Oregon crabbers once tried helicopters

According to a News-Times article from Jan. 1, 1977, Bob Matthews, of Coos Bay, and Paul Lewis, of Lincoln County, had originally experimented with helicopter logging in Oregon, but on a whim, also tried their hand at crabbing using one of their “whirly birds.”

The two novice crabbers weren’t very successful at first, unable to haul up even a single crab on their first few voyages, with Lewis stating: “It was very unproductive. We haven’t caught anything yet. That first one will be the most valuable crab ever caught though. Maybe we’ll gold plate it and mount it on the wall.”

According to a series of reports from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife filed in 1977 and 1978 and archived at Oregon State University, Matthews and Lewis approached ODFW in September 1976 with a request to begin using helicopters to harvest crab, though the details of the process were to be worked out later.

After consulting with crabbing industry veterans, the two eventually developed a plan to take a helicopter with a six-foot grappling hook on a 25-foot line to snag a 110-foot double buoyed pot line and pull a 6-foot wide crabbing pot from the ocean and fly it to an on-shore landing site.

The catch would then be sorted, and illegal crabs would be placed in a bucket attached to the aircraft while the pot would be rebaited and flown back out to sea. The pot would be dropped in a new location, and crabs that were either female or too small to catch would be dumped from the bucket into the ocean from the air.

There was a significant snag in that method, however, as state regulations prohibited illegal crab from making landfall, requiring them to instead be sorted at sea. Matthews and Lewis initially petitioned to have that rule waived when crab were harvested via helicopter, which was temporarily allowed in order to let their experiment continue.

While their initial request was still being considered, ODFW found Matthews and Louis had been developing and testing the new crabbing method without official permission in Yachats, Lincoln City and Port Orford. They had allegedly told Oregon State Police who investigated their on-shore sorting they had been authorized to do so by the Newport ODFW office, which they had not, according to ODFW’s reports.

OSP eventually caught on and moved to take action against the company, but a meeting with the ODFW Commission was arranged in March 1977, and Lewis and Matthews were instead granted a three-week evaluation period, during which ODFW would closely observe their operation and work with them to conduct studies about the potential impact.

That authorization was done at the protest of two fishermen attending the meeting, who were concerned the illegal crab would be killed when being dumped back into the ocean, by the force of the wind from the helicopters rotor or by drying out during the sorting and transportation process. Fishermen later claimed they found dead crab “strewn across the beach” near where the operations took place, but ODFW later found those claims were “grossly exaggerated.”

Some fishermen also supported the idea, calling it imaginative and likely no more damaging to the crab population than conventional crabbing methods, a theory that later seemed true, though ODFW stated its studies were inconclusive.

Lewis and Matthews moved their operation entirely to Port Orford during the observation period, and ODFW observers noted that 91 percent of the catch (6,014 crabs) was legal, while roughly 9 percent were female or too small (595 crabs). The mean catch per day was reportedly 859 legal crabs and 17 that needed to be thrown back.

Observers found only seven crab had fallen from the helicopter during transport over the course of the three-week operation, and the rest, many of which were recaptured and studied in a lab, seemed minimally impacted from the sorting and transportation process.

The lab studies showed only crab that already had injuries were impacted by drying out and there was only an increase in mortality rate when crabs were dumped from heights greater than 15 feet. There was no change in mortality rate due to pressure as crabs descended into the water.

Following those observations, ODFW expected as many as 30 helicopters to begin operating within the Oregon crab fishery by 1978, noting one Salem company said it planned to maintain a fleet of 15-20 helicopters for that purpose and multiple other companies in Curry and Clatsop counties had made inquires into the new practice.

The biggest question was: how economically feasible would helicopter crabbing prove to be in the long run?

ODFW estimated each helicopter would have cost $72,000 and $170 an hour to operate, which would be closer to $337,088 and $788 per hour today. That was cheaper than a fishing boat, which cost around $100,000 at the time, around $468,178 today.

A two-man ground crew and transportation for them would also be required, as well as transportation for the catch to a processing facility, compared to a fishing crew and a vessel being able to travel directly to a coastal processor.

The operating expenses compared to the 85 cents per pound price of crab made it hard see where the practice would turn a profit, but ODFW’s initial report states there would be no accounting for future ingenuity and there were potential side ventures the helicopters could be used for to help mitigate costs.

But there were also issues within the existing crabbing industry to consider, which had seen a steady rise in productivity since the 1950s, but had recently been hit by strikes from fishers and strict landing quotas from processors.

The arrival of a new competitor within the industry was expected to cause additional issues, and there were concerns that the fishery was already “overgeared” and coming close reaching its maximum sustainable annual yield. It was advised that crabbing helicopters should also be required to have the same type of “boat license” as traditional crabbers, so as not to give them an unfair advantage.

ODFW ultimately allowed the practice to continue until 1978, continuing its own research to inform a potentially industry-changing decision: should it make room within the industry for these new flying crabbers? Doing so would have required major changes to state regulations, such as allowing sorting to be done on land rather than at sea, which remains a strictly enforced requirement to this day.

Those ambitions would eventually grind to a halt, however, as the process was found to have a fatal and potentially deadly flaw.

A helicopter operating under Matthews’ company and flown by a pilot named Harry Diack was attempting to pull one of the crab pots from the water when the line snapped, sending it up into the aircraft’s rotor and causing it to crash into the ocean. Diack was injured and left in critical condition, while the helicopter was considered a total loss. A second helicopter later crashed within the next year under similar conditions.

Due to a high chance of future equipment losses, pressure from the rest of the crabbing industry and a poor fishing season from 1977 to 1978, the practice of aerial crabbing soon fizzled out, the Oregon All Coast Fisherman’s Marketing Association publicly stating it had proved too “inefficient” to keep going.

No further attempts at helicopter crabbing were made, though it was briefly mentioned as a notable part of the Oregon crabbing industry’s history in ODFW’s comprehensive Oregon Dungeness Fishery Management Plan released last month. Pictures of the practice are also on display at Maine’s Penobscot Marine Museum as part of its National Fisherman collection.