By Hal Bernton

The Seattle Times

A $75 million fishing vessel, marooned in a Washington state shipyard because it was built with too much foreign steel, would be allowed to work in U.S. waters under a waiver to federal maritime law approved by the U.S. Senate.

The language was included in the Senate’s Coast Guard reauthorization legislation, which passed 94-6. If approved by the House, the waiver could end the tangled legal status of the 264-foot America’s Finest, a nearly completed factory trawler built at Dakota Creek Industries of Anacortes to catch and freeze bottom-dwelling fish found off Alaska. The trawler has been stuck at the shipyard for more than a year.

The vessel’s owner, Kirkland-based Fishermen’s Finest, contracted with Dakota Creek Industries to build America’s Finest to replace an older vessel.

But the construction went disastrously off course when the shipyard had parts of the hull cut and bent in the Netherlands. That action ran afoul of the Jones Act, which requires vessels transporting cargo and people between U.S. ports to have a hull largely made of American materials.

Dakota Industries shipyard officials have repeatedly said they didn’t realize that the Dutch work would violate the act. The Senate bill’s language represents a kind of conditional waiver calling for the U.S. commerce secretary to revoke the waiver should an investigation determine that the violation was intentional.

The Senate language also includes processing restrictions on Fishermen’s Finest, which were supported by competitors.

The restrictions limit the amount of fish that can be delivered by other boats to Fishermen’s Finest’s vessels. They would extend for the six years, but they could be lifted earlier if the North Pacific Fishery Management Council comes up with a rule to regulate the deliveries.

The Senate has struggled to pass the Coast Guard legislation, with an earlier version of the bill stalled in April on a procedural vote.

Dennis Moran, president of Fishermen’s Finest, declined to comment on the Senate’s approval of the Jones Act waiver.

Dakota Creek Industries, which took a financial hit and laid off workers because of the troubled status of America’s Finest, also declined through a spokeswoman to comment.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., has been in the thick of the Senate fight to pass the Coast Guard legislation. She called the waiver a “bipartisan deal” that “helps to protect good shipbuilding jobs at Dakota Creek shipyard.”