NARRAGANSETT, RI – When Meghan Lapp was a teenager, she wanted to own her own boat.
Meghan Lapp, Seafreeze fisheries liaison, taking a herring trip on the 77.9’ trawler Prevail. (Photo courtesy of Meghan Lapp/Seafreeze)
The opportunity didn’t arise, although she lived on Long Island for part of her childhood and on the Gulf of Mexico for the second half, following her naval architect father around as he designed propellers for commercial fishing boats, tugboats, barges, and the Navy.
Eventually she talked her way onto a commercial fishing boat one day, “invited herself on board” as she puts it, and went to sea.
Although she may not captain her own boat yet, she works hard for those who do.
Lapp’s fisheries background includes spending five years at Reidar’s Manufacturing in Fairhaven, MA, making and mending trawl nets.
That work got her a spot on Danny Eilertsen’s Justice, a 94’ scallop dredge and trawler used by the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth’s School of Marine Science and Technology (SMAST) to perform yellowtail flounder video surveys on Georges Bank.
Because she built open cod end nets at Reidar’s for the video surveys, Lapp goes along to mend nets on the spring and fall SMAST surveys.
It’s a 7- to 10-day commitment that she’s made for the past three years, she said…
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