MOREHEAD CITY - Federal fisheries authorities are looking at slowing down the big boats coming and going around North Carolina's state ports.

It's an idea meant to save endangered right whales from ship strikes, but some captains of fishing party boats that dock in Morehead City and Atlantic Beach think it's a bunch of blubber.

"This is the stupidest thing that I ever heard," said Jimmy "Woo Woo" Harker, captain and owner of the Carolina Princess.

"It's a bad deal what they've got suggested," said Maurice Davis, captain of the Capt. Stacy.

The National Marine Fisheries Service will hold a meeting in Morehead City next week to discuss a strategy to reduce north Atlantic right whale deaths along the East Coast.

The plan calls for setting up seasonal management areas in which the government would enact a 10- to 14-knot seasonal speed limit on vessels 65 feet or longer.

"We think that these are the vessels that are posing the greatest risk to the right whale," said Bruce Russell, a consultant to NMFS and co-chairman of the Northeast Ship Strike Implementation Team .

In North Carolina, the speed limit would apply to waters out 20 to 30 miles from shore in a semi-circle around both state ports, Russell said. The speed limit would last about four months out of the year, sometime in the October to March window when whales migrate.

Studies indicate that reducing the speed of large vessels will lessen the suction pressure that can pull a whale to the ship, Russell said. Whales can be killed from the impact of hitting any part of the vessel and from the propeller, he said.

The speed limit would likely not affect most commercial fishing vessels in North Carolina.

"Our boats don't go that fast," said Jerry Schill, president of the North Carolina Fisheries Association.

Russell said commercial vessels usually travel at between 10 and 12 knots, however, container ships can travel between 22 and 24 knots.

For this reason, officials with the N.C. State Ports Authority are sending out notices about the meeting to businesses that use the ports in Morehead City and Wilmington.

There is a potential economic impact to the ships that use the port because time is money, said Layton Bedsole, ports environmental manager.

"A reduction in ship speed means additional time on the water," Bedsole said.

The Carolina Princess, a 95-foot fishing party boat that docks in Morehead City, sometimes travels up to 17 knots when heading to fishing grounds, said Harker.

It's a three-hour run, one-way, for the most popular excursion, an 11-hour Gulf Stream trip, Harker said. But if the boat had to go at 10 knots most of the way, it would take more than five hours, one-way, he said.

"We couldn't work like that," Harker said. "We would be all day coming and going, and we wouldn't have no time fishing."

Tourists, who have spent good money on the fishing trip, will complain if the boat dawdles leaving port, Davis said.

Both captains said they've heard of no problems with whale strikes in this area, so they see no need for a speed limit.

"In 40 years of fishing, we've' not hit a whale yet," Davis said.

Russell, however, said there is risk from these size vessels. There is at least one case on record of the propeller from an 80-foot boat killing a right whale calf, he said.

The right whale is the most critically endangered species of all the whales, Russell said. Experts estimate there are only 350 north Atlantic right whales in existence, he said.

"They are susceptible to both ship strikes and commercial fishing gear entanglement," Russell said.

There have been about three right whale strikes in the North Carolina/Virginia area over the past 10 years, Russell said.

"When you're talking about (three in) a population of 350, you're talking about a lot," Russell said.

Right whales range from Nova Scotia to Florida and each year pregnant females migrate from the rich feeding grounds of the north to the warm-water breeding grounds of the south to bear their young. Then the mothers then bring the calves back north where they teach them to hunt, Russell said.

The meeting is scheduled for 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Maritime Building at the Morehead City state port.