Roger Nowell 'The Skipper' 1944-2010

Aboard the Anthony Stevenson, a red ensign flies at half mast as the family firm show their respect for one of their longest serving skippers, Roger Nowell who passed away today...

Roger, seen here mending gear aboard one of the Nowell family boats, the beam trawler Semper Allegro represents a generation of fishermen who witnessed the biggest transition in the industry since the introduction of steam power - from a time when the they were the 'last of the hunters' relying largely on a echo sounder, compass and fishing knowledge won through experience the hard way - pre mandatory safety certificates, pre radar, pre-EU logbooks, pre VMS, pre GPS, pre 3D video plotters, pre man-made fibres and pre ICES fishing areas. 

All of this was recalled and mulled over in a very personal TV series on the BBC, The Skipper - with a book written to accompany the series told largely from the wheelhouse of the family firm's William Sampson Stevenson, his 'little tiger'. 

Roger lived life to the full and everyone in the industry who sailed with him or spent any time in his company ashore will have a yarn (or several hundred) to tell recalling those days gone by - his big heart and big smile will be missed by one and all.

End of the week.

Ready for the restaurant tables hopefully, good sized hake from a netter.......
it's all megs aboard the James RH........
scaffolding now adorns the Cornish Ice Company's headquarters......
another mornings work in the bag.......
IFL's Admiral is in town again......
almost there for the paint job and DTI work aboard the Elizabeth N in Penzance wet dock........
they don't come any smaller than the Navy's smallest commissioned craft, the survey vessel, HMS Gleaner........

some seriously big sheets of steel arrived at the Dry Dock.

Chasing Cornish tuna nearer home.

Spurred on by a single fish caught in Mount's Bay earlier in the week, lone punt fishermen Chris Morley adapts his traditional bass line and pole rig to fish for tuna.

Atlanic arc.

A fleet of Fench trawlers have formed an arc around the coast of West Cornwall in their search for fish - tracked on the AIS - each purple arrow represents a fishing vessel and indicates the direction of travel.

Mackerel rechead - equally good with fresh tuna.

This dish would work equally well with some tuna steaks from the boys on the Ben Loyal.Take advantage of the fresh mackerel readily available from Cornwall - whether it's a sultry evening or you're forced indoors, this fish is hard to beat for a summer treat on a regular basis.

Recipe courtesy of Keith Floyd's book on his culinary adventures in India:

Mackerel rechead:

Accdording to preference, either head and tail the fish and then gut them or just gut them - one per person will just about do - go for two to be safe!

Deeply score the sides of the fish, place in a small container and squeeze the juice of a lemon all over the fish, salt and add a teaspoon of black peppercorns - leave to marinade for at least 15 minutes.

In the meantime make a fresh masal with th following ingredients - the addition of the red wine vinegar to make a paste marks this as a Goan dish - however, an alternative is to leave out the vinegar and use the masal as a dry rub - your call.
For the masala: 6/7 dried red chillies - 1 tsp cummin seeds - 5/6 cloves garlic - 1 tbsp ground turmeric - 1 inch fresh ginger - 4/5 cardomman pods - 1/2 cinammon stick - 2/3 cloves - 1 tsp sugar - 2 tbsp dried prawns - grind the lot together - a mini processor is quickest but pestle and mortar provides a little exercise of the wrist - then rub the masal into the scored fish and inside the body cavity.

To give it that Goan twist, add 2 fl ozs of red wine vinegar to the masala to make a paste before rubbing into the fish.

To cook on the BBQ - give the fish a coat of oil - if cooked in a frying pan dredge the fish with a little flour first.Ready to go!

Tuna fishing with the Ben Loyal.

The poles are rigged and ready to go......
just a question of finding the fish......
and in a huge ocean, that takes some doing!

Tuna trials and tribulations! - 'Black box' technology let down.

Quentin Knights, Cornish champion of line caught tuna.

Cornish tuna trip update:

Seems that the tuna gods were not smiling on Quentin and Kevin's traumatic tuna trip! Apart from the fuel lift pump problems later in the trip - that sort of thing is common enough and well known amongst the fleet - the same may not be said about the problems they had with their Vessel Management System (VMS) system.

Captain Quentin let's off a fair bit of steam on his latest blog posting (he didn't manage any posts at sea and you can see why!) with regard to the administration of the VMS - here is the relevant paperwork from the MMO that is now responsible for the system's administration in the UK for vessels over 15 metres. The FAO at the United Nations provides a complete overview of the VMS system here.

Quentin's gripe with the MFA was, in his eyes, their punitive response to his problem (this Cornish Tuna project has been eight years in the making for Quentin with him working closely with all organisations concerned to ensure a viable fishery for a small number of boats willing to join the huge Spanish and French fleets already on the job) - he is nearly 400 miles south west of Newlyn and miles from the French coast, he's been steaming and looking for fish for 2 days when the VMS packs up - the MMO want him to return to port immediately to fix the VMS problem or else - all very well when you are only a few hours away from port - but at that distance an 800 mile round trip plus the time taken to sort the problem would come to nearly five days lost fishing time - and if the same thing were to happen again (and in fishing these things can and do) how long could the boat be expected to burn fuel and time without earning a penny for the boat or crew?


Here is the offending 'black box' - basically a sealed INMARSAT C transceiver. Inside the steel case, the top is protected by a micro-switch - in the event of someone tampering or opening the lid a signal is sent to the receiving station at the MFA alerting them. There is a green 'on' light visible on the outside of the case to show that the unit is working - well, 'on' - apart from that, the boat has no idea whether the unit is actually transmitting or not. Once aboard, and in this case its the local Selex engineer, can test the unit but then has to telephone the MFA to let them know - and then, if the unit is not working, he has to telephone the manufacturer and they can access the box remotely to try and ascertain the problem for the engineer and boat. Worse still, if this happens late on a Friday (and it has) the MFA is not there over the weekend to assist. This lack of service for an industry that operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and not Mon-Fri 9-5 costs the boat, skipper and crew real money.

It would seem that the MFA needs to formulate a bettter way of managing faults to ensure that in situations like this alternative arrangements that respect the integrity and position of the skipper can be put in place without the man feeling like he is immediately being branded a poacher - at the end of the day it is his fish that ultimately pays their wages - with no fish or fishing there would be no need for the MMO and VMS - and the albacore tuna fishery is about as eco and environmentally friendly as you can get - this is not the world of super-seiners with nets big enough to engulf a footbal stadium threatening the very existence of a fish stock - these guys fish with hooks and lines on 60 foot of wood in 6,000 feet of water! Surely failings in managing the IT technology - especially precarious aboard such an hostile environment as a small fishing vessel - should not bring about such a punitive first response?

The Ben Loyal was fishing alongside a fleet of around 40 Spanish line vessels - and they are supported by the Spanish Naval Patrol vessel (P61 Chirlue) - perhaps,given that these are all EU member states, the MFA and the Chirlue could have liaised with one another to assist with the VMS issue and vouchsafed the Ben Loyal's position?

Some additional guidance relevant to VMS managemnt from the EU:

Here is an extract from: (*DIRECTIVE 98/48/EC AMENDING DIRECTIVE 98/34/EC LAYING DOWN A PROCEDURE FOR THE PROVISION OF INFORMATION IN THE FIELD OF TECHNICAL STANDARDS AND REGULATIONS) with the clear intention that procedures should not be allowed to over-regulate - surely in the Ben Loyal's case the MFA could have exercised a little more caution and not treated the problem of a faulty VMS as if it would allow the Ben Loyal to destroy the northern atlantic albacore tuna stock in a few days?

"To avoid the risks of over-regulation
Without a mechanism for transparency and control, the adoption of a national measure would be likely to trigger a series of subsequent initiatives by the other Member States which, later, could require action by the Community in order to ensure freedom of movement while safeguarding minimum uniform protection on Community territory.
Like Directive 98/34/EC, the operation of the new Directive 98/48/EC is designed to avoid such a regulatory spiral and the adoption of measures which could prove premature in the case of services about whose form, nature and future development not enough is yet known. Basically, it will be necessary to resort to new Community arrangements only where national measures have restrictive effects on the freedoms in the Treaty which cannot be resolved by directly applying the Treaty, in particular the principle of mutual recognition, or by existing secondary law."

The only UK fisheries departments’ approved supplier for VMS equipment aboard fishing vessels is:

Applied Satellite Technology Limited
Satellite House
Bessemer Way
Harfreys Industrial Estate
Great Yarmouth
Norfolk
NR31 0LX
Tel: +44 1493 440 011
Email: sales@ast-uk.com
Web: http://www.satcomms.com/

On a lighter note - the guys reported being surrounded by thousands of swimming crabs, some breaking the surface with their legs in the air - maybe their VMS wasn't working either?