Ocean Queen…

Here’s something that may be note worthy for your site. The Ocean Queen was a 1400 ton seiner with a tripod and a different looking bridge then most of the boats built for Roland Virissimo in 1970. The reason I’m writing this is I haven’t noticed it on your web page. When Roland got the Queen most of the fleet laughed at him, Remember this was a 1400 boat. Why they laughed you say, it was the crew, a bunch kids, but these kids had years of experience under their belts. I was the skiff man at 22, little Rol, Rolands son, was 18 or 19 and he was the deck boss. We made so many 30/40 day trips that year we’d be unloading and out again before we got our checks. I can’t  remember if it was the  second or third trip our first year that we got caught in Colombia fishing inside the line ( 200 mile limit ) we had about 400 tons on board just out Panama about 18 days. We came out of Colombia with our
licence to fish inside the line and 3 day’s later we’re on our way back to Panama. 900 tons in 3 days you could walk. I want to tell you they never laughed at Roland or that crew again. True Story.

Story compliments of Richard Marques , Thank you Richard..