Okay.
Speaking from a personal point of view, if we move into bigger boats, how do we finance them? Most of the enterprise owners are now at the age of retiring and getting out, hoping to get a good return for the money they've invested. It's going to be very difficult to get young people involved if they cannot get the financial help they need. What I mean by that is if we're going into bigger boats, it's fine to say we move from smaller boats to 65' 11" or 64' 11", and that didn't help...so although there are factors when it comes to the safety part of it and such, where do we go to get the dollars and all of this stuff?
Maybe we should look at operating the boats we have now. If we need to freeze at sea to have a better quality product, then I think we should look at something like that. We could put the fish in cold storage and produce when the time is right. This way our plant workers will still get the work needed.
Millions of dollars have been invested into the harvesting sector since 1997, when fishermen went from small boats to super 65-footers, and now we are being told we should go bigger again. The cost of operation has doubled or tripled, and we have been regulated to the point where we do not know which way to turn. If we are going to lift a freeze on the 65-foot regulations, then I think we have to make sure there are safeguards put in place so that it stays in the hands of the harvesters. Put the option in place and let the fishermen decide for themselves what they want to do.
If you're talking about the safety aspect of it, I realize that if you're going 200 miles or 150 miles offshore, then you need something that's going to be stable and you don't have worry that your boat is not capable of taking care of the storms you're going to get into. I think the boats we have now can...if we fish at the right time of the year. But if you're talking about getting into the months of December, January, or February, then you're going to have to go into a much larger boat than you are now. I doubt if a 100-footer can fish in the waters that we have to fish in, in January and February.
What I'm trying to point out is that I don't know if going bigger is going to fix the problem. The biggest problem we have right now in our industry is whether we can afford to fish for the price we get. That's our biggest problem right now. By moving from the 65-footer to an 80-footer or a 90-footer, I don't know if that's going to fix the problem or not. This is why I say, does bigger mean better? It might mean better for the safety part of it, but I don't know if it's going to be better for the economics of it. That's why I'm trying to point out what I've said here.
I don't know if you want me to touch on the sealing industry. That's already been talked about. I just have a short paragraph on that, but I think the panel did a fairly good job.
I don't know if you want me to continue.