Bareneed started down a new road around 1970. This change was foreshadowed by a new style longliner built in Bareneed in 1968 by a fisherman from Port de Grave. Perhaps the first large boat built in Bareneed for more than a century (see photo below).

Just after this boat was launched work started on construction of a Crab Plant on the site of John Bartlett’s house just west of the wharf (house directly behind boat in photo above). The Crab Plant was supplied by fishermen from Port de Grave who were switching from the cod fishery which had just collapsed to fishing for crab using the larger new style longliners.

The development of the community [Bareneed] continued to lag behind those on the Port de Grave Peninsula until a breakwater was built in 1970 and a fishplant opened in 1972 provided local jobs. In 1981 the plant processed 5 million pounds of crab, together with some caplin and cod (Decks Awash, Vol 15, No. 2, 1986, p.12).

Around this time some of the crab fishermen from Port de Grave started to move to Bareneed to take advantage of land which was in short supply in Port de Grave. The crab industry flourished at first and in 1980 a total of 17 longliners up to 65 feet were involved. After 1984  landings dropped and Ocean Harvesters Limited closed its crab processing plant; however, people from Port de Grave continued to move to Bareneed.

A pamphlet Roots 2000 (Olive Anstey and Effie Boone, 2000) provided a snapshot of the people living on the Port de Grave Peninsula at that time and their roots. A rough calculation shows that approximately 65% of the people living in Bareneed and the Dock at that time had roots outside Bareneed (mainly Port de Grave). The only old Bareneed family names that were well represented were Boone and Batten.