Woman Observer Barred From Boat : Judge Says Government Can’t Make Skipper Take Female

A U.S. District Court judge has temporarily agreed that the government cannot force the skipper of a San Diego tuna-fishing vessel to accept a female observer aboard during fishing expeditions.

Judge William Enright issued a temporary restraining order Tuesday blocking the assignment of a woman observer to the Mariner, a San Diego-based tuna seiner owned by Caribbean Marine Service Co. Inc.

The boat would have become the third local tuna boat to carry a woman observer trained to monitor the number of porpoises killed by tuna fishermen since the National Marine Fisheries Service desegregated its observer corps this year. Instead, it will set sail this weekend with a male observer aboard, an official at the Fisheries Service said.

Enright scheduled a hearing for Wednesday to discuss Mariner owner Ed Gann’s request for a preliminary injunction.

Gann’s lawsuit is the second filed in response to the agency’s new policy. On Jan. 21, the owner of the Antonina C alleged that a female observer’s presence on his boat would violate his rights to “privacy” and “to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures.”

But the Antonina C had already set sail Jan. 5 with observer Susan Taveras--one of four newly trained government observers--aboard. Taveras’ assignment ended a 15-year tradition of male-only government observers. A second woman recently left aboard the seiner Maria C.J.

Gann’s attorney, Charles Froelich, said that the Mariner owner “doesn’t want (women) on the boat because it is constructed as a male workplace. It doesn’t have facilities for females. It doesn’t have bunking facilities. It doesn’t have toilet facilities. It doesn’t have shower facilities.”

Froelich also said that “considering bunking a young female with four young males over a period of three months stretches the bounds of propriety and safety.”

The federal government argued in court papers that “female observers should not be punished by discriminatory hiring practices in order to convenience the plaintiffs in their commercial operations.”

The government brief also argues that women will sue the Fisheries Service if they are denied jobs as observers.