GLOUCESTER, Mass. -- The second annual $100,000 world tuna tournament sponsored by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's controversial Unification Church has generated little but disdain among local fishermen, one of whom called the event 'a joke.'
'I think they are just being ignored,' said Leo Alper, mayor of this small fishing port about 25 miles north of Boston. 'I doubt anyone locally will enter.'
'It's a joke,' said Jerry Hill of the Yankee Fishing Fleet, a deep-sea fishing company. 'The Moonies put on the tournament to get people to fish for them.'
The Unification Church moved into the fishing business in Gloucester last year, amassing a fleet of 30 boats and setting up a program to teach Moon's followers how to fish.
The Moonies have had an uneasy relationship with local officials and fishermen ever since. Although the Moonies have generally kept to themselves and obeyed the law, many residents said they resent their presence.
'They are pain to me,' Alper said. 'They are not causing any aggravation -- I have to be honest. But I don't like the idea they are growing silently. They sneak in and sneak out.'
The tournament, which runs Aug. 20-26, is designed as 'a viable business venture and also an effective advertisement,' said tournament spokesman Paul Werner.
He dismissed criticism of the church and the tournament, saying friction between the fishermen and the Moonies had subsided.
'We have a good relationship with the real fishermen,' Werner said. 'There are a few uneducated people, though, who don't research what they're talking about. They pick up information and carry it as documentation.'
Werner said the contest, which is put on by three Moonie-run companies in Toyko, Bayou La Batre, Ala., and New York, is open to both commercial and sports fishermen.
Prizes of $70,000, $20,000 and $10,000 are given to boats with the heaviest, longest and highest aggregate weight of fish caught.
Tournament officials predicted 150 boats -- up from 100 boats in 1980 -- would enter the tournament this year, including about 30 boats from the Unification Church's Gloucester operation.
In the 1980 contest, boats operated by Moon's followers picked up $97,000 of the prize money, with most of it being returned to church for special projects or community development, church officials said. The church has a 'tithing kind of arrangement,' spokesman Larry Witham said.
But Werner said sponsors 'don't expect to make any profit, or even recover the prize money.' He said sponsors 'just broke even' last year after paying expenses.
To enter the contest, boat crews pay a registration fee of $200 each, and the entire catch must be sold to one of the sponsoring companies.
Quimby Osier, a commercial fisherman who operates a 25-foot boat, said he did not know anyone who planned to enter the tournament. 'There was talk of it last year, but at the last minute they backed out.'
The 35-year-old Gloucester native said he believed it would be virtually impossible for him to win a prize because so many Moonie-operated boats competed.
'The deck is stacked,' said Osier. 'The odds aren't in your favor,' he said. 'I don't think it is rigged, but the odds of me winning anything are slim.'
Osier said he opposed the Moon philosophy and resented the church's forays into the fishing industry. 'The Reverend Moon feels he can buy anyone,' he said.
But Witham said the fishing operation has been misunderstood by the local people. 'It's kind of an impression that we control the tuna grounds, but actually each captain is responsible for his own boat.'
He said the church wanted to improve the community and offered to set up a high school scholarship with tuna tournament prize money won last year. The project was rejected by local officials, he said.
