“Fishing made me the man I am”, Jo Jackman says, giving a hearty, confident laugh. She’s off to sea again the next morning to join Tangaroa, a 70-metre research vessel for the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), where she’s worked the past year as a steward.
Her fishing career started aged 47 when she joined the industry in 2007, which, in a field known for being almost unforgivingly tough both mentally and physically, is impressive.
Jackman’s life invites envy. Tangaroa goes to exotic, far-flung, and picturesque locations including Antarctica and Macquarie Island, where the crew of scientists on board does seismic surveys, underwater mapping, fishing surveys, and tsunami work.
“It's a pretty interesting job,” Jackman says, “she's a great ship to work on and a great company to work for as well. There's a lot of woman scientists. Very strong, confident, intelligent woman, which I really enjoy being around.
“The furthest I've been out [from] New Zealand territory [is] down to Macquarie Island, 650 nautical miles south-southwest of New Zealand, which is a long way down. It's cold and snowy during summer, but it was a beautiful place to be some mornings, when you wake up with the moon coming up in the morning over the snow-covered mountains and thousands of penguins and orcas.
“It was pretty impressive down there.
“I will be going to Antarctica in January [2023] for a seven-week trip that I'm rostered on. So, I'm looking forward to that. Although I have been once before, I'm looking forward to going on the research vessel because we go way down the Ross Sea, which I haven't been.”
“We’ve just come back from a Chatham Rise, [doing a] fishing survey, a hoki survey, which sort of ties in with my previous fishing career.
“Feel like I still got a bit of a hand in when I go down to a little factory [ship] and have a look around and give smart comments to the deckhands about what they should be doing,” she laughs.
Jackman’s day-to-day duties as steward are vital to the operations. It’s her that keeps everything running, from assisting the two cooks, to cleaning, to ensuring everything is as it should be, to helping the scientists on board – many of whom are from overseas.
Tangaroa, which means ‘god of the sea’, is a Norwegian built vessel which is the same spec as fishing and factory ships except, Jackman explains “it's adapted with a lot of scientific gear hanging off the bottom of it”.
“Lots of different cranes, putting robots over the side for deepsea work. It's a very interesting boat to work on, with a great culture on board, too. Totally different to fishing.”
So, how did she get here?
Jackman comes from a fishing family. Born in Port Chalmers, Dunedin, she grew up in Carey's Bay, overlooking the fishing fleet where her family had their boats. At the age of eight she moved to Napier, but would return to the bay, fishing with her uncles and grandfathers every holiday on inshore boats.
She remembers thinking, from the ages of 10 to 16, “god, you get paid to do this? It's fantastic”.
After getting married at 19 and having three children, she indulged in her passion of surfing and started racing yachts in Napier, before deciding to get her own little Laser, a one-man sailing dinghy named Perhaps, which she still enjoys sailing in today.
However, it took a while for Jackman to truly follow and embrace her love of the sea as an adult. After a marriage breakup and some “disastrous boyfriends”, Jackman realised that she “had to do something” about her life.
“Then, in my 40s, I went back to sea on factory ships. I sat there thinking I could earn 400 bucks a week, in those days, for the rest of my life or I could double, or triple, that and go back to what [was] a great yearning of mine to go back to sea.
“I'm very glad I did. It was a big move. Big change in your life in your forties, but I just sat there and thought, 'nah, I'm going to give it a go'. Lots of people said, ‘don't do it, you'll hate it’. Some people said, ‘do it, you'll love it’. I forced myself to go and I thought ‘one year on a factory ship and then I'll decide’.”
For a year Jackman worked as a factory hand for Talley’s. She was on Atlantis, working six hours on, six off, 24 hours a day for 50 days. Then after two to three days off, she’d go back and do another 50 days. Excelling in her role, she went on to work as a galley hand for a further eight years, moving to another ship, Columbia, where she spent most of her time with Talley's - which she loved.
While Jackman took to her new career with gusto, she warns that it’s not for the faint-hearted.
“It's very gruelling. You lose about five kilos on the first trip,” she laughs, recalling her time on Atlantis.
“But it's a great test of how far you can go”.
“I think that's what's lacking with a lot of people, younger people, they don't know how far they can push their bodies, and it's probably a lot easier now than it was when I started… for me it was even harder.”
When it comes to getting younger people into the industry, Jackman is emphatic about the benefits to be had for those wanting to try – money, community, generous blocks of time off, career progression - if they can give up their addiction to their mobiles.
“I've tried to talk lots of young people into doing it, but they won't leave that comfort zone.
“I think a lot of the youngsters aren't used to being away from their goddamn phones. You do have a bit of internet on fishing boats now. You can always email home and, if you need to, you can use the big satellite phone and ring home.
“They love to sit there all day flicking their phones… and they find that that distance [being far from home] a little bit tough.
“But, when that boat turns home it's like you're six years [old] and it's Christmas again, because you know you've got six to seven weeks off on full pay. It's a great holiday really.
“To me that's a lot better than nine-to-five, like a rat in a cage… wasting my life.
“You do the hard yards. Hard living, but great life.
“It's a great test of how tough you can be, mentally and physically, and show some grit. You make fantastic friends, you earn money. There's a great pathway right up through to be skipper, even for woman now, on deck.
“The food's fantastic. You'll eat better on the ship than you would on land.”
The financial rewards are even greater than at a first glance, Jackman adds, workers don’t have to spend any money while out to sea – providing a valuable opportunity to building up some savings.
For Jackman, a woman who very clearly (and by her own admission) is full of swagger, being an older woman in a male-dominated field wasn’t intimidating in the least – and quickly understood the importance of establishing supportive relationships within the crew.
“[Being a woman] in the fishing industry – is not as daunting for me, probably, as being older is probably better, because you're more life experienced as well.
“You're not too worried about 'how do I look today in my in my overalls and gumboots' and 'have I still got my makeup on' because to me, I couldn't care about things like that at sea. But young girls are a little bit more conscious.
“I've got a pretty robust personality and I enjoy men's company.”
Jackman adds that it’s a supportive culture, where “you only have to be nice to a guy and they'll help you”.
“A big strong man can help me and I'm not too scared to ask him to help me lift something really heavy. Because, it was really tough in those days, lifting big heavy sacks - you weren’t made to, but you sort of wanted to do.
“Then by the same token, I'd reward them with putting aside something nice for them at the bain-marie or help them put the laundry through. That's the way it works being a woman - a woman is never going to be strong as a man - so forget it.”
“So, I don't have to be "I am woman, hear me roar". I roar in my own way. I don't need to be too demonstrably ‘feminist on a bike’.
“I'm pretty fit, even at this age… but if you respect the difference between a man and a woman, I think you'll go well in the fishing industry”
Jackman also acknowledges the positive culture shift in the post ‘me too’ era of calling out sexual harassment and is a positive role model and mentor for other women on board.
“I'm pretty capable of fending off any unwanted guys that might be pushing their luck a bit, but I understand that younger girls aren't and that's probably where [having] someone like me was quite good, to tell them ‘if you need to talk about something you can come and talk to me’.
“Then I would be able to approach the guy and that's usually where it stopped because [I’d say] ‘you're going to get in trouble if you push this mate, because she'll go straight to the skipper, and you know all the drama of sexual harassment now’.”
Jackman got her Advanced Deckhand Fishing (ADH-F) ticket in 2018, towards the end of her fishing career so she could go to Norway to bring a big fishing boat through the Panama Canal back to New Zealand with her husband Mike, a skipper she met on Columbia when she first started working for Talley’s (“always looking up,” she jokes).
“My husband said, 'that's the best ticket you'll ever have' and he was right, because it got me the job into NIWA and it will get me the job into any other thing sea-related.
“I'm pretty happy. I feel like I'm the cat that got the cream working on Tangaroa.”
Jackman feels she’s adjusted to life outside of fishing – but has managed to retain some of her spark.
“I think they [NIWA] like my ability to work. They probably had a little bit of doubt about me, the culture I come from, which can be a little bit raw. But I'd like to think I could feel the crowd.
“I still do poke a bit of fishing talk in the air, just to keep them all straight, because they can sometimes be a little bit too quiet and gentle with me. But they usually receive it pretty well.
“They need a bit of reality check now and then,” she laughs.
As for own her days off, Jackman and her husband have their own vessel, Silver Spray, and take every opportunity to venture out on it.
“We have a great life. Just come back from Great Barrier for nearly three weeks.
“It's been fantastic.”
- Janan Jedrzejewski
