Friday 6 July 2018

First July #FishyFriday in Newlyn.


Workboat and salvage vessel, Severn Sea waiting for enough tide to enter Penzance wet dock...



on the kind of morning you dream of waking up to if you are lucky enough to have sailed to Mounts Bay and anchor off St Michael's Mount...



the Zed seems to have gone AWOL from Penzance Gallery...



beached on the hard so that the sardine boat Golden Harvest can have her bottom scrubbed and anti-fouled...




plenty of fish on the first #FishyFriday market in July this morning with...




a good shot of hake from the Amanda of Ladram...



quality flats from the Filadelfia...



along with big black...



and red bream from the Imogen III...


who, like many of the inshore trawlers likes to see a few of these superb fish drop out of the cod-end on deck every haul...



along with all the other species of quality fish these boats are renowned...



both the Shiralee...



and Tom on the newly-painted Harvest Reaper were in on the Dory scene...



line caught pollack is still keeping the smaller line boats in wages...



while the bigger beam trawlers like the Filadelfia go for Dover sole...



or monk...



of decent size too...



along with a good shot of bigger flats...



and even a few JDs...



and red mullet...



the Maverick's  line caught pollack sparkle under the bright market lights...



as do more of those Dorys...



getting to grips with the new identification information now required on each box offered for auction on the market which seems to include approx where the fish were caught...



and a unique number for each box sold...



cod don't get much greener than these...


more tallies than a noticeboard covered in Post-Its!..


omni-present haddock...


more line caught pollack...


while the grading machine is out of action all fish on the market are being hand graded and the tallies hand written as a result...


and all the buys go down in that little black book...



seems the name and the port registration number are now required on the boxes...


red gurnard - probably the one fish that is never not present on the auction...


#MSC #Cornish #hake...


Smart moves, a quick calculation before bidding...


as auctioneer Ian beckons a higher bid...


and the sale book closes...


as another round of bidding begins...



crucial to any auction is the ability of buyers to know the quality fo the fish they are bidding on - box-by-box...


Newlyn Fish coming fast in the outside lane...


the grading machine is on the move to its final resting place...


if it came out, it must go back...


there are two separate concrete plinths on the market floor - and these have had to be kept apart with a flexible steel-reinforced joint...



insulated wall lining ready to fit...


aboard the Golden Harvest, Dan and the boys will be counting the days now to when the first sardines will be hunted down in the bay...



while Jeremy will be wondering when the new boat will be ready...



four of the orange team berthed together again...


stern on, the deep-blue fleet colours of the Radiance and the freshly painted Spirited Lady III...



over 70 years after WWII ended there's still no shortage of sea coal being trawled up from wrecks off Lands End...



typical of the stuff that drops out of a trawler's cod-end...



bow on, the deep-blue fleet...



the wings of a trawl...



from the footrope and the 'belly' of the net immediately behind it...



the 'square' section...



the 'top panel' leading to the 


'stocking' leading to the...



cod end which is protected by sheets of heavy net only fixed on the leading edge...



called 'chafers' - on old sidewinder trawlers these were made from cow-hides - their job is to protect the meshes of the cod end from damage scarping over the sea bed when the boat slows or turns or picks up a heavy weight (like a boulder) in the cod end...