stirred up continues.

This week, an American crew member from the vessel came clean on an attempt to sell fish the ship hauled aboard in local markets, despite clear instructions from Government not to do so.

And Mr. David Arsenault said although Government invited the Anna C inside Bermuda's territorial waters to determine whether a local long-line fishing industry was viable, the boat spent little time inside the 75-mile limit.

The Anna C and her skipper, Capt. Edwin B. Cross, Jr., left on Saturday. An intended six-month test of longline fishing ended months early amid financial feuding and poor catches.

Mr. Arsenault, one of two crewmen who stayed with Capt. Cross for all three voyages, said he was angered when he read an interview with Capt. Cross in last week's Bermuda Sun.

Despite the captain's defence of his fishing methods, the Anna C lost as many fish as she hauled aboard, because the boat was travelling too fast, he said.

Mr. Arsenault also said that on Capt. Cross' instructions, he approached a St.

George's restaurant in an attempt to sell about one ton of tuna, swordfish, and shark from the Anna C 's final voyage. He would not name the restaurant.

To protect local fishermen, the longline catches were not to be sold locally.

But the skipper said he was in negotiations with the Fisheries Department, and "he was definitely getting his approval to sell fish,'' Mr. Arsenault said.

The deal fell through when the restaurant manager checked with Fisheries and was told there was no such approval, he said.

When Fisheries contacted Capt. Cross, he blamed Mr. Arsenault for acting without his approval.

The 36-year-old crewman said he then contacted the captain's employer, Ignis Foods of the United Kingdom, and the Department of Fisheries. Ignis revoked the captain's permit a short time later.

Mr. Arsenault and another crew member, who threatened to take Capt. Cross to court over about $1,000 in wages they said they were owed, ended up settling with the captain for about half that much.

Ignis, which filed a writ in Supreme Court seeking to recover about $10,000 in cash and equipment from Capt. Cross, has also settled out of court.

Despite the skipper's claim that speed was of the essence in longline fishing, Capt. Cross was clearly moving too quickly for a boat like the Anna C in which the line had to be hauled by hand, he said. "The crew had screaming matches with the captain'' over this point.

"We lost as many as we landed.'' There was also a "near mutiny'' when the Anna C landed $1,500 to $2,000 worth of fish one day and Capt. Cross suggested they try elsewhere, he said.

And although the experiment was supposed to show whether longline fishing was feasible in Bermuda waters, Capt. Cross laid most of his lines around sea mounts 220 miles or more away from Bermuda. That was a 24-hour boat trip.

"Out of nine nights, we set our lines five times, and only two of those times were in Bermuda waters,'' he said. "But that's where we caught 80 percent of our fish.'' Mr. Arsenault believed Capt. Cross was "farming areas outside of Bermuda that he would not need a permit to come back and fish...at a later date.

"He was trying to find out what was outside that 75 miles and get one step ahead of the Taiwanese.'' Mr. Cross could not be reached yesterday.