Bell 47 (Lycoming O-435! Not much Power!) and also in Hughes 500 ‘C’ and ‘D’ model
helos. (Allison C20B! Oodles and oodles of power! Great!)

I guess I hold mixed views on it.
These could be roughly summed up as follows:
1. Sometimes it works spectacularly well. Most times it doesn’t seem to make much difference, although it’s maybe hard to tell.
2. For damn sure, it can be dangerous. There have been many herding accidents. Usually people stick a tail rotor in a wave.
More on this later…
3. It can be fun, on a nice day, reasonably calm sea, not too much wind. But on a windy, rough, blustery day, with a lot of spray and large waves, and the machine trying to weathercock all the time….. Yuk!
4. To be safe and efficient, it has to be done in a certain way. Otherwise it can quickly become dangerous,or a total waste of time, or even counter productive.
5. With that much salt spray, you need to wash your bird down with copious amounts of fresh water immediately afterwards.

We will talk about this again, later. For now, just be aware of the concept!

2) The ‘Brown Ball’

One day, you may have an experience similar to mine.
It was early days, and I sure didn’t know much about tuna fishing. We were circling around an area of small, patchy foamers. Suddenly,old Akaya got all excited.
“Brown Ball! Brown ball! You see?! Brown ball! “
I looked down, and, sure enough, there, floating in the water, was a sort of… brown ball.
Ten meters across, it sort of got bigger and smaller, then sharper,and then more dull. Heck if I knew what it was, or why my friend from Taiwan was so excited. So, being a naive type, who tends to fail to recognize situations when silence would camouflage ignorance, I spoke the deadly three words:
“What is it? “
In reply I got one of those looks of disgust. He went back to his binoculars, still shaking his head. Back on the ship, all I heard at the dinner table amongst lots of laughter at my expense, was ‘brown ball’.
Eventually, the captain explained.
Anchovy. Pure and simple. Lots and lots of anchovy, millions and millions of them, huddled together knowing some are going to get eaten, but hopefully it will be the next guy. Another amazing spectacle in mid Ocean, I shall be forever grateful for to have witnessed up close and first hand…
Now the significance of finding a ‘brown ball’, is that it often means the chance of a really good catch of tuna. If you can see any tuna at all on the surface, the chances are good that there’s lots and lots below. They are just feeding their faces voraciously, blind to any other consideration other than ‘Food, food, and more food’. I’ve seen ‘brown balls’ only a few meters across, maybe several nearby, and I’ve seen a whopper that filled more than half the set. They form very quickly when there is a threat, and take on the color of rich dark brown coffee. Often you will see whales there as well, or sharks.
The whales are quite majestic as they typically rise up in the middle of the ball, jaws wide, rolling over onto their sides as they swallow great gulps of anchovy. Again, spectacular, and you, you lucky thing, have a ring side seat.
The brown balls form quickly, and when the threat passes you will see them suddenly expand, the color fades abruptly, and then they sort of evaporate. All really neat stuff.
The ship of course will set around the brown ball, in the knowledge that the tuna are too busy feeding to take any notice of anything else.

So besides foamers, breezers, gatherings of birds, logs and barrels, you can add ‘brown balls’ to your shopping list when you are out on your first tuna runs.

As a postscript to this section, I might add that I was very impressed at discovering what a ‘brown ball’ was.
So I resolved in my innocent way to try and find one. Boy! Was I excited when I saw my first one.
What made it so good was the fact that El Plonker, Him-who-knew-it-all, sitting beside me, hadn’t seen it. Grrrreat!
“Brown ball! ” I announced importantly.
He lowered his binoculars, and followed my outstretched finger.
The reaction was not what I had expected…
I got that damn look of disgust again, that ‘Lord save me from baby pilots’ look.
I looked again at the brown ball. My FIRST brown ball. What I had spotted all by myself. It was definitely a brown ball. A bit creamy maybe, but definitely still brown.
“Oi! “, I said, indignantly. I should have known better.
“Brown ball! Is important, no? “
He lowered his binoculars slowly, gazed wearily at me, and moved his left hand to pat his left buttock.
Then he raised his binoculars again.
“Huh!? ”
Two words entered wearily into my headphones.
“Whale shit… “

3) green dye and seal bombs

I’ve mentioned the ‘towline’ behind the ship, and the temporary gap between the ship and the net curtain.
This is a prime area for escape for the tuna, and an area of heavy use of ‘green dye’. It gets dropped off the boats in small bags, into the water, (or thrown) and it creates a huge green, billowing underwater cloud. It’s meant to discourage the tuna from passing that way and escaping, and it probably works well.
Now the reason I mention it here,is that some bright spark always gets this real neat idea to drop green dye bags from the helicopter. I soon learned to be dead against it. Here’s why.
Firstly, they will want to deposit a huge pile of ‘ammunition’ right in the open door. It’s usually that hot, you are going to fly with the doors off. Well, that pile is going to leak all over your helicopter, and create a corrosive mess. And it’s hard to clean up. And if a bag falls out while you’re flying along, where is it going to go?
Secondly, the observers get way too excited. They will end up throwing the baggies in all directions, including up into the rotor disc and dangerously close to your tail rotor.
Thirdly, you haven’t lived until your observer, in his excitement, prior to the throw, brings his arm back, and manages to accidentally bop you right in the eye with a green dye bag! At low level! After that fiasco, (boy, was I cross), I banned them from the helicopter. There really wasn’t much need anyway, because the net boats and the skiffboat guys could cover the area just as well.

If you think that green dye bags could be interesting, well, try seal bombs in the helicopter.
I’ll tell you right now, I will NOT allow those things on board my helicopter!
I have no personal -direct- experience of them, but what follows is my understanding. If anybody can correct me,and provide more information, that would be great. I understand a seal bomb is commonly made from dynamite mixed with sand. Its purpose is to be dropped, and scare seals or fish in the right direction. The purpose of the mix, sand and dynamite, is to reduce the volatility. It succeeds in doing this, but at the expense of reliability in use. It needs to explode! It’s no use if it drops in the water and fails to go off. In order to combat that lack of reliability, there is some kind of a ‘heater’ device (I have never seen one) which is installed in the cockpit. What they then do is ‘pre-heat’ the cartridges for a few minutes, and then they drop them.
It all sounds extraordinary to me. A pilot I talked with had experienced a serious accident, where the whole tray exploded prematurely – in the cockpit! The helicopter then crashed into the water. The pilot and the observer both survived, but with serious burns. The pilot had to be rescued by the speedboat driver, who dove into the water and managed to extract the unconscious pilot…
I think I’d pass on that!

4) Underwater breathing/ escape devices

For years I have carried some kind of compact underwater breathing device. You get so used to it, you hardly notice it’s there. As a scuba diver, I’m very comfortable with their use, but somebody with no scuba training can easily find a local dive instructor to get checked out. These “Spare Air ” devices are easily available on the Internet. Mine clips to my lifejacket. There is plenty of air to roll upside down in the water, put the device in your mouth, clear it, and start breathing. Then, at your relative leisure, you can untangle yourself, unbuckle, check on your observer or passenger, and make your way out. I have done it in training many times, and I hardly used half the available air.
Now consider one fatality that occurred while I was out. An Austrian pilot crashed in a Hughes 500 off the Fairwell 707. On his first take-off from a tuna boat. He went down with the sinking helicopter, because the floats burst. Yes, they hit hard. He eventually made it up to the surface, and they got him on deck. He was lucid, and conscious, and told his mechanic (a friend of mine) that it had gotten ‘awfully dark’ down there.
He was down a fair way! On the way up however, he breathed in quite some salt water into his lungs. Some of you will already know what this can mean. It’s bad, without medical help. He survived for another twelve hours or so, but he got a very common inflammation in his lungs. This was a reaction to the salt water, and it is often referred to as ‘secondary drowning’. Essentially, you get a build up of fluid in your lungs, to where your ability to absorb oxygen is slowly reduced to the point where you literally drown –on dry land– in your own lung fluids. He was so far offshore, it would have taken the ship three or four days to get him back. Too long. What he needed was medical oxygen,urgently.
Poor Walther! We drank a few good pints of beer together on Guam, before his ill fated first voyage.
Everybody was devastated at his death. I was only a few miles up the road when it happened, and I still remember being called to the bridge of my ship and being given the sad news.

You will understand what I’m trying to say: for the small cost of these spare air bottles, about $130, the potential dividends are enormous. I strongly and wholeheartedly recommend EVERYBODY on board a tuna helicopter to wear these devices, and to be trained in their use….

Francis Meyrick
(c)
__________________________________________________________________________________________

Note 1 Aeroscuttle’s input

Aug 4 at 4:34 PM
Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual Ch.1-E “Herding, and the tow-line “

I was in over my head on herding before I even knew it.
I had read this chapter, and was certain I had a good handle on it when the opportunity came along to put my theoretical knowledge I had read from Moggy.
But I might as well been a boxer who was asked to “toe the line “, the first time I was expected to herd while the ship was “towing the line “
I got beat up pretty bad on the radio.
I was being yelled at every step of the way.
I must have been doing it all wrong.
I knew I was doing it safely, but with the language barrier, all I could make out was a few curse words.
I knew enough (from Moggy) to keep my main and tail rotors out of the water, which is a bit harder than it might sound.
I also knew enough(from Moggy) to stay clear of the cable area between the stern of the ship and the first part of the net.
This area could see the cable snap from below the surface where it’s nearly invisible to 6 feet or more above the water.
There was another dangerous area formed when the skiff boat and the ship met. Helicopters have gotten run over in that area. And to a lesser extent, you could get the same kind of cable snap there.
But whatever else I was doing was not making my Captain very happy.
All I could do was to console myself from something else Moggy said…Whatever you do probably won’t make much if any difference.
So in essence I thought of it as a kabuki theatre dance.
I just didn’t ever get to have a full dress rehearsal for my kabuki dances.

Aeroscout

Last edited by Francis Meyrick on August 8, 2015, 9:28 am

Chapter 1-D Radio buoys, Bird radar, Dirty tricks and Sculduggery

1) Radio Buoys

I have already mentioned radio buoys a few times. It is a common tool in the tuna industry.
What you have got is basically a long aerial, maybe twelve to fifteen feet high. At the base is a round, circular body, with a diameter of perhaps twenty inches or so. This serves both for buoyancy and as a storage compartment for the electronic components, including the batteries. There is also an ‘off’ and ‘on’ switch, set on this body..
The ship’s name will be boldly painted on top of the body. It is usually clearly legible to a hovering helicopter.

A boat that has a helicopter will usually also have a slightly shorter set of radio bouys, specifically designed for the helicopter. Even so, frequently at ten or eleven feet long, they pose an extreme hazard to safe rotorcraft operations, as will be explained later.

The radio buoy will be attached to a log, or any other floating object, such as as a barrel, a raft, or even a dead whale.
This can be done by two delivery methods. The first is directly from the ship. The ship will arrive alongside, and crew members will attach the radio buoy to the target. The second method is from the helicopter, which descends down, goes into a hover, and attaches the radio buoy.

A signal is then transmitted, which enables the ship to keep track of the log or other object. In particular, it enables the ship to search elsewhere, roaming around elsewhere. Then, first thing in the morning, just before dawn, having returned to the log (by homing in on the radio buoy), the ship can ‘make a set on the log’. Meaning, they will first ascertain by means of the fish finder that there are indeed fish present. Once that is established, the ship will -very quietly- drop the nets, and steam around in the usual circle. The radio buoy on the log, along with side scanner radar, and an attached light, serves, even in semi darkness, to permit the captain to keep the log smack in the center of the set.

For the helicopter pilot, it can be a device with which he becomes TOO familiar. Too quickly…
There are several really horrible, and potentially fatal ‘go-wrong scenarios’. More later…

Ships will quite often literally steal each other’s radio buoys. It gets nasty. The Taiwanese seemed to get on quite well with the Japanese fishing boats. (It was the Japanese who originally taught the Taiwanese how to fish with purse seiners.)
But although our captain had some good Korean friends (he would call them and give them coded directions to rich fishing, and they would reciprocate and do the same for him), he seemed to hate the other Korean ships. He would pinch their radio buoys, and they would pinch his… More time and effort was wasted with this nonsense.
If our ship had found some good logs, and put radio buoys on them, our captain would stand guard on the bridge like a demented Dobermann. Especially when there were other ships about! If and when the signal would suddenly go dead (somebody had retrieved our buoy and switched it off) he would have a fit. More than once I was dispatched in a hurry in the helicopter to investigate. Or he would simply post me as an orbiting guard, to show the Korean vessel that we had a helicopter, and that we were watching! I also worked on a Korean ship, and it was the exact same performance.
A pilot needs to be careful that he does not get drawn in too deep into this pointless vendetta.
More on this later…

2) Bird Radar

As the name implies, ‘Bird Radar’ is designed to specifically trace flocks of birds within a specified range.
They show up on the bridge radar screen as tiny ‘angels’ that persist in a particular area. Oftentime a captain will send the helicopter over to have a look. You may wonder at the interest in birds, when it’s fish we’re after…
Like the ‘dead tree floating in the water’, a flock of birds also draws the attention of tuna fishermen, not because of any great ornithological interest, but purely for the reason that “where there’s lots of birds, there’s often lots of fish “. Few birds that I know will go for a tuna. That would have to be one heck of a bird. It’s more the smaller baitfish that attract the birds. But since the tuna also go for the baitfish, plenty of birds means a good chance of tuna.

It’s worth becoming familiar with the bird radar on the bridge. It’s quite interesting when you learn to recognize flocks of birds. Prior to take off it’s easy to work out range and bearing, and it’s satisfying to navigate straight to your target. Your observer will be pleased too! If you do go wrong, the captain – if he’s on the ball- will usually come on the radio and give you a heading to steer.
If you have never used bird radar before, it’s handy to know there is usually a ‘range ring’. This is merely a circle on the radar screen, which is controlled by a knob. Twisting the knob means the ring slides in or out, and somewhere, often in the top right hand corner, a display in nautical miles will give you range to target when your ‘range ring’ covers the ‘angels’/
After that, it’s just a matter of looking to the top of the screen, twelve o’clock, and working out your clock angle to fly to get to your target.
Let’s say you reckon ten o’clock looks about right. Transfer that ten o’clock over to the display near or on top of the helm. That gives you a rough bearing. Finish. Don’t forget it is only ‘rough’ because the ship will be moving along while you are getting the chopper ready for take off.
The same radar machine will also give you an idea of the density of the water droplets in surrounding cloud masses. You can save yourself a thrill by delaying or canceling a departure, when there’s nasty stuff out of visual range coming your way. A squall line especially is a nasty thing for a helicopter, and they sometimes show up really well on radar.

The only problem I found is that the different settings often produce better or worse results. When the labels are in Chinese, or Korean, that can be quite a headache! You find yourself staring at a screen that looks all nice and clear, and then the captain reaches over, presses a button, and, –uh-oh!- now you can see all the nasty stuff bearing down on you!
I got myself into a fine pickle of a mess one day, and that story I have described in “Blip on the Radar – Part 2 “.

Flying along, you will develop your own ‘mental bird radar’.
Somehow you know when to ignore birds, and when to study them closely.
If they are flying along steadily, more or less in loose formation, then the chances are that they are doing the same as you: hunting. If, on the other hand, they are wheeling around, swooping down and up, and moving erratically and excitedly, the question is: why?
Often then you will get closer and start seeing maybe a log, with baitfish around it, and now your pulse quickens and the eyes really get to work!

Now that we have talked about logs, baitfish and birds, it’s a good time to introduce a real easy system for simplifying ship-to-chopper communications. How do you describe to the captain what you are looking at? Are you going to say: “Well, uh, I think it’s a pretty good log, it’s got some birds, and, uh, I can’t see tuna but I can see baitfish, and, uh, it’s about five meters long….. “?
A much simpler way is the ‘one to five system’.

No.1 Log: tuna (foamer or breezer) and birds and baitfish
No.2 Log: tuna (foamer or breezer) and baitfish, but no birds
No.3 Log: no tuna, but you can see birds and baitfish
No.4 Log: no tuna, no birds, baitfish
No.5 Log: no tuna, no birds, little or no baitfish

The call above then simply becomes: “No.3 Log, five meters. “
If your observer does not want to use this system, it is still worth your while studying it. It will give you an idea of what the relative merits of a particular log are. Obviously, the value of a log decreases rapidly from Log No.1 down to Log No.5…
You may wonder why anybody would be interested in a ‘No.5 Log’. Sometimes a ship will go and pick one up. Physically. Reel it in with a crane. Then later, if they find a No.1 or a No.2 Log that is rather small, then they will ‘add’ a No.5 log to it (roped together) in the hope that this will attract more baitfish, and therefore, tuna.
It does seem to work sometimes, especially on a ‘double-dipper’. This is where the ship will make a set on a log, but decide to go for a second hit a few days later. They will leave a radio buoy on the two roped together logs, and sail off.
Why would a ship ‘double dip’? Usually because after the first set a nice foamer or breezer has appeared just outside the set, leading the captain to believe he missed part of the fish the first time. You will often see, say, thirty tons the first dip, and fifteen tons the second dip. However, I’ve also seen 150 tons day 1 and 150 tons day 2! That is rare though.
On a handful of occasions, we had so many fish in the net, over 300 tons, that the captain was concerned about his net being damaged. He then deliberately let half the fish out! Next morning, he set again, and caught them anyway.
That takes a cool customer, and against that, I have also seen over excited captains trying to reel the whole thing in, having their nets rip, and losing the whole lot! An exasperated Taiwanese sailor swearing in Chinese over the radio sounds really impressive. You can easily tell they are very, very upset.
Sometimes you have to work hard at keeping your face straight, as you watch the beautiful tuna hop-skipping away towards the sunset, courtesy of a greedy captain’s ripped nets…. I often wondered whose side I was on!

3) Dirty tricks and sculduggery

Remember I talked about the radio buoys above? And captains pinching them?
One variant on this plays out this way: of course nobody will EVER admit to it….
Say a boat sees somebody else’s buoy, attached to a really good log, with a lot of tuna. That radio buoy in theory is like an ownership stake. It’s like “planting your flag ” to claim possession. But it doesn’t always get respected.
If the ‘owner ship’ is going to return to set the next morning, they will be back no later than midnight. I have seen it whereby, if the ‘owner ship’ was not nearby, that a ‘rogue captain’ would very, very quietly, sneak up to the log. They would be quiet and slow, so as not to scare the fish away. Then comes the next dirty trick…
First, they would sneak up, very, very quietly.
Next, they would gently lower ANOTHER log down. Perhaps a Number 5 log they picked up a few days earlier.
Next, after an hour or two, (giving the baitfish a chance to adopt the new log), they would gently raise the ORIGINAL log (plus owner radio buoy) out of the water.
Next, they attach their own radio buoy to their own ‘substitute’ No.5 log….
And finally, they would hide the other ship’s -original- log and radio buoy under a tarpaulin.
Needless to say, the next morning, there would be a boat going round and round trying to find their missing log and radio buoy, and maybe a helicopter searching as well. As the chances are the pilot will be a buddy of yours, you all know the game, and you all play along. Crazy stuff. Pilots need to be really careful not to get drawn in too deep. Shots have been fired at helicopters, and aerial duels have also been fought out. Angry helicopter crew have dropped objects on other purse seiners, and crew have chucked objects at helicopters hovering overhead.
I have point blank refused to fly over and allow one angry observer to drop five gallons of green paint on a Korean ship.
I wasn’t getting into that. That’s childish. It’s not worth it…

Finally, you should watch when the bird radar is cluttered with really bad weather. Now imagine yourself stuck out there in the helicopter, trying to find your way back without penetrating any ‘cunims’. (Cumulonimbus -remember?)
Nasty..
Now reflect for a second what major assistance a clued up captain could give you by using the radar screen! I’ve had a captain do just that..

If you fancy a good giggle, you’ll get a laugh out of the expressions on some of the larger sea birds as the ship approaches to tie up to a log! Especially towards late evening. Some of them look really ticked off!
They are often MOST reluctant to shift, and do so at the last second after throwing looks of pure poison up at the ship!
You can hear their thoughts:

“Huh! There I was, all ready to bed down for the night, and here comes this bloody big THING. This is MY log. I’ve been sitting here for HOURS, so why don’t you lot BUZZ OFF and go and find your own log!! “

Francis Meyrick
(c)

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Note 1: Aeroscuttle’s say!

Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual Ch.1-D “Radio buoys, Bird Radar, Dirty tricks and Sculduggery

The pool of tuna spotter pilots breaks out into roughly thirds.
A third are lifers.
They have fulfilled at least 5 one year contracts, and plan to tuna spot until they retire.
I met an ex Phillipino police officer who was 70 who fit into this category.
This third has for all intents and purposes topped out in their salaried compensation scale.
Then there is another third who have finished anywhere from 1 to 4 one year contracts and are building hours for a more attractive helicopter flying job.

Then there are the rookies, like I was when I was reading Moggy’s mentionables.
The rookies are almost literally thrown to the wolves.
They are low time pilots who know nothing about the industry.
They get little to no formal or even informal training before they are sent to meet up with their ship.
Their first everything starts the day they first fly off their ship.
If they are lucky they will have a good mechanic who will give them some times that will come in handy.
Otherwise they have to figure it all out by themselves.
And there is pressure.
A Captain or a Fishmaster will not hesitate to fire a tuna spotter pilot and make the spotter pilot company come up with one more to their liking.
So it’s “straighten up and fly right ” as they may say.
And your idea of “right ” better closely align with what the Captain or Fishmaster wants.
That is where the musings and advice of a grizzled veteran like Moggy comes in.
If you took the time to read his screeds before you had gotten yourself into another fine mess, there would be little to no surprises.
The surprises you might have would be very manageable and or tolerable.
But if you didn’t, you were in for a culture shock that many times caused a new pilot to quit.
There is probably a 50% new pilot attrition rate if you count to finishing a 1 year contract.
You may quit.
You may get fired by your Captain/Fishmaster.
You may get fired by your spotter company especially if you broke something more valuable than you(which is most anything).
You may crash and be injured.
You may get sick, and be unable to continue.
You may crash and not survive.
You may disappear into a crowd in a port and not return.
You may fall overboard and never be heard from again.
Which reminds me. If you do fall overboard it’s all but certain you will never be heard from again.

That brings me to what I learned from Chapter 1-D in the Moggy Tuna Manual that saved my grits or saved my gravy.
By the time I made it out to the tuna fishing grounds, radio buoys were nearly obsolete.
We still had a full inventory of them, but the solar powered GPS buoys had all but replace them.
But If I did have to carry and deploy a radio buoy, I would have been safely ready thanks to Moggy.
I’m just glad I didn’t. We didn’t even as much as load one much less use one.

Now the bird radar was a whole nother thing.
That was still all the rage.
Almost every flight was a dedicated bird radar flight, or included a visual reconnaissance of birds spotted on the ship’s radar.
I really worried about bird strikes reading Moggy’s manual, but those preconceptions turned out to be unfounded.
As long as you didn’t counterflow the swirls the assorted fish chasing birds made, you were some level of invulnerable.
I found that the birds were much more interested in baitfish than tuna.
So if the tuna were forming a breezer, I almost never saw birds attracted to them. That is unless there were baitfish nearby.

As for the skulduggery. There was still plenty of that. There didn’t seem to be any rules except, the last ship to attach their buoy…owned the log.
Any other ships who previously had a buoy attached may or may not ever see theirs again.
I remember a day I had to launch 3 additional times to protect a log where other ships were trolling around.

Aeroscout

Last edited by Francis Meyrick on August 8, 2015, 9:27 am

On a low approach to the Hsieh Feng 707; TOO low

Chapter 1-C Foamers and Breezers

1) Foamers

There are some sights in Nature, which are universally recognized as truly magnificent.
Most members of the public are familiar with documentaries showing large salmon migrating up seemingly impossible mountain streams.
Their determination to return to their native spawning grounds, despite everything, hurdling rocks and battling everything the dangerous journey throws at them. We’ve seen the big grizzly bears delightedly fishing ’em out.
An amazing ritual, that has gone on for millennia, that Man must take great care not to destroy. If, in his foolishness, he was to do so, the loss would be not only the spectacle of the migrating salmon. But the whole eco system, including the happy bears, filling their tummies, would be damaged and altered in a way that would be tragic beyond words.
If you’re like me, you have watched squadrons of geese migrating across the sky, obeying a time old instinct. Homing on their winter grounds, with ancient senses that we yet barely understand.
Maybe you have seen coral reefs at the moment of their annual orgy. An amazing event, only recently captured on film. The first time I saw the coral reefs spawn, the stunning footage was set to a strange, dreamy, far away music. It was peaceful, and even soothing. It spoke of an ancient ritual, aeons old, that we small, fragile little humans should honor and respect.
Maybe you have seen entertaining documentaries of walruses mating. And like me, laughed at the frenetic cacophony of their love making, the smack of blubber against blubber as a male suitor gets his wicked way with the lady of his dreams. It is neat to watch. But it is with a pang you come awake, as that same camera takes you on a low level flight along hundreds and hundreds, even thousands of miles of starkly deserted South American beaches. Beaches that for thousands and thousands of years… reverberated with the happy, busy sound of seal and walrus love play, territorial claims, and warning barks.
Yes, Man again. In his greed, his shortsightedness, his foolishness… managed to wipe out -forever- entire populations.
In a few short decades, a century at best, a whole tradition of Nature, a ceremony, a ritual, a wonderful feast of life and reproduction…
was destroyed. For-ever…

And such a terrific wonder, such a spectacle of Nature at its richest, at its best, is the ‘foamer‘.
I spent hours and hours trying to describe it to the best of my limited abilities for a chapter in my second novel. It is called “The Tuna Hunter “, and is largely finished. I quote here an excerpt from Chapter One.

* * * * * *

It was a strange love affair, that had started on almost his first reconnaissance flight, three years earlier. He had been flying with a Taiwanese observer, Yang, who had spent almost the entire flight peering through binoculars, and barking out compass headings.
“You fly two-seven-zero, quick-quick! “
Bob had obediently swung the helicopter around, and then had peered into the distance, puzzled at the little Taiwanese’s obvious urgency. He had noticed nothing.
“You see? White water. Foamer! You see? “
Bob had not seen. He had looked hard, but seen only white topped waves, and spray blowing back.
Then, amazingly, they had arrived overhead, and he had seen. The foamer. White water. The purpose of his new employment…

And finally, one evening after sunset, when he had stood alone on the very bow of the ship…
When the engines had been stopped, and only the generators disturbed the peace, just before nightfall, a foamer had welled up beside the silently rolling ship, only yards from where he alone stood witness.
One moment he was alone on deck, peering through the twilight to the far horizons, with not another ship to be seen. Feeling alone, mournful, missing he knew not what…
The next moment, he was witnessing the first ‘jumpers’ erupting, vanguards of the main formation, only yards from where he stood in silent introspection. That was the night when he realized that a foamer also has its own sound. Its own music. The cry of the circling, diving, hungry birds intermingled with a soft splashing of thousands of busy fins. The surprisingly loud ‘smack’ as the erupting Tuna re-entered the water. The struggling, desperate sounds of small fish shooting across the surface, eagerly pursued by the hungry Tuna. It was like no sound he had ever heard before. With the sound of wind and waves forming the accompaniment, here was Nature in its purest, unspoiled as yet by Man, and he had wished only for all extraneous noise on the intruding killer ship to cease…

* * * * * *

What more can I say about the foamer!??
It really is mesmerizing. Spectacular. Any pilot or fisherman who says a foamer is ‘just a bunch of stupid fish splashing about’ has the soul of a mildewed, shriveled up prune! He is obviously totally devoid of feeling, and will never be any good in bed. Sex to him will always be ‘just a quick scratch of the itch before you go to sleep’!
So says I!

In terms of size, foamers will vary from really small (only a few meters across) to absolutely stunning. I have seen ‘stationary’ foamers hundreds and hundreds of meters across, and I have seen a ‘river’ of foamers, stretching literally for mile after mile, as all the time even more fish appeared over the horizon. That lot were ‘traveling tunies’, and they were traveling at speed! You could almost call them ‘racing tunies’… They seemed to be following an invisible ‘tuna freeway‘, a ‘Skipjack Motorway’, and we ran low on fuel before we had even surveyed a fraction of what was passing below. We are talking about millions of fish. That was in March 1996, about four hundred miles North of Papua New Guinea. That was the time we filled up 700 tons in three days. We were back in the port of Wewak after one week. Precisely seven days after departure, we were entering the harbor, and calling the shipping agent on the radio. I was on the bridge, when I heard the agent, most concerned, inquiring if we had a ‘problem’. We were back so soon!
“Yes “, said Captain Alan, with a straight voice.
“We have BIG problem. We have no more room to store fish! “
Everybody got a good chuckle out of that one.
The three fishing days were pretty bizarre, actually. With 300 tons in the set together at one time, and the captain absolutely petrified that his one million dollar net was going to tear.
Sights such as that give one hope that the tuna stocks are still healthy. However, more on this -debatable- issue later, under the section ‘Conservation’!

Finally, I will mention again the inevitable day when you will have this experience: you will have the best seat in the house -in your helicopter- watching frustrated and desperate purse seiners, (after weeks and weeks of not even sighting any tuna), trying so hard to make a successful set on a ‘traveling foamer’. The fish dive under the net, and come up a minute later on the outside! There is often a breathless few minutes, after the ship has set, before the nets are closed, that everybody is waiting and wondering:
“Will the fish stay inside? ”
You can’t see anything. Inside or out. The captain will ask the pilot many times over the radio. Do you see fish??
But no, first one, then another, then a whole gang, will start surfacing just outside the net. The crew will heave a loud collective groan. Now they are faced with the long and tedious labor intensive task of recovering the nets. All for nothing.
You will watch as another purse seiner rushes in, smoke belching from the funnel. There is the loud ‘clack!’ as their skiff boat is cut loose, and goes sliding down the ramp with a mighty splash, their crew hanging on for grim life. They make a set, and everybody on that ship is holding their breath. You watch again as the fish dive deep under the net, and a minute or two later… there they are, appearing outside of the second purse seiner’s net, re-grouping and still traveling in the same compass direction!
Your captain rushes in, makes a set, the fish dive under the net, and a minute later they appear outside, still traveling in the same direction! I have often seen so many sets in a row, all empty, and a huge traveling foamer with mature Yellowfin hopping and skipping merrily away on their journey across the Ocean Deep! With a gaggle of weary, tired, frustrated purse seiner crews following the escaping prize with baleful stares. It’s hard not to laugh! It’s uncanny at times. It’s almost as if the little darlings are ‘cocking a snoot’! I think a lot depends on the leaders. If they are ‘old hands’, I think their mental processes react along the lines of:
“What? Net? Oh, boring, booooring!! FORMATION-DIVE-DIVE-DIVE! “
Followed a minute later by:
“Bloody purse seiners! UP YOURS! (finger) (or fin) “

Conditioning is probably a major factor here. The more the tuna get used to nets coming down, the more likely they are to dive down. And learn how to escape.Until the set is closed can take anywhere from twenty-five to forty minutes. It depends on equipment, skill, and sea state. A diving tuna can easily escape until that time. It is interesting that purse seiners are using (having to use) bigger nets, that sink more quickly. Even so, I suspect the smart tuna will get used to those….
Sometimes it’s hard to know whose side you are on. Fishing is an honorable tradition, centuries old, and the loudest environmental activists who complain about ALL fishing (often with very little knowledge), will be the first to complain bitterly when the price of fish and tuna in the supermarket goes up. They reserve the right to eat and enjoy the product of the fisherman’s labor, whilst decrying and criticizing the fishing! Having said all that,I must admit to more than a sneaking sympathy for the worthy tuna quarry, and a snicker of amusement when I see them escape.

You will hopefully absolutely enjoy your first few foamers. When the sun is sparkling down, and the water is massively criss-crossed with white scars in the distance… it’s good being a tuna pilot!

2) Breezers

The ‘Breezer’ is also a ‘large gathering of fish’, but one that is taking place just beneath the surface of the sea. A foamer can become a breezer, and vice versa. At the ‘foamer’ stage, the fish are much more easily to spot. Sometimes however, a breezer will stay a breezer for a very long time, with very few fish breaking the surface.
Then they can be the very dickens to see.

It takes a while before you can recognize them. Rain falling on the surface of the sea also often looks misleadingly like a Breezer. The best way to think of it is as a ‘disturbance of the normal pattern of the waves’. The waves are flatter, sometimes almost calm. Remember, you might be flying over 50,000 fish… together, that’s a lot of mass, seriously affecting the wave pattern. A breezer can also look a bit like a slick. As you circle overhead, you will see the dark shapes flitting about underneath.
Sometimes you will peer into the far distance on a calm, hot day, and be puzzled by what appears to be a small circle suddenly forming on the water. This circle will grow rapidly in diameter, from a few meters to maybe twenty or thirty. Occasionally, it will grow up to one hundred meters or more. This circle expands and also shrinks rapidly. It can at some stage become characterized by the appearance of ‘jumpers’. These are a few fish jumping clear of the surface, often chasing food, causing white splashes. The jumpers can be the heralds of a foamer, but not necessarily. Sometimes the jumpers disappear, and you are left with your breezer again. Just a ‘calm’ on the surface.
Sometimes the growing circle splits off into two or three circles. Or you will see other circles spontaneously forming some distance away. Forming. And disappearing. Forming… and disappearing.

I have listened to all sorts of theories, and some pretty wild statements. I record my observations not in any way as the ultimate truth, but as ‘impressions’ only. I don’t think there is any validity in the story that ‘foamers are always bigger than breezers’. I have seen some massive, massive breezers, with hardly a ripple on the surface.
I suspect the factors that decide whether the tuna splash about on the surface, or stay underneath, have a lot to do with environmental conditions such as:
time of the day
presence of ‘baitfish’ (dinner!)
the behavior of said baitfish
the temperature of the water
the temperature gradient of the water
(i.e. how much the temperature changes as you go down)
mating behavior
clarity of the water
cloud cover
etc, etc.

The breezer is very important to a good helicopter crew. It is harder to identify than a full blooded ‘foamer’, but after a while you get the hang of it. Your worst distractions are the already mentioned rain falling on the surface, and cloud shadows. You will find breezers much, much easier to spot on a calm sea.

If you are a new tuna helicopter pilot, you might be wondering why I am going into so much detail about the actual behavior of the tuna. You may be impatient to get to the ‘meat’, as you see it. The important stuff. Flying…
Relax, amigo, we will talk at great length about the actual techniques of flying, landing and taking off, and dealing with herding and radio buoys later on.
But you will miss out on much if you don’t understand the basics.

Let me give you two examples to illustrate the point…
The first example was on a red hot equatorial day, with unlimited visibility, and almost zero wind. That -dangerous!- flat calm brilliant blue surface, that lulls everybody into a false sense of security…. (more on that later!)
We had been looking for tuna for a week.
We hadn’t seen a thing. My relationship with my observer, Akaya, had improved, but he could still be rude and uncouth.
I for my part wisely bit my tongue, but I was not above engaging in good old-fashioned ‘pay-back’ when the opportunity presented itself…
Well…. all of a sudden, off on my left, way, way in the distance, seven miles away, I saw the typical circles form in the water. Akaya was looking through his gyro stabilized fancy-dancy binoculars somewhere else, and had noticed nothing.
I watched the circles grow. Then the first jumpers. Then a huge foamer. Then back to some circles. Then nothing. Not a trace. And a mischievous idea formed in my mind. Akaya was wholly unaware. I watched the whole diving and surfacing cycle a few more times. There would be four or five minutes of activity, followed by three minutes of ‘nothing’. Not a ripple.
Hmmmmm….
I waited until it had just gotten flat calm out there.
“Akaya! ” I said, excitedly, “Fish! “
My observer followed my outstretched finger, and searched intensely.
“Nothing! “, he said, annoyed, and went back to looking on his side.
I watched the fish come up, do their thing, and dive again…
“Akaya! “, I said excitedly, a few minutes later, “Fish! “
He searched again, and found nothing. There was nothing to be seen.
I was now hugely enjoying myself. In a space of ten minutes, I managed to wind him up like a clockwork mouse.
I would be pointing at nothing, saying: “Can’t you see!?? I can see!! “
He would search the indicated spot in the far distance for thirty seconds, and give up. He was getting really annoyed with me.
Stage Two: I called the captain.
“Captain! I see fish! But Akaya not let me go there! “
Back came the captain’s voice, telling Akaya in no uncertain circumstances that we should go see. The captain took great pride in the learning efforts of his disciple-me- and wanted me to find fish. So he could have the glory of having taught the pilot!
We swung on an intercept course, and Akaya, with his binoculars down, was berating me for wasting everybody’s time. He used the word ‘crazy’ in every sentence, several times. I kept my face perfectly straight.
Ho-hum…
As if by magic, a two hundred ton foamer burst to the surface. His face went from anger, through disbelief, to shock.
Now HE had to call the captain… and explain….
Back on the ship, I was the captain’s golden boy, and Akaya got a good scolding, and told next time to “listen to Moggy! “

Poor old Akaya. He had no clue he was being ‘set up’. I managed to pull the exact same gag a few more times, until, eventually, he got suspicious…

Knowing about fishing can also save you time and effort. And give you the opportunity to ‘get one over’ on the competition.
One day we were with half a dozen other boats in an area, and two of them also had helicopters. We had not seen or caught fish for a while. I was the third machine to take off that afternoon, following shortly behind the two “Brand X ” birds.
They BOTH flew over a large breezer and missed it! I was not really concentrating, and my observer was already asleep.
I assumed the area to have been ‘well helicopter searched’ already. I spotted it, nudged my observer, and we circled around. Next thing we found a big log! This breezer was a really nice ‘log breezer’!
We dropped a radio buoy, and decided to go home! It was a real short flight.
The next morning our ship caught a hundred tons off it, the only vessel to catch anything. And that was rather satisfying.
This happened only four or five miles from where all the ships were gathered together.

It was amusing, later that same day, quietly listening in to the conversations of the other two helicopter pilots. I had enjoyed an easy afternoon, nice and lazy, with a plentiful supply of beer and sausages supplied by our happy captain. The other two pilots were hot, tired, frustrated and empty-handed. They had flown a triangle, sixty miles out, across and back, and found nothing. Just about home, and then they spotted our radio buoy, bobbing about!
“What the f@!!!K!!… That’s Moggy’s buoy! Well I’ll be DARNED! That’s a good breezer! Shoot! I reckon we must have gone right over the top of that! ”

More than a little tipsy, I raised them a beer, from my comfortable chair in the captain’s cool, air conditioned cabin.

“Suckers….! ”

Francis Meyrick
(c)

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Note 1: Aeroscuttle’s input

If I hadn’t read Moggy’s meanderings about all things tuna, before I set off to arrive at the tuna fishing grounds, I would have been doubly ignorant.
I wouldn’t even know about even knowing.
I would have seen my first foamer, and my first breezer without even realizing what they were.
But I was armed with a little knowledge.
And even though a little knowledge can be dangerous, I had enough more than the little to get me by.
I had my eye calibrated enough to be only of little use.
What my eye need to calibrate to was size of school first. And with a little practice, that skill became reliable.
But then the next more difficult skill, and the next.
What was the overall travel direction of the school, and what school displayed the tendencies that would make a successful set more likely.
Empty net sets are not very good for morale.
If you get an early start you can get 6 to 8 good empty net sets in a day, all during daylight.
That’s not to mention a pieyow, a nighttime set.
Then come the conundrums.
There’s a big school 20 miles away, and a smaller school 10 miles away.
Maybe an even smaller one 5 miles away.
Which one do you pursue?
Chances are you won’t get both.
All this would go through my mind after just a couple of months on the boat.
But all that and more would go through the Captain’s mind, and what a torment it must have been.
All the responsibility weighing on his shoulders.
All the hours spent in the tower commanding the first officer at the conn chasing the school, herding it, rounding it up, shepherding, working into a perfect position to hear the words on the ship’s PA…
Standby, standby, standby…let go.
On average 1 out of 10 daytime sets would bring in fish.
It was a stressful job, and I often heard his say how stressed he was, because he even knew how to say it in English.
When the fish are plentiful, everyone is happy.
When the fish are scarce, so are places to avoid the tension.

Aeroscout

Last edited by Francis Meyrick on August 8, 2015, 9:26 am

Ch.1-B Skipjack, Yellowfin, Bigeye, Albacore, Bluefin, log fishing, purse seiners, longliners, good pilots and dead trees

A gift from Mother Nature to Man; will Man prove himself worthy?

If you remember from the Introduction, one hapless Irish neophyte tuna pilot on his ‘first trip’ leaned over the rail in puzzlement, asking: “Why is everybody so interested in a dead tree? “
In four words! Because fish live there!
It seems odd at first, but it’s true: fish will ‘adopt’ a passing log, and decide to call it ‘home’ for a while. Often the little dudes like to hide in the roots. This in turn attracts bigger fish. Usually hungry. This in turn attracts… tuna. Before you know what’s happening, you can have 10,20, 50 , or 150 ton or occasionally as much as 300 ton of fish milling around that ol’ dead tree. That is why everybody is so interested. Although the exact reasons why fish congregate around logs in the middle of the Ocean has apparently been the theme of a doctoral thesis of some academic geek, in simple terms I think I am right(ish) when I say that it all starts with the little guys, so-called ‘baitfish’ looking for some kind of shelter and protection (however illusory) from the bigger guys trying to eat them. These bigger guys get a nasty shock when even bigger guys come along gunning for them. The ‘even bigger guys’ are our good friends the Skipjack tuna, Yellowfin tuna, Albacore tuna and the Bigeye tuna. In the nineties’ when I was out there off the waters of Truk, Tarawa, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, etc, etc Skipjack, Albacore and Yellowfin were in plentiful supply. Old sailors were even then commenting on the steady disappearance of BigEye tuna. They were -even then- becoming noticeably rare.

Yellowfin tuna – a simply beautiful fish, and spectacular performer

1) Yellowfin tuna.
As of June 2009, if you check with ‘Wikipedia’, you will see that the Yellowfin is seriously ‘endangered’ so far only in the Mediterranean. However, this warning is also posted:
“Recent studies proved that this species is endangered especially in the Mediterranean sea. This is due to over-fishing serving commercial interests regardless of high concern from the scientific and environmental community. “

“In terms of whether the Yellowfin tuna fishing industry is sustainable, the jury is out. The Audubon’s Seafood Guide (a guide for what types of marine food products are not eco-friendly) lists Yellowfin tuna that have been troll-caught as “OK ” but those that have been long-line caught as ‘Be Careful’……. “

Factors working in favor of the Yellowfin include the fact that this fish is a real wanderer, and roams over vast areas of the world’s oceans. Most people will have heard of the disaster that occurred due to over fishing off the Canadian waters, but remember there that the Canadian species of fish (not tuna) affected the most were not nomadic. They were ‘resident’ in a relatively defined area, and were ruthlessly hunted down. Short term greed, long term loss….
Another factor in favor of the Yellowfin is that many island nations in the Pacific control huge maritime economic zones which consist of prime Yellowfin habitat. Their national income frequently depends heavily on fishing licenses they sell to foreign fishing vessels. The licenses stipulate that ‘observers’ may be placed on the fishing vessels, at the fishing company’s expense. Although I only ever recall an observer onboard ship once (in five years), this is potentially a method which could provide protection to the Yellowfin harvest by scientific monitoring and evaluation of the health of fish stocks.
My understanding is that, today, the observer program is being much more strongly enforced. That is great news for the chances of international cooperation to preserve this amazing creature for future generations.
Factors working against the Yellowfin are human greed and shortsightedness. Yes, there are still plenty of Yellowfin in many parts of the world. But an ever expanding world population propels ever more fishing vessels with evermore hi-tech weaponry. The hope is that responsible industry leaders in the tuna power game will plan for a long term game.
And listen to scientific and academic input…

By the way, you have not lived until you have tasted Yellowfin Shashimi. Freshly caught and sliced yellowfin, dipped in a little sauce…. yummy-yummy; good in your tummy. A tuna pilot will enjoy for free what a customer in Tokio will pay hundreds of dollars for…
I absolutely loved watching Yellowfin tuna from the air. They can move like demented torpedoes through the water, leaping out and splashing the water in a spectacular white cauldron of feeding frenzy. I have described my feelings of awe in the opening chapter One of my novel, “The TunaHunter “.
The Yellowfin will grow to amazing sizes. Seven and eight feet long, and weighing 200 pounds.

2) Skipjack Tuna

The Skipjack Tuna; another fun loving FAST moving rascal

The Skipjack Tuna is aptly named. When they are in the mood, they can hop-skip-fly and romp with the best of them. It is astounding how fast a Skipjack will move through the water when he feels like it. They also like to dart above the surface, sometimes following each other into the air in a virtuoso sequence. They also crash back into the water, collectively causing a brilliant white gash on the surface of the Ocean, visible for many miles away. With maybe up to 50,000 fish whooping it up together at a time, you can imagine what a raucous party they can throw! Fascinating to watch… They grow up to a meter in length (3.3 feet). These are the most prolific tuna in the world today. Nobody that I know of is seriously suggesting that the Skipjack is under threat. Thank goodness. Criticism does often focus however on the ‘by-catch’. The other species and juveniles that are unfortunately caught in the same purse seiner net. In some areas of the world, quite extraordinary efforts are being made to reduce this by-catch. This is to be applauded.

3) The Albacore Tuna

The Albacore Tuna, also called Longfin Tuna or German Bonito

‘Wikipedia’ in June of 2009 makes the following statement:
The National Scientific Committee (NSC) conducts regularly scheduled stock assessments of Pacific albacore. The 2003 stock assessment found the albacore stocks to be at or near record highs. The North and South Pacific albacore stocks are not overfished. The ISC findings are accepted by the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission and the Western Central Pacific Fisheries Commission and employed in the responsible management of Pacific albacore tuna stocks.
Regrettably, the same cannot be said for Atlantic stocks of albacore. The World Conservation Union (IUCN) has not re-assessed Albacore in over 10 years, and the last assessment given (from 1996) was “data deficient “. Other assessments of the North and South Atlantic stocks from the same period showed them to be vulnerable and critically endangered respectively, due to significant population reductions measured through an index of abundance and considering “actual or potential levels of exploitation “.[1] No similar finding was made regarding Pacific albacore, which are believed to be at or near historically high spawning stock levels.
I did find that the Taiwanese and Koreans call these “Skipjack “….!

4) The Big Eye tuna

A beautiful, and highly endangered fish

Pity the Bigeye! This magnificent fish is under threat.
From Wikipedia, in June 2009:
Bigeye tuna are amongst the tuna species most threatened by overfishing. Juvenile bigeye tuna associate closely with floating objects such as logs, buoys and other flotsam, which makes them extremely susceptible to purse seine fishing in conjunction with man-made FADs (Fish Aggregation Devices). Bigeye mature at a later age than other commercially important tuna species such as skipjack and yellowfin tuna, and the removal of large numbers of juvenile bigeye before they reach breeding age is a major concern to fisheries managers, scientists and sport fishermen.

For a really astonishing interview, where the owner of a seafood chain reveals his total ignorance about the status of BigEye tuna stocks, follow this link:

http://www.babelgum.com/3021926/the-end-the-line-episode-5-the-power-consumers.html

5) The Bluefin Tuna

Alas the poor Bluefin! International support needed urgently!

(From Wikipedia) There are several species of Bluefin tuna. Some of which belong to the colder waters of the Atlantic. Dealing only with the Pacific Bluefin Tuna, these are sadly overfished throughout the world. [3] They are hooked on long lines or illegally netted where they swim, and many young Bluefins are captured before they reproduce. Creating effective fishing policies for Bluefin tuna is difficult because they are highly mobile and swim through the territorial waters of many different nations. Data about their movements and high levels of international cooperation are needed to ensure sustainable Bluefin tuna populations…

This gives you a bit of an overview. Moving along, some general comments.
In the order of the ‘food chain’, the tuna are picking on several orders below them. Their meals range from the tiny anchovy, that maybe only an inch or so long, up to much larger baitfish. A mature Yellowfin or a BigEye is a truly awesome beast with a humongous appetite. I’ve seen them eight feet long, weighing more than one man can lift. Usually they are not that big, but three and four foot yellowfin are quite common. The name Yellowfin is derived from the rows of small dorsal and ventral fins which are an astonishingly bright yellow. This bright color fades quickly after death, and is gone completely by the time refrigeration has taken effect.
The Skipjack is a smaller tuna, much more plentiful, and has a typical mature size of more like two to three feet or so. They have blue markings on them.
Both Yellowfin and Skipjack mix freely together. A lot of catches in the South Pacific I saw were ‘mixed’, with Skipjack/Albacore nearly always outnumbering Yellowfin three and four to one. Occasionally we would catch only Skipjack. It was rare to catch only Yellowfin. When we did, for some reason the Yellowfin were truly huge. I often wondered and worried if we were in fact interrupting a critical spawning event….? On those occasions I often wished that we had a knowledgeable observer on board, with authority to ‘stop’ fishing operations if they were seriously detrimental.
I suspect this is the only way that sustainability of the species can be enforced. It will take knowledge and political will.
And drastic enforcement against illegal poaching.
The Yellowfin is more valuable. The price varied crazily, depending on demand. But in the nineties, if a ton of Skipjack was fetching $1,000 then a ton of Yellowfin was fetching $1,700. But I’ve seen Skipjack down to $500 a ton, and Yellowfin soaring past $2,000. All it takes is a decent war, such as the Sandbox War in Iraq (Round One) and the price goes through the roof…

6) Purse seiners and long-liners

I could spend several pages describing a purse seiner at work, but you would still learn more the first time you saw it happen in reality. Very, very briefly: on the back of the purse seiner, a small boat is riding along piggy-back style. At a signal from the captain, this boat is cast loose. It slides down the ramp and hits the water with a mighty splash. Everybody gets excited, because now there is no going back. The little skiffboat serves as an anchor point for one end of the net.
As the purse seiner continues on, the net plays out off the stern. The purse seiner then steams in a large circle, surrounding the fish. Hopefully. Eventually, the purse seiner ends up back at the skiffboat. Now you have a net sinking down like a curtain around the fish. But still open at the bottom! And there is also a vertical gap behind the purse seiner. Now the winches go to work. The “towline ” starts closing in the vertical gap, and the other cables start slowly closing the bottom of the net. Eventually, the “purse ” is closed, like a bowl if you like, and the fish -if they have condescended to wait around- are caught. Now it’s a matter of taking in the nets, and harvesting the catch.
Depending on how much money the boat owner has spent, this proces can take 25 minutes or 45 minutes. Fancy nets sink faster, and go deeper. More powerful winches are quicker. Better boats steam quicker. Etcetera.
And don’t forget the skill -or not- of the captain. I’ve seen some really impressive screw ups. I’ve seen a skiffboat sink -that was interesting- and cables break. And captains making the circle too small, or way too big. And I’ve seen a captain ram his own skiffboat, killing a Chinese seaman. I thought I was dreaming.

A helicopter pilot will work on a purse seiner as opposed to a ‘longliner’. A longliner is a much smaller boat that trails out long lines behind it, with baited hooks. very long lines. I’ve seen them, and they seemed to be miles long. A rather indiscriminate kind of fishing, that kills anything and everything. The longliners I saw loved the Yellowfin. Each one is handled carefully, packed in dry ice, and rushed off to places like Japan by airfreight. There they are served up as ‘shushimi’ to discerning clients. Prices are -to us- insane. You hear sums like $3,000 up to $10,000 per fish. When I hear those figures, I often wonder how anybody will ever stop poachers when the rewards are so great. I can envisage the last BlueFin being unceremoniously hauled out of the water, and a phalanx of bidders screaming hysterically to own it…
The helicopter pilot’s purse seiner is not set up for the individual “pack ’em in dry ice and treat ’em gently ” modus of operation. Hell, no. Fish are handled, chucked, thumped and kicked in a manner which would outrage a longliner fisherman. A purse seiner is more of a mass fishing process as opposed to the individual treatment of fish that happens on a longliner. The value of a ton of purse seiner fish is therefore on a different scale. Market rates vary according to supply and demand. I’ve seen it as low as $500 a ton and as high as $2,700 a ton. Now do some sums: take an average purse seiner, capable of storing 700 to 1,000 tons of fish, and multiply that by, say, $850. That’s $595,000 to $765,000! The next question you should ask is: how long does it take to catch that much fish?
In other words, how quickly can a purse seiner fill up?

This is, of course, the multi-million dollar question. Ship owners have a real strong interest in this question…
To answer this, here are some figures for you. Today we have bigger ships. However, from December 1995 until May 1996, I served on a ship with a carrying capacity of 700 tons. A Taiwanese ship. We averaged 700 tons a month. At the time, in that locale, that was regarded as a lot. The quickest turnaround was one week (700 ton), and the longest was a frustrating six weeks for 440 ton. On other ships and at other times I have seen as long as three months! That’s not too good, because there is a limit to the amount of time you can successfully store fish in the brine in the holding area, and maintain their condition. The captain I mentioned was Captain Alan, of the Hsieh Feng 707, and with an average of 700 ton a month, he was one of the best in Taiwan. Our best performance in one single month was 1250 ton.
Now do you see where the helicopter comes in! I used to be mesmerized, and wonder how on earth a stupid old fishing boat could afford such an expensive item as a helicopter. The answer is: chickenfeed. No sweat. Peanuts. A good helicopter flown by a good ‘no hassle’ pilot, maintained by a good ‘no hassle’ mechanic, is a tuna ship captain’s dream.
If the pilot uses his eyes and helps find fish… he is positively loved! There have been cases where a fishing company has gone absolutely bananas at the helicopter company for trying to transfer the pilot to another boat.
“Take our pilot? No way! If you take the pilot, you can take the damn chopper away as well! “
And that of course is excellent for a man’s job security!
I speak here from personal experience as well. My company tried to transfer me off a Bell 47 to a Hughes 500 on another boat, the Fairwell 707, as I had a lot of turbine time. The move was abruptly cancelled, and I never had any idea why. It was not until, months later, when I got back to port, that my boss told me the whole story. It seemed my captain had a screaming fit when he heard they wanted to transfer me. He told my company furiously that he would cancel the helicopter contract if I went…

Returning now to the subject of logs, or dead trees floating in the water.
It depends where you go in the world. It even depends on the season. In many areas, so-called ‘log fishing’ is very important. At other times, other places, there are no logs around, and you will be trying to catch ‘travelling Tuna’. Tuna-on-the-March as it were. And boy! Can they move… A third method is to look for porpoises which accompany the tuna. This is more a feature of the Eastern Pacific. South America. For some reason that nobody has been able to explain to me, in the western Pacific Ocean, porpoises do not follow tuna.
You will have grasped a big fundamental when you realize that, regardless of the method being used (logfishing, making a set on ‘travelling tuna’, or looking for porpoises), that finding the quarry is much, much more easily done from the air…
Enter: you, my friend, in your helicopter. And your observer. It might be the captain of the ship, or one of the crew.
Let the games begin!

I have to pause here, because I’m chuckling quietly to myself.
I’m remembering my ‘first tripper’ days. When I was a newbie. A neophyte. A ‘lost landlubber’.
You see, I’m a well meaning sort, terribly clumsy and naive, but basically a good heart. It gets me into all sorts of trouble, let me tell you. Well…. I reckoned I was going to ‘help’ my taciturn Taiwanese observer to find logs. He didn’t seem to like me very much, and I thought I could change that by being a good fellow.
I really meant well… There we were, on one of my early flights, flying along. I knew we were looking for logs. Oh, yes, I had advanced in my knowledge! I couldn’t wait to find one. Eventually:
“LOG! “
I announced it loudly and triumphantly, pointing down at the object of hours and hours of searching. My stone faced Oriental observer lowered his binoculars, and followed my outstretched finger. Hell, I felt good!
Huh!?
The reaction was not quite what I had expected. Instead of pleasure, delight, hell….acknowledgment even.. all I got was this withering look of disgust, followed by total disinterest! He just went back to his binoculars!
Bloody Hell! What was wrong with that one?

My puzzlement was set to continue. A while later he motioned for the helicopter first in a specific direction, and then down to the surface. There we attached a radio bouy (more on that later) (much, much more!) on a small log that was really a miserable, mangy old thing, (nuthin’ like as good as mine…). Then we flew back to the ship.
This was the pattern for many days to come. I almost gave up pointing out logs. He just didn’t take much notice, and I got fed up with that withering look of disgust. I could try ever so hard, and find him the biggest, juiciest, most spectacular looking tree you could imagine, and do you think the git would be pleased?
No, Sir!
Then we would end up plonking the radio buoy on some miserable, maggoty old sapling…
Heck, it was frustrating… Things were not helped by my observer’s sullen refusal to explain anything.
Apparently the two previous pilots had each only lasted two months, and one of them had banned this observer from the cockpit. I was told they had nearly come to blows on the helideck. I was beginning to understand why. I could have cheerfully belted him myself a couple of times! But there are much more satisfying ways of getting revenge….
(One was to occur a few months later, involving beer, a urine bottle, and a unique kneeling position of my observer. And sweet, sweet revenge! But that story must keep until later…)
Tired of the log fiasco, I eventually decided to take the bull by the horns and go and see the captain. This man had been described by previous pilots in the most unflattering terms. He had not much spoken to me. However, when I knocked on his door, with determination in my eyes, and a thirst for knowledge, he mellowed out completely. A pilot who wants to know about how to find fish!!? Apparently, I was a novelty.
In the event, he turned out to be an excellent teacher. He spoke reasonable English, and always had a dictionary at hand. I for my part, was learning Chinese, and I always had a Chinese dictionary at hand. I couldn’t read their letters, but if I pointed to the English word, they would give me the Chinese pronunciation. Soon I learned all kinds of vital Chinese expressions. Like ‘strong wind’, ‘lots of birds’, and ‘I need to turn back for gas’. I also learned ‘I need a beer’, and ‘when is supper?’. Oh, and the Chinese word for ‘psychopath’. (‘Sentin-pjin’) Very important, as I shall explain later.
The captain promised to go up with me, and show me the ropes himself. I was well pleased. Soon my learning curve started to shoot up. It wasn’t the log that mattered so much as, get this, its location. It wasn’t so much that you looked for a log. You looked for ‘foamers’ and ‘breezers’, which are ‘gatherings of fish’ if you like. THEN you looked for a log in the neighborhood, with a good chance (even if the log was several hundred yards away) that it had been ‘adopted’.
Especially if the small baitfish were acting terrified (clinging together in a tight ball), then you knew something was up.
THE NEXT MORNING there was an excellent chance that the tuna would be right beside the log coming up for breakfast!
You could check the fishfinder and see. Lots of fish would turn the scope a bright red. And just before dawn, that is when the ship made its set. Bingo!
Ooooooooooh….well I wish I had known THAT before…
Now I suddenly understood a lot more. I understood why I had received so many dirty looks when I had indicated logs that were drifting miles from anything. Now I understood why we had circled round and round and round some boring old breezer, when there was what I thought was ‘a jolly nice log’ only a few miles back. Now I understood why that ‘scrappy little sapling’ three hundred yards away from that breezer knocked the socks off my ‘juicy goliath’ three miles back.
Well, hell, call me Irish, how was I SUPPOSED to know?
THEN (har-har) came the next flight with my ‘bundle of laughs glad-rags observer’.
We flew along, and my eyes were out on sticks. We flew past some large trees floating about on their own, which I of course (being an expert now) contemptuously ignored. Eventually we ended up at this huge foamer. There were a lot of fish splashing about and making whoopee. But now (har-har) I knew why ‘misery face’ beside me was hanging out the door desperately searching the rough waters for ye old log! And, whilst trying to appear relaxed (musn’t let on…) I was desperate to beat him to it!
In the event, it worked out beautifully. I spotted, on my side, a really nice log. Difficult to see with the rough waves. Besides such a large foamer, it was worth big bucks.
I clicked on the intercom.
“You want log? I see log. “
He looked at me disbelievingly, suspicious.
“Eight meters “, I added, careful not to indicate its position.
That was a big log.
Something in my cocky demeanour registered with my observer.
“Where? ” he said, for the first time deigning to ask the stupid pilot a question pertaining to the finding and catching of fish.
Oh wonders! Oh wow-ee!
I arched my eyebrows as superciliously as I could. A real “My! Haven’t you seen it?? ” look.
Then I pointed out the log.
(har-har)
He just about fell across my lap in his haste to get a look!
(Yes! Yes! Gotcha!)
(double har-har…)

From then on, things changed.
Now I got attention. Respect even. The urge to wring his scrawny little yellow neck or rattle his teeth down his Oriental throat diminished. We started finding lots of fish together. He started occasionally laughing, even being pleasant. I actually started to remotely like the guy. Later still I discovered the reason behind some of his previous hostility. His best friend had been killed in a tuna helicopter crash off the Winfar 636. Akaya understandably hated helicopters, but the captain ordered him to fly….
So who says hunting fish is boring!

Logs come in various shapes and sizes. The best log (apart from being reasonably close to a foamer or a breezer) has a large root system. I suspect it offers small fish more protection, so they hang around longer. More small fish = more hungry predators. It’s best if there is no rope remnant attached. A new rope remnant means some other purse seiner has beaten you to it. An old, frayed, worn rope might not be so bad, as a lot of time has elapsed. So maybe the resident fish population has had a chance to build back up again. But ‘no rope’ is best. Light colored trees are better than dark. (Don’t ask me why)
And generally, the bigger, the wider, and longer… the better.
‘Time of the day’ is important. At the crack of dawn, you will see lots of activity as the tuna come up to feed on the little guys. A log nearby is a good target for a radio buoy. Later on in the day, especially it seems to me if it’s bright and hot, you might see the log, but not the fish. They are deeper down, where its cooler and more pleasant.
If you come upon a log during the day, and it’s bright and hot, keep an eye out for even one tuna splashing out of the water.
Then it’s worth descending, and hovering over the log.
(Don’t autorotate! Especially on a flat calm surface. More on this common fatal accident cause later…)
Have a real good look beside the log. Lots and lots of small baitfish hovering nervously close to the log…. that’s what you’re looking for. They still haven’t recovered from the fright of being hunted by a predator earlier that day. Tuna fish may be about!

The technique -and massive potential dangers- associated with attaching a radio buoy to a log from a helicopter is dealt with later. From the outside though, let me warn you I have done it hundreds and hundreds of times. It mostly went pretty smoothly, except for one famous occasion. And that event came so close to killing me and my captain it wasn’t funny! Later…

I have used some phrases which may confuse new tuna pilots. When we are talking about “log fish “, remember all tuna are nomadic. They travel truly awesome distances around the globe. “Log fish ” therefore have interrupted their circumglobal journey for a few days to rest and feed, and have -for those few days- adopted a log. Tuna at rest, feeding, are so much easier to catch than ‘traveling tunies’ which are actively traveling. They often occur in huge -awesome- quantities, moving very fast. It’s generally a lot more difficult to catch these migrants. I have spent many an hour in quiet amusement, orbiting overhead, watching frustrated captains, one after another, setting their nets. The Tuna would get so used to it, they would just swim down and out. Down and out. Down and out… I’ve seen eighteen successive boats set on the same Tuna. One after the other. With not one single fish being caught…

You will hear people talking about ‘a good log area’ or otherwise.
Where fish are moving, and not resting, I have heard the phrase ‘schoolfish’ area used, or ‘migrant area’.
Now you know what they are talking about.

If you locate an interesting log, your observer will thank you for orbiting with the log on his side. In a Hughes 500, to your right, in other words. Sometimes it is easy to lose sight of the log, especially if you do not allow for wind effect. You will irritate your observer if you start wandering off. They will simply expect you to perform a nice circle with the log in the centre! There are different techniques for this, and these are also dealt with later.

In conclusion of this chapter, you can see there is more, much more, to a ‘dead tree in the water’ than meets the (first tripper’s) eye!

Francis ‘Moggy’ Meyrick
(c)

Last edited by Francis Meyrick on September 14, 2009, 11:16 am