Monday 10 February 2020

And you wonder why all the Newlyn fleet were still in the harbour today!

The "Joseph Roty II", a 90-meter factory trawler built in 1974, catches blue whiting for the production of surimi base, with a crew of up to 60 sailors.  (Photo: Saint-Malo Peach Co.)

This is the French stern trawler Joseph Roty II, one of the newest and largest in the French fleet...


she works well off shore, often on the west coast of Scotland and Ireland where she has just steamed from since Saturday as storm Ciara blew across Ireland and the UK...


the skipper took this photo looking back aft as he passed Lands End this morning on his way to St Malo to land...


in something similar to This Fishing life, the boat was the subject of a documentary last year, (Hommes des tempetes/Men of Storms) an all too familiar fishing story - two weeks of struggling to find fish, and then, bad weather arrives...



he's not the only French boat at sea, most of the boats on this AIS chart are around 23m long, much smaller than the Joseph Roty II - they began fishing again this morning.