The Way of Tuna

Sun Myung Moon
July 13, 1980
Belvedere

The Unification Church is very special, with its understanding of the role of Abel. The world would never imagine that I spend a great deal of time on the ocean to catch tuna, so before I start on the main topic I want to talk a little about tuna. If you think some fish are beautiful, then you would have to consider the tuna to be the beauty queen of all fish. How many of you have ever seen tuna? Well, most of you haven't, so you may not know what I am talking about.

Tuna are completely streamlined for fast swimming and they are the only fish which can fold all their fins right next to their bodies when they are swimming really quickly. It is like the concept of the Concorde: for takeoff the wings are spread out, but for cruising speed the wings are swept back. A tuna's side fins are completely hidden when it is speeding along, giving it a completely smooth surface. A tuna can swim up to ninety knots, like an airplane of the ocean! Water resistance is greater than air resistance, so airplane designers will have to study tuna when they want to come up with ideas for more efficient airplanes. The average cruising speed for tuna is thirty-five knots.

Tuna do not live in just one area, but swim in all five oceans. If the ocean were divided into sovereignties, then the tuna would be in trouble because it would need a visa. But tuna just fly through the water, in all five oceans of the world! Furthermore, tuna have solid meat which is good for eating. In the future, tuna will provide food for the world.

Tuna fishing is the king of sport fishing because it is so exciting and thrilling. Tuna fishing is really the ultimate goal of fishermen. I would like to generate world-wide interest in this apex of the sport by perfecting the skill of catching tuna. You have to outsmart a tuna in order to catch it because they are very smart fish. However, once you master the skill, you become an addict. Even when you think you will finally leave the fishing ground for the day, your attention is drawn back to the area and you are eager to return.

Tuna fishing requires a boat that is from twenty-five to fifty feet long. Getting a boat and all the necessary equipment, plus daily expenses for fishing, requires money that only more wealthy people can afford. Only people who have a strong interest in the ocean can concentrate on this kind of sport fishing. For this reason, people who can afford it always concentrate on tuna. Women of the world always dream of having diamonds, and sports-minded men always dream of catching tuna. Tuna fishing is more than just a sport or a hobby; it is really a battle, and this is why I like it; you must be ready to go after the goal and gain the victory.

A big tuna weighs over 1,000 pounds, which is six or seven times the weight of the average person, and is thirteen to fourteen feet long. When we pull a big tuna aboard the New Hope, it stretches diagonally across the whole boat, touching each side. Tunas are caught with a hook and long line, and great skill and knowledge are required to win the battle. After long, long hours of waiting, a tuna will strike and for that moment, you forget everything else. In Gloucester, three to five hundred boats gather for the tuna season. People sail for months from the West Coast and through the Panama Canal to come for tuna fishing in Gloucester. In some cases, boats come from South America. For that season, the richest and most famous boats assemble in Gloucester.

The fishermen are more proud of their boats than women are of their finest jewelry. These boats each need four crew members to go along. You can imagine that no one can afford to do that except wealthy people; they spend all that money and time to get there just for the excitement of catching tuna. Five hundred boats use about $50,000 worth of bait a day. Tuna season normally lasts seventy days, and the bait alone costs $3.5 million. If each boat is crewed by three people, that is 1,500 people in one area. If each boat spends $500 a day for seventy days, that is $1.5 million. This is the investment that they make in order to have a chance to catch a part of the quota of tuna that the government allows to be caught each year.

If the government allots 1,800 tuna and you sell each tuna for $1,000, that is only $1.8 million. In other words, tuna fishing is not a money-making investment. It is extraordinary to break even at tuna fishing; it is virtually impossible. When I see the enthusiasm these people have for tuna fishing, I think that if they loved America the way they do fishing, it would have become the Kingdom of Heaven a long time ago. I always think that if Americans have that kind of heart and soul, why not harness it for kingdom-building?

During the tedious wait for a tuna to strike, people may complain and fight, but when the tuna bites, they are instantly united as one. I have never seen such instant unification! That is the unification spirit I am trying to promote, so rather than just talk about it, I particularly want Unification people to come from all over the world and experience it.

The one thing men cannot say they have experienced is the pain of giving birth to a child. Only women know it through experience. However, tuna fishing is usually in the man's world, and it is difficult for women to understand it. The rugged tuna world is far apart from the world of make-up, manicures and jewelry. Fishermen usually wear nothing from the waist up, and they get deep tans.

I have experienced all kinds of sports in the man's world, yet I have never found any that was as exciting as the struggle with tuna. Do you have an appetite for that? Not everyone can do it; you have to be born with the traits for it. However, women can be interested in it too. I am always studying how the American fishing industry can become prosperous once again, so whenever I am in Gloucester I am always planning how to interest American young people in the ocean.

Tuna season is like the Olympics of sport fishing, and I determined that I would be a record breaking tuna fisherman. It took me twenty- two long days to catch my first tuna, however. There were many strikes during that time, but for lack of experience they were all lost. When a strike is so exciting, you can imagine how disappointing it is to lose the fish, but then you restore your spirit and resolve to go on. When the sun starts to sink at the end of the day, I feel like ordering the sun to stay up so I can stay out and get another strike. You really don't understand how I feel. If you have this kind of spirit when you attack any task or problem, there is nothing you cannot do. Though you lose the tuna, you just keep trying until you catch one. That's the way it goes.

When I first started out, people laughed at me as a novice. I thought, "They should watch me for three years and see what happens." All the professional fishermen were astonished that I broke record after record during those three years. Now they feel threatened by this "novice" who is having an impact on their world. They worry about what to do with the Moonies who are stealing all the honors. They can't stand to see us taking all the records, so they have started getting up earlier in the mornings in order to beat us. When they discovered that I was going out at four-thirty in the morning, they decided to go out one-half hour earlier. But, it didn't last; after the first day, only a few people came out at four. In the meantime, I started going out at three-thirty in the morning. When they resolved to go earlier than that, I started going out at two-thirty!

When you go out that early, you usually have to wait four hours because the tuna come to breakfast on time... their time. However, it was a war and I went out early. Now people are giving up trying to beat the Moonies; they know that for sheer consistency and hard work, they cannot compete with us. What is interesting is that even with all those boats anchored up and fishing, the first strike always comes to the New Hope. Yesterday when I went out, it only took four minutes for the first strike to come!

Do you have some interest in this? How about the women? If you are interested, you have to marry a tuna fisherman to enter that world. Those who don't know the taste of tuna fishing don't really know the taste of life. When the interest in tuna is so great, will the number of people getting involved start to shrink, or become greater? A person with a really masculine character who tastes the spirit of tuna fishing wants to go out each day, regardless of how rough the sea is. This is the fundamental attitude of the men of the ocean. When you know this thrill and excitement, even if you are seasick, you still go. Tuna fishing is the best way to learn about the fishing industry.

People begin fishing with smaller boats, but each year get bigger ones. They make it their goal to beat the best person of the previous year. In Gloucester, excitement starts to swell when tuna season comes, because they know the top champion always comes Reverend Moon in the New Hope. I feel it is good competition and young people will want to challenge that goal and record. If I set a goal for them to challenge, then the America fishing industry has some future.

Today, that industry has almost come to a halt because no one has that spirit. American women are not particularly fond of fish smells or the life of ocean going men. It is an extraordinary woman who is interested in the ocean and its fish. When the battle starts with the tuna's strike, there is no time for courtesy or pleasantries. A team has to be organized and busy, and a fisherman would even yell at his own father at such a time. It is a rare woman who wouldn't mind being kicked by her own husband in the heat of a tuna battle. What about Unification Church women?

I am certainly not fishing for money. I already have the foundation to move in any direction. My goal is to break the record and demonstrate the sea-going spirit to the world. Year after year, I have set the record and people know now it is not happening by chance or coincidence, and that I have a special secret. People want to learn that secret, so they are trying to be nice to me. The other fishermen follow the New Hope with their binoculars, and when I get a strike, everyone's eyes are on me. Anyone in Gloucester who is interested in tuna fishing knows about the New Hope.

We want to establish something permanent in Gloucester, so we recently obtained a big estate there, which used to belong to the Catholic church. That house is being prepared to welcome people from all over the world. If anyone is invited up there to participate in our tuna fishing. they will not refuse. The mayor has been negative toward us, but let him come and see what we are doing. I see this house as an essential diplomatic base.

Gloucester is close to Boston, a major city in the world, and near Provincetown, where the Pilgrims once landed. The spirit of this nation was born in the New England area, so it is an important area. It is a cultural center of America, and well known as a seaport. Thus, it is a strategic location to show the world my spirit.

Recently, we bought a marina that was up for auction and many people bid against us, but the price kept rising and soon everyone stopped bidding. Even the mayor was interested in that marina, and he was anxious to keep us from getting it because it was such choice water- front property. Many powerful corporations bid, but I never paid attention to them, and eventually, we bought it.

Now we have that marina, plus a dock and an estate, so Gloucester is being impacted by Moonies. Also the entire sport fishing industry is influenced by us, especially by our first opening of the world tuna tournament this year, offering the first prize of $100,000. Everyone was completely shocked when the announcement was made, but they became eager to see the Moonies come to their town. Gloucester citizens, the police chief and Coast Guard are all excited. Everyone's eyes popped at the thought of $100,000 and all of a sudden, they didn't mind the Moonies so much anymore. They say it is the most exciting event in a century in Gloucester. Boston, Gloucester and Provincetown are all bases for the tournament, so it is a topic in those cities as well. Everyone is talking about who will win the prizes, but I know who will win. However, since I am sponsoring the tournament, it would not be good for me to win first prize. I will, therefore, be the honorary chairman and compete, but I will not take the prize even if I do the best. Moonies can win, however.

The most important thing will not be who wins first prize, but which boat does it. I am determined that our people work the hardest for all three prizes. If they win, people will want to know which company made their boats, and then they will discover that I designed the boats and created the company that made them. I have planned down to the most minute detail what kind of boat would be best for tuna fishing, and yesterday I checked what our factory is doing, specifying what details must be changed. The people of the world will know these boats are my creation.

No one thinks I will build boats, but you will see that our boats will be 21st century boats. Once our boat is proven the best for tuna fishing in this contest, there will be a great market for them. I know the advantages and disadvantages of different styles, and through design, I compensated for all of those things. Mr. Henry Masters is our brother from England, and I have guided him directly in completing the plans. Our boats will win the prizes in the tuna tournament. You wait and see. The fact that we bought some property in Gloucester was world news, reported in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Time magazine devoted almost an entire page to it. When the media finds out that Ocean Church boats win the world tuna tournament, that will really be news. They will wonder when a religious leader became such a fantastic boat designer.

Many thought it was just throwing money away to offer $100,000 for the tournament, but there are specific reasons. That prize brought more than $200,000 worth of publicity. The people who were anxious to get rid of the Moonies have seen the excitement build in Gloucester, and now they are embarrassed to be seen in public. The tournament will last seven days, and whoever does the best during that time will win.

This tournament is not just an exciting event in America, but in Japan as well. Japan is a great consumer of tuna, and the major Japanese tuna companies are represented in Gloucester. They will send their best people, and everyone will watch to see what happens. The major seafood companies will see that Reverend Moon's boats and people are winning, and they will know they can't help but deal with us in the future. The big Japanese companies are backed by their government, but we are backed by heaven. We will compete with them, and in the next few years we will beat them.

There are four major fishing areas in the world -- one is in Norway, but the other three surround the United States. One is the Bering Sea, in Alaska; the other is the Gulf of Mexico, and the other is along the East Coast, especially in the Gloucester area. A few years ago, the American government set up a 200 mile limit for off-shore fishing by foreign boats. Foreign governments are trying all kinds of strategies to get inside that 200 mile limit to fish. There is a great deal of diplomatic pressure to use these fishing grounds which are monopolized by the American government.

However, we are not foreigners. The Japanese companies see that Reverend Moon has a base in the United States, and furthermore, has so many Japanese people working with him who are engaged to Americans. They realize that we are their only link to America. We are becoming the best bridge for Japan to trade in sea products with America, and vice versa.

The American and Japanese governments are fierce competitors, but by using our organization as a link, we can smooth out the bad feelings and work for the benefit of both countries. I am interested in marketing strategy. Mitsubishi and Marubeni have to use many middlemen, and each level needs to get some profit. My strategy is to send the product straight from the factory to the retailer, bypassing the middlemen. Then the product can be provided much more cheaply to the consumer. This is why I have created mobile seafood stores, which are converted vans fitted with refrigeration. We are good at preparing fish; the Japanese in particular know how to fix fish in many ways. Once we prepare the fish, all the people have to do is enjoy it at home. Many Americans don't know how to prepare fish, so we do it, and all they have to do is eat it. The lines will be blocks long outside our mobile stores. One van will be responsible for twelve home church areas, roving around, serving 4,380 homes. The vans will have special theme music and special signs so that people will get to know you when you come to their homes.

We will also cater and start seafood restaurant chains which will provide fresh, cooked fish for banquets. If you have the reputation that in a few hours you can provide good food for one or two hundred people, you will get an incredible amount of business. More and more the American diet will include seafood, because people are realizing that eating large amounts of red meat isn't healthy. Seafood provides much more healthy forms of protein.

My plan for marketing in Japan calls for 7,000 seafood vans to cover the whole country. Once they are in operation, they will make twice as much as the MFT fund raisers. When B and C members see how successful our A members are in the fish business, they will want to do it too, instead of their own jobs. Once we demonstrate reliable income, we can buy vans on credit, and when bankers see what the Moonies are doing, they will want our business. Whoever does well in this business will rise to ever higher levels in Japanese-American trade.

We have ordered 100 vans and thirty have arrived. Right now, three members are working in one van, but in six months they will branch out, with one person per van. I want to see it expand, from one van to three, then three to nine, and nine to twenty-seven, so that in three years, Japan will have 7,000 vans. If we have 800 by the end of one year, there can be far more than 7,000 by the end of three years. We will use exactly the same system in America.

Home church will be developing side by side with the marketing plan, so we will offer service to the people as well as income, and in this way, the home church providence will prosper. All the experts trained in this system in Japan will come to America and install their system here. At the same time, through a fellowship organization, we can make friends with wealthy people who are interested in tuna fishing. Through the tuna tournament we can organize them into a club and then expand it throughout the world. Tuna travel the world, so when the season ends in Gloucester it begins somewhere else. If we sponsor tournaments in five places around the world, that is $500,000 in prizes. That investment will lure tens of thousands of influential people. Their boats are capable of crossing the Atlantic or Pacific, going from one tournament to another. Once this plan has momentum, the government will have to be supportive, and they will organize all the necessary supplies. Also, since there are already many marine facilities around the world, we will create a system so that the major vessels can provide fuel to the sport fishermen. As the club's influence grows, these things can be arranged. People will certainly see that Reverend Moon is the king of the ocean, not only in generating healthy sea sport, but in generating trade and commerce as well as good food to benefit the people of the world. Eventually we will have our own capacity to supply our boats. The tournament fleet will be moving from one ocean to another, with an oil tanker accompanying it. The major corporations of the world will want to participate because the worldwide publicity will be so great. Imagine tens of thousands of boats coming to Gloucester for the competition; they will bring tremendous prosperity to that small sea town. All those people will have to eat and sleep somewhere and get supplies, so the economic impact will be tremendous.

There are many resources that can be transported from one part of the world that is rich to another part where there is famine. This is why I created the International Relief Friendship Foundation. American companies sometimes have a surplus of products which become burdensome because they must be stored and, at the same time, the companies must pay taxes on them. Many times they cannot sell these old products for whatever reason, so they are in a dilemma. Often they are willing to give that material to some organization as a contribution, but even the churches today don't know what to do with so much material because they don't have the capacity to handle it. However, we have created a foundation which can receive surplus commodities, plus a fleet to transport them from one port to another, so we can meet that need.

This has tremendous implications. Any government that is interested in the welfare of its people will link up with us because we have so much ability to help them. To implement this, we need properly trained and skilled manpower. Where can we train people? I want to have 200 of our boats deployed along the American coast with three people on each boat, which means 600 people. Once we have continued for three years, three people won't be necessary; one person can do it. This kind of system can be expanded very quickly.

The young people who become experienced in small boats will want to handle bigger and bigger boats. In about sixteen years, everyone can be a trained, experienced captain of a big boat. We can get government loans and create more fishing boats, assigning an experienced captain to each one. Then, their mission will be to catch specific fish that are in demand.

Cold storage is the big problem in the fishing industry. Therefore, I am investigating advanced techniques of making dry fish powder that doesn't need cold storage. Millions of tons can be stored in bags in open air. We will develop powder for different fish and combine them, like multiple vitamins. This powder can be used in daily cooking, to supplement the overuse of flour and starch. You will be able to create new cuisine by using fish powder in nutritious cooking.

I will soon test fish powder bread versus wheat flour bread. Once people taste it, they won't have to be persuaded which is better. The best test will be giving it to children, who are very honest. I am sure they will all take the fish bread. There is already a fish powder company operating in Norway, and one of our members is researching that process in depth. The problem now is not in catching the fish, but in marketing the fish before they spoil. We are working on the solution to that.

Because we have a way to store the fish, we will catch as much as possible without hesitation. Already, we catch more tuna than anyone else. The fishermen will bring their catches to us because we will have no limit on how much we can buy. Therefore, we can provide a tremendous incentive for the fishing industry. I have the entire system worked out, starting with boat building. After we build the boats, we catch the fish and process them for market, and then have a distribution network. This is not just on the drawing board; I have already done it.

All these ideas I conceived many years ago, and I knew just where to start -- with tuna fishing -- because it is the essential way to train people in the fishing spirit. I have been doing that for seven years. Furthermore, another reason I have pursued this direction is that resources on land for feeding the world will soon be inadequate. There is a limited amount of land, and it gets poorer over the years, but the ocean is boundless. You cannot eat all the plants that grow on land, but everything that comes from the ocean can be eaten, and it is all good for the body.

Animal feed can be produced from the ocean; when seaweed is properly processed, there is tremendous nutrition there. In addition, we will not just harvest fish that grow wild, but will farm fish as well. Normally a calf cost one-fifth the price of a full grown cow. The tuna, however, has a tremendous capacity to multiply; one tuna lays 150,000 eggs. Would you have to pay one-fifth the price of a tuna for one little egg? Tuna farming is already in the experimental stage. Most baby tuna are eaten by other fish, but when they are protected they will grow quickly. There is great potential in tuna farming.

I am the founder of this gigantic spiritual movement, but I am also laying the foundation to solve future physical problems of the world. I know that all this is basic for future food production and solving hunger in the world. Some environmentalist might ask me, "Reverend Moon, why do you kill tuna all the time?" My answer is, "How can you worry about tuna when all the people may die? I want to prevent such a future from happening." In another way, I view a tuna as an offering, and I am in a position as a chief priest to offer it to God. I seldom eat the tuna I have caught because I see it as a sacrifice for the sake of mankind. In the Old Testament, the priests killed and burnt offerings on the altar, and blood was shed.

Another health food trend in the near future will be to eat raw foods like fish, grains and vegetables. It is medically true that raw foods give you more energy. Fish powder will solve many things because it will contain most of the nutrition you need. With a bag of fish powder you can travel anywhere in the world and eat wherever you are. The land has been fully exploited by man, but God preserved the ocean resources almost totally untouched. (There are even precious stones in the oceans).

This year, we have saved and numbered the tail fins of the tuna I have caught, and when they are preserved, each state center will have one. When people look at those fins, they can feel they are looking at the future food messiah who will solve the food problems of the world. Since I am so enthusiastic and have so many plans about the ocean, anyone who comes to the Unification Church cannot help but pay attention to the ocean. Would you like to go to sea? [Yes!] When did you become so enthusiastic about the ocean?

For seven years I have been going to the ocean and praying out there, early in the morning and late at night. As Unification Church members you cannot help but pay attention to the ocean. Did you think about the ocean before you joined the Unification Church? When you think of the ocean you think about the movie, Jaws, don't you? Now, instead of thinking a shark will use you as his food, you can think you will use the shark to feed the world. Not only men, but women will do it also. That is a long standing goal of mine.

If there are any people who don't want to do this, raise your hands. From next year on, we will have ocean workshops lasting six months, and once you pass, you will go on a tuna tour around the world. You will even sail to Korea. We have radios, so I can command our worldwide fleet from one flagship, directing each ship around the world.

In the future when the Communist threat is ended, there will be no more war. Instead of being scrapped, all the government naval vessels can be utilized by us as mother ships for peaceful purposes. They can supply the fleets that are harvesting the resources of the ocean. An aircraft carrier is like a floating island and can travel thousands of miles with no problem. I will get one aircraft carrier for each ocean, or two for the big oceans. Then we can get airplanes, and they can use the carriers as airports. Would you want to join that fleet and become captains?

Usually Americans don't like the smell of fish, and when you talk about fish, you shake your heads. Now, you will be different. I am not just thinking about all these things, but have already started them. You sisters, show me your muscles! Oh, not very much. I have the ambition to train many women captains. You will still have your charming woman's smile, but will act strongly like a man. That will be very poetic. Our sisters will create literary masterpieces based on their experiences at sea. That is my thinking.

If your husband had this kind of dream, would you be a happy woman? To reach that goal, you will have to go through a great deal of misery because it is a tough process. You have to taste bitterness in order to appreciate sweetness. I would like to mobilize the spirited young men and women of the world and bring them to the horizon of this goal. I knew that governments and religions would persecute us, but I always had an alternate plan for building the kingdom of heaven on earth. I always thought that if people don't like me, I would build the kingdom on the ocean first and then bring it to land.

In the last ten days, I have become deeply tanned and my goal is to become darker than any black man in America. Then l want to see what white women will say. I am watching how Mother will react to having a black husband. I know that Mother will say, "Father, you are so handsome in your dark skin; I love you even more." She will have a black husband in the summer and a white husband in the winter.

My topic was supposed to have been the "Way of Abel, but instead it became the "Way of Tuna. Well then, when the way of tuna is followed properly, you will surely end up in Abel's role. I started with only my bare hands when l arrived in America, but in a few years I have truly created an empire. Do you know what is happening in Alaska? The most advanced seafood processing factory is being built there; even the state government is amazed. Now, people are asking my guidance for the Alaskan seafood industry because our factory is so exemplary. We have a shipyard in Alabama which can build boats up to 300 feet long, which is a gigantic boat. One of those would cost several million dollars. Wouldn't you like to go out as captain on one of those boats?

When transported to Japan, the tuna price is usually twenty times that in America. In order to do that, it must be fresh. For that reason, I researched how to transport tuna, and now that we can do that, we can utilize the same method for other fish as well. I have opened the door.

Anyone who has at least three spiritual children can come to Boston, though I think that maybe one-third of you will lose your enthusiasm after your first experiences on the ocean. You will spend more time in the bathroom, not sitting on the toilet, but leaning over it. Will you mind? It will be the world's most exciting drama and comedy. The interesting thing is that at sea you may be in the bathroom all the time, but as soon as you are back on solid ground, you feel fine and are truly hungry. In some cases, a person is so engrossed in throwing up out of his mouth that he doesn't notice that his bowel movement has come out the other end! The Unification Church is really something else. You are proud of it though, aren't you? Wouldn't you like to have dark skin like mine?

On the ocean you won't have good food like you do on land. You just have raw fish, but it will certainly be very fresh; just dip it in soy sauce and eat it. Now you know why I have been spending all my summers on the ocean these last seven years, and why tuna are so important. Now you know it is directly linked to the dispensation, so it can be a topic in your prayer.

It so happens that tuna season in Gloucester comes in the middle of vacation season, which means people from all over the world can come. The estate I bought is now tuna tournament headquarters. Would you want it to be an impressive place? There are thirty bedrooms there and this house will be used year round, not just in the summer. Famous professors will come for seminars there.

Our whole budget for the summer has been spent already, so I told our people that if they want to eat they can either have sand or go get tuna. Now the staff is fishing very hard to get tuna so they can go on. Tuna fishing is certainly not a vacation for me; it is a war and a battle, I sleep two or three hours at the most at night. The young people are always dozing off; my driver always sleeps in the car, but I never sleep on the boat. When God sees me, He cannot help but say I am something special because no one can keep up with me. Christian ministers are very interested in their honor and future, but I am crazy about the salvation of the world, how I can feed the world population, how I can help this nation. That is what I am thinking about day in and day out. In the summer your face should be tan and dark with the appearance of rugged men and women who are committed to the mission. Would you like this tough mission? Your "thank you" doesn't sound very strong! However, it is a beautiful day today, the best day for tuna fishing. Tuna is the Abel of the sea, so this wasn't too far from my original topic. From tuna, you have learned many things about my vision of the future and what fishing is all about. God bless you.