Bainbridge net maker adapts to ebb and flow of commercial fishing

  • By Tad Sooter Kitsap Sun
  • Wednesday, March 4, 2015 2:47pm
  • Business

BAINBRIDGE ISLAND — Before they begin scooping fish out of the ocean, many trawl nets are born at a factory off Day Road.

Inside the clattering warehouse, automated looms run day and night, meticulously braiding thin, synthetic fibers into vast sheets of white netting.

“We’ll load this machine up with this material and it will run for 10 days, because it’s so fine,” NET Systems President Dan Oliver said.

The Bainbridge Island company is the only manufacturer in North American with the looms needed to produce this knotless, polyethylene netting, a product it unabashedly calls the “world’s strongest.”

Squares in the netting are formed with braids instead of the traditional knots, making it less likely to loose its shape or break, according to its makers.

NET Systems incorporates the material into its trawl fishing systems, which are sold to fleets around the globe. Now the company is casting its own net wider, with an effort to introduce the same technology to the purse seine industry. Purse seines enclose fish in a bag-shaped net that is tightened like a drawstring purse.

NET Systems recently took over the purse seine net-making division of MARCO Global, a Seattle fishing equipment maker. Two new net lanes — long assembly lines — have begun producing seine nets inside the Day Road factory.

The purse seine industry presents an opportunity for NET Systems to expand its business. First it needs to sell seine fishermen on the value of its knotless netting.

“We’re trying to convince them and show them this is a better product,” said shop foreman Brian Chace, who spends part of the year fishing on a purse seiner. “This will last longer, have less distortion and have less drag through the water.”

The move into the purse seine is another step for a company that has long adapted to the ebb and flow of its industry.

NET Systems, officially Nor’Eastern Trawl Systems, was founded on the island in 1978, at the start of a Pacific fishing boom. Two years earlier, Congress had passed legislation aimed at the “re-Americanization” of fisheries off the U.S. coast, encouraging rapid expansion in the domestic fleet. More boats fishing meant more work for equipment makers.

“We rode that wave,” Oliver said.

Intense competition also put pressure on net builders to create gear that could catch more fish faster.

“I have to say, the early years were pretty exciting,” Oliver said. “ … And the development of the trawl gear was pretty fast paced.”

In following decades, stricter catch quotas capped the amount boats could expect to earn. The industry consolidated and refocused. The new impetus for net makers was to produce designs that would be less expensive to fish and more environmentally friendly.

“We’re still innovative, and we’re always looking for more efficient gear, but it’s a different pace,” Oliver said. “Now it’s, ‘I know how much I’m going to catch, how can I do it smarter?”’

From the start, NET Systems built its reputation on manufacturing complete trawl systems — constructing the nets, but also gear needed to deploy them. At the Day Road facility, about 60 workers are employed in three main divisions.

The net factory, where the looms are located, churns out netting. Inside the cavernous net loft next door, netting is cut, sewn and assembled by hand into a wide array of products. Fishing is NET Systems main business, but it also supplies net for recreational and scientific uses.

Finally, there’s the steel shop, where metal components like the trawl doors used to spread the nets are fabricated.

Chace, who joined NET Systems from MARCO Global, said the island company’s integrated model is one reason it’s well suited to take on the purse seine business.

“This was a good opportunity to be involved in a company that sees the whole fishing industry,” Chace said. “This, I think, is a big step in the right direction.”

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Business

Black Press Media operates Sound Publishing, the largest community news organization in Washington State with dailies and community news outlets in Alaska.
Black Press Media concludes transition of ownership

Black Press Media, which operates Sound Publishing, completed its sale Monday (March 25), following the formerly announced corporate restructuring.

Maygen Hetherington, executive director of the Historic Downtown Snohomish Association, laughs during an interview in her office on Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024, in Snohomish, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Maygen Hetherington: tireless advocate for the city of Snohomish

Historic Downtown Snohomish Association receives the Opportunity Lives Here award from Economic Alliance.

FILE - Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs poses in front of photos of the 15 people who previously held the office on Nov. 22, 2021, after he was sworn in at the Capitol in Olympia, Wash. Hobbs faces several challengers as he runs for election to the office he was appointed to last fall. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
Secretary of State Steve Hobbs: ‘I wanted to serve my country’

Hobbs, a former Lake Stevens senator, is the recipient of the Henry M. Jackson Award from Economic Alliance Snohomish County.

Mark Duffy poses for a photo in his office at the Mountain Pacific Bank headquarters on Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024 in Everett, Washington. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
Mark Duffy: Building a hometown bank; giving kids an opportunity

Mountain Pacific Bank’s founder is the recipient of the Fluke Award from Economic Alliance Snohomish County.

Barb Tolbert poses for a photo at Silver Scoop Ice Cream on Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024 in Arlington, Washington. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
Barb Tolbert: Former mayor piloted Arlington out of economic brink

Tolbert won the Elson S. Floyd Award, honoring a leader who has “created lasting opportunities” for the underserved.

Photo provided by 
Economic Alliance
Economic Alliance presented one of the Washington Rising Stem Awards to Katie Larios, a senior at Mountlake Terrace High School.
Mountlake Terrace High School senior wins state STEM award

Katie Larios was honored at an Economic Alliance gathering: “A champion for other young women of color in STEM.”

The Westwood Rainier is one of the seven ships in the Westwood line. The ships serve ports in the Pacific Northwest and Northeast Asia. (Photo provided by Swire Shipping)
Westwood Shipping Lines, an Everett mainstay, has new name

The four green-hulled Westwood vessels will keep their names, but the ships will display the Swire Shipping flag.

A Keyport ship docked at Lake Union in Seattle in June 2018. The ship spends most of the year in Alaska harvesting Golden King crab in the Bering Sea. During the summer it ties up for maintenance and repairs at Lake Union. (Keyport LLC)
In crabbers’ turbulent moment, Edmonds seafood processor ‘saved our season’

When a processing plant in Alaska closed, Edmonds-based business Keyport stepped up to solve a “no-win situation.”

Angela Harris, Executive Director of the Port of Edmonds, stands at the port’s marina on Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2024, in Edmonds, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Leadership, love for the Port of Edmonds got exec the job

Shoring up an aging seawall is the first order of business for Angela Harris, the first woman to lead the Edmonds port.

The Cascade Warbirds fly over Naval Station Everett. (Sue Misao / The Herald file)
Bothell High School senior awarded $2,500 to keep on flying

Cascade Warbirds scholarship helps students 16-21 continue flight training and earn a private pilot’s certificate.

Rachel Gardner, the owner of Musicology Co., a new music boutique record store on Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024 in Edmonds, Washington. Musicology Co. will open in February, selling used and new vinyl, CDs and other music-related merchandise. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
New Edmonds record shop intends to be a ‘destination for every musician’

Rachel Gardner opened Musicology Co. this month, filling a record store gap in Edmonds.

MyMyToyStore.com owner Tom Harrison at his brick and mortar storefront on Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2022 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Burst pipe permanently closes downtown Everett toy store

After a pipe flooded the store, MyMyToystore in downtown Everett closed. Owner Tom Harrison is already on to his next venture.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.