Concerning vessel length on the east coast, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans tries to limit the catch by fishers by limiting the length of their vessels. This leads to all kinds of very strange modifications whereby they try to cut off the nose and extend the back and do all sorts of things to get more crab traps on these vessels, but there's always the risk that they'll render those vessels unstable because of these modifications.
Is this an issue that your group has studied at all and investigated?