Falmouth’s Charter Boat Fleet Facing Hard Times With High Cost Of Fuel

     The red “for sale” sign taped at the stern of the Obsession, a 32-foot Blackfin Combi, that sits in Falmouth Inner Harbor, says it all. Times are tough for the charter boat fishing industry.
     Saddled by rising costs in fuel, the ability to make a profit has become increasingly difficult and at least for the captain of this boat—Ernest A. Cantella of  Falmouth—it is better to sell than to continue running fishing excursions for interested parties.
     The problem is, he said, “nobody even calls.” The Obsession has been on the market for the past three years with barely a nibble of interest. Yet, Mr. Cantella knows that in this down economy he is not alone. “Mine is not the only boat nobody ever calls about,” he laughed.
     While filleting a fluke on the dock of the harbor this Wednesday, Brian J. Courville, charter boat captain of the Blue Fin, said July has picked up slightly, but overall business has been down, not just for him, but all over the Cape.
     He raised his prices this year, from $400 to $450 for a four-hour trip, and $600 to $690 for a six-hour trip. “It does help offset other costs, but it still doesn’t cover the cost of fuel for the trip,” he said. “I think every charter boat captain is worried.”
     This past weekend, when beachgoers enjoyed two beautiful summer days in Falmouth, charter boat captain Michael Doak of the Eastwind spent the day on the dock. He and the several other charter boat captains who offer half-day and full-day fishing trips did not go on the water once. “That is unheard of,” he said.
     In his 25 years of experience, he said, he has not seen the situation so dire. The industry began slowly getting worse 12 years ago, he said, reaching a pinnacle this summer.
     As the Eastwind’s mate, Zack Arcaro, sprayed down the 35-foot Duffy late Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Doak sat perched on the wooden pier in the harbor with Nicholas Nicolaci of Falmouth.
     When asked about fuel costs Mr. Nicolaci laughed. “The meter went off and stopped at $1,000,” he said when he recently filled up his 31-foot Edgewater, Scampi Too. While he merely boats for pleasure, Mr. Nicolaci said, he has had to change his habits on the open water because of prices. “You don’t go looking for fish. Hopefully, you find them,” he said.
     At $4.95 a gallon, Mr. Doak said, gas is his biggest expense on a list that includes insurance, slip fees, winter storage, repairs, bait and tackle, and Mr. Arcaro’s wages.
     Despite the rise in fuel costs, he said, he has not raised his prices this year because he wants to stay competitive with the roughly dozen other charter boats in Falmouth. “We can’t raise our prices,” he said. “This is a luxury for people.”
     It is a luxury that fewer and fewer are choosing in this tough economy. He estimated his business is off at least 25 to 30 percent this summer.
     June was particularly tough, he said, a time when his regular customers, the more serious fishermen, hire the boat for excursions. Those customers, he said, are more blue collar workers, ranging from plumbers to roofing contractors to painters. “All those guys are hurting,” he said, which, in turn, impacts him. “I can’t get that month back. Those trips are gone.”
     Over the past week, he estimated he had chartered seven trips. Usually, he said, it is double that, with two trips per day.
     Most bookings, he said, are done a day or two in advance. There was a time, he said, when bookings were made weeks in advance because of the high demand for charterboat fishing.
     On Wednesday, he took a party of six to catch stripers south of Martha’s Vineyard for seven hours. The cost, he said, was $850 and he spent more than $300 on fuel. On a typical six-hour excursion, which costs $750, he said, his gas expense would be the same.
     As to what this means for the industry, Mr. Doak was blunt. “It means we are out of business, but we haven’t realized it yet,” he said.
     Perhaps the only charter boat company that has been somewhat immune to fuel prices is Patriot Party Boats. Unlike typical charter boats, which charge a flat fee for parties up to six people, Patriot Party Boats charge per head and can fit as many as 35 people on the Minuteman and as many as 49 people on the Patriot II.
     In anticipation of rising fuel prices, James H. Tietje, owner of Patriot Party Boats, raised the costs of excursions from $60 to $70 per adult for striped bass and bluefishing trips and $35 to $40 for half-day scup and sea bass trips.
     He said business, for the most part, has been solid through the summer. Yet, he admitted that the cost of fuel is a concern. “It is a much bigger percentage of our expenses than it used to be,” he said.
     Even for the average boater, fuel costs have had an impact. When he has been out on the water, Mr. Doak has noticed less boat traffic, correlating that directly to fuel costs. During Memorial Day, he said, traffic was high, but “then people had to fill their boats up and many have not been back since.”
     Even the more expensive boats, he said, that travel from Florida to the Cape during the summer have been looking for ways to conserve costs. Captains of those boats, he said, are traveling at eight knots when they can travel between 35 to 40 knots. That means a trip that can take four to five days now takes nearly 12 days, he said, and could save boat owners $25,000 to $30,000 in gas.
     His outlook for the future is grim. “I don’t see any good news, anywhere,” he said. “I think the cost has hit everyone hard. You feel it when you fill up your car. It costs $130 to fill up a pickup truck. It is crazy.”