NEW BEDFORD — Tor Bendiksen knew that Blue Harvest Fisheries was in financial trouble in early September, when the company bounced a $12,500 check.
His company, Reidar’s Manufacturing, specializes in building trawl gear for fishing vessels. It is one of many small, family-owned businesses that had come to both support and depend on Blue Harvest as it expanded to become the single-largest groundfish company on the East Coast. And at the time the first check bounced, he was already working to fill another order — this one for more than $50,000 — to build new nets for the Blue Harvest fleet.
