Agree with the sentiments here that this is a very bad look for Sanford and a stain on its otherwise good reputation. The breach itself was a minor one really (record keeping failures onboard) and should have been accepted and dealt with properly by Sanford, rather than obstructing Coast Guard officers doing their job and denying any wrongdoing on their or their crew member's part. A bad performance indeed.

MM the age of the vessel in this case was not a factor at all.

I do however not agree with W69 that Sanford pays lip service to sustainability. That is not the experience with them here in NZ where they take their environmental responsibilities very seriously and have for example been consistently at the conservative and outspoken end of the industry with regard to setting of quota levels. They have also worked diligently on improving existing operations and developing new methods to minimize the unavoidable interaction with the environment, with lasting positive results.
But agree with you W69 that the leadership failed on this issue, resulting in the management culture being brought into question.
I wonder if the recent management restructure, where overall responsibility of the Pacific operation changed hands, contributed to this fiasco.

The substantial fines will obviously need to paid but what concern me more is the 3 years probationary period where Sanford vessels can not enter US ports. As far as I understand, Pago Pago is the only port with decent infrastructure to deal with these vessels and their catches in that part of the World so it will be interesting to see how Sanford will operate their fleet up there from now on.

Although this is not going to have a huge effect on Sanford's performance, I am happy to be out of Sanford at present while watching how this pans out.