Northeast Multispecies Days-At-Sea Leasing Program

Days-at-Sea Leasing Program Requirements

Overview

• Lessor: The vessel leasing out days-at-sea to another vessel.
• Lessee: The vessel receiving days-at-sea in the lease transaction.
• Leased days-at-sea may only be used in the fishing year in which the lease occurs. 
• Vessels cannot carry over leased days-at-sea into the next fishing year.
• Lease days-at-sea are deducted before allocated days-at-sea.
• A vessel may lease days-at-sea to or from multiple vessels
• days-at-sea that have already been leased cannot be sub-leased to another vessel.
• History of leased days-at-sea will be presumed to remain with the lessor vessel, and landings resulting from leased days-at-sea will be presumed to be attributed to the lessee vessel.

Common Pool and Sectors

• A sector vessel may only lease days-at-sea from another sector vessel.
• A common pool vessel may only lease days-at-sea from another common pool vessel.

Baselines

• A lessor vessel may only lease days-at-sea to a lessee vessel with a baseline engine horsepower rating that is no more than 20 percent greater than the baseline engine horsepower of the lessor.
• A lessor vessel may only lease days-at-sea to a lessee vessel with a baseline length overall that is no more than 10 percent greater than the baseline length overall of the lessor.
• Sectors can request an exemption from the days-at-sea leasing requirements.

Special Permit Conditions

• Vessels that do not require the use of days-at-sea (Handgear A, Small Vessel Category) may not lease days-at-sea.
• Additional days-at-sea associated with obtaining a Large Mesh Permit (Category F) may not be leased.
• Vessels that receive an allocation of monkfish days-at-sea and multispecies days-at-sea must use them together. In some instances, a vessel may receive fewer multispecies days-at-sea than monkfish days-at-sea. The remaining monkfish days-at-sea are considered “monkfish-only” days-at-sea and may be used in a monkfish exemption area. If a vessel in possession of “monkfish-only” days-at-sea chooses to lease in additional multispecies days-at-sea, then the monkfish days-at-sea are no longer considered “monkfish-only” and must be used in combination with the leased multispecies days-at-sea.

Days-At-Sea Leasing Baseline Downgrades

• If the days-at-sea leasing baseline engine horsepower or length overall is larger than the currently permitted vessel, the baseline specifications may be downgraded to the horsepower and/or length overall of the currently permitted vessel for the purposes of the Days-At-Sea Leasing Program only. The downgrade does not affect the Days-At-Sea Transfer program baseline or any future vessel replacement. A downgrade application can be found on the Greater Atlantic Region Forms and Applications page.

How to Lease Days-At-Sea

• Lease transactions can be completed either using Fish Online or a paper application.
• Applications to lease days-at-sea may be submitted at any time during the fishing year.