Welcome to Fishing and Aquaculture Week!
FISHING/AQUACULTURE WEEK
After a very long “drought”, it is very encouraging to see how many new fishing and aquaculture service boats are being launched globally. Even more encouraging is the fact that so many of them appear to be well-built, safe and innovative. Many are also versatile and some are conversions from other roles. It shows that you can never give up and write off a sector of the maritime industry. No matter how bad things look, all sectors eventually recover.
Fishing and aquaculture have endured nearly three decades of abuse from green zealots, mismanagement by anti-fishing bureaucrats, and self-inflicted wounds from irrational over-investment and excessive borrowing. It has been a very bad time for the industry in most parts of the world. Now, fortunately, there seems to be a bright light at the end of the tunnel.
Trawling • Longlining • Seining • Potting • Aquaculture • Mariculture
Over the coming week we will present to you a wide range of sizes and types of fishing and aquaculture vessels from many parts of the world. They range in size from a sleek 67-metre, wide-ranging oceanic tuna seiner with massive freezing capacity, down to a 12-metre “pocket” trawler and a fast 10.4-metre fish farm crew boat. We even have a very impressive conversion of a 73-metre former platform supply vessel into a powerful and well-equipped crab catcher and processor for the Russian western Arctic.
Others will work in the North Sea, the English Channel, the Bay of Biscay and in the southern Atlantic, off Argentina. They are mostly of steel construction with some substantial aluminium, FRP, and stainless steel components. All but one have propellers and the other, twin waterjets. All show considerable design flair and appear to have been constructed so as to cope with anything the sea can throw at them in their operational areas.
Obviously, two swallows, or even seven fishing boats, don’t a summer make, but they offer a very encouraging sign of recovery in this very important sector.
Vessel Reviews:
- Niño Jesús de Praga – Versatile deep-sea and mid-water trawler for Argentina’s Atlantic coast
- Bel Horizon 2 – French-owned bespoke multi-purpose fishing vessel
- Havørna – Compact fish farm workboat enters service with Norway’s Lerøy Aurora
- Papy Chichi – Specialised sardine and anchovy trawler for western France
- Jacqueline Anne – New North Sea coastal trawler delivered to Scottish fishing family
- Via Alize – Deep-sea tuna seiner joins Via Ocean fleet
- Suzanga – French fisherman opts for Turkish-built, long-range trawler
Features and Opinion:
– “Finding a four-inch-long salmon in this environment is all about knowing where to fish and how to get around the river without getting stuck on a sandbar or losing one’s way.”
– “The conversion also entailed the construction of a new freezer hold of significant capacity.”
News and Gear:
- Mowi Scotland completes installation of additional salmon pens at Loch Seaforth site
- Construction begins on ninth trawler in series for Russia’s Norebo Group
- New workboat delivered to Jifmar Offshore Service’s Scottish subsidiary
- Rederij Long Ships’ newest trawler floated out
- Three Japanese fishermen dead following collision with Russian vessel off Hokkaido
- Scottish Sea Farms to trial new aeration system designed to protect against plankton
- NOAA recommends US$11 million in grants for 43 fisheries improvement projects
- Philippine Navy, Good Samaritans aid crew of distressed fishing boat near Spratlys
- Icelandic owner gets new locally-built line fishing boat
Recent Important Features:
FEATURE | O’Hara Corporation’s Bering Sea factory trawler gets efficiency-enhancing upgrades
– “Originally completed as an offshore supply vessel in 1974, Alaska Spirit was converted to a factory trawler in the 1990s.”
Remember to come back every day to see the latest news, opinion and vessel reviews!
Call for content!
Any news or views about the global commercial fishing and aquaculture industries? Send it through to [email protected] ASAP (between now and May 28), so we can add it to this current edition of Fishing and Aquaculture Week!
We are after:
- Vessels – Orders, new deliveries, under construction
- Gear – Latest innovations and technology in the fishing/aquaculture sectors
- Interviews – Owners, operators, processors, co-ops, distributors etc.
- Reminiscences – Do you have any exciting, amusing or downright dangerous anecdotes from your time in the fishing world? (example here)
- Other – Any other relevant news
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