Welcome to Through the Gaps, the UK fishing industry's most comprehensive information and image resource. Newlyn is England's largest fish market and where over 50 species are regularly landed from handline, trawl, net, ring net and pot vessels including #MSC Certified #Hake, #Cornish Sardine, handlined bass, pollack and mackerel. Art work, graphics and digital fishing industry images available from stock or on commission.
Skipper Jimmy Byrne now has his own support page following his one man protest earlier today after he refused to dump his over quota monkfish at sea - instead, he landed the monkfish and gave it all away on the quayside after alerting the media - hundreds flocked to Kilmore Quay for a free supper of fresh monkfish. This is the first time a skipper has made such a public stance over dumping fish - especially such high value species as monk - anyone willing to support his actions are encouraged to write to the address below: Making a Complaint directly to the SFPA A written complaint may be submitted directly to the SFPA, by post, fax, or email to its headquarters:
SFPA Complaints Sea Fisheries Protection Authority Clogheen, Clonakilty, Co Cork Fax 023 8859720 (Please mark for Attention of SFPA Complaints)
Under the Merchant Shipping and Fishing Vessels Health and Safety at Work act, employers are required to provide a safe place of work for the crew aboard their vessel or their business on a vessel. Part of the requirements are for a risk assessment to be completed.
Keeping a Vessel safe is more than Risk Assessment though, and this website is to help you build a safety management folder which will reduce the complexity of the task so that all vessels can benefit from a safer environment. Safety management is not just a folder or a checklist it is the actions you do to keep a vessel and it's crew safe.
Since the Health and Safety laws at sea were introduced in 1998 it has been a legal
requirement to produce a Safety Management System for commercial vessels. The system is often described by one of its parts, namely the Risk Assessments, but actually the Risk Assessment is only a small part of the system. The following parts are all required within a good management system: » A Health and Safety Policy Statement » All Reasonable Risks to be Assessed » Crew Records » Life Saving Appliances, Drills and Inductions » Lifting Equipment and Work Equipment Maintenance Records » Health Monitoring System » Vessel Safety Equipment Self Inspections All these items are to be considered as a whole system, they certainly are not everything but they form a good starting point to build on. The safety Management Website helps you to organise this into an organised and practical system. Example folder completed:
To learn more about your responsibility please download and read the M-Notice issued by the Maritime Coastguard Agency which explains your duty under the Health and Safety at work regulations.
The story was heavily reported on a national Irish radio station this morning as the frustrated skipper of the beam trawler Saltees Quest gave away rather than dump his over-quota monkfish.
"Seamus O'Flaherty, who owns the Saltees Quest, gave away the fish rather than discard it at sea after the vessel exceeded its EU quota of monkfish.
The vessel's skipper, Jimmy Byrne, said he took the action to highlight a campaign by those who oppose the EU rule that requires over-quota fish to be thrown back in the sea.
Officers from the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority monitored the activity."
Later today, one food blogger was very quick off the mark and posted one of Duncan Lucas's ever helpful videos on how to prepare monkfish!
How to prepare a whole monkfish – Kilmore Standoff
by Wendy on October 4, 2012
If you manage to get some of the whole monkfish being landed on Kilmore Quay today as part of the protest by fishermen against dumping fish at sea, and do not know how to go about preparing and cooking it, well here are a selection of videos and recipes to help.
Don't forget to bookmark the Cefas web site to keep abreast of the imprtant work carried out to support our fishing industry - research methodology has come along way and there is now increased opportuntiy for the fishing industry and the scientists involved to work closely together - the Cefas Endeavour blog now gives a daily account of the survey work undertaken. Hopefully, the site will soon support a comments facility which will allow fishermen to contact the boat and the scientists while thay are at sea on station - here's the final entry from this year's Irish Beam Trawl Survey:
Smartbuoys and bloggers
Posted by Mark on 03 October 2012
This morning we picked up the Smartbuoy near Weymouth and thus completed all the tasks of the survey. The clean down has begun and we are busy packing everything away ready for the next survey. The steam home is underway and we expect to dock in Lowestoft tomorrow lunchtime.
After blogging for the last three weeks, I thought I should say something about myself on the last entry:
I have worked at Cefas for 20 years now and it seems to have gone by in a flash. I started work in Fisheries Division in 1992 on a temporary six week contract to do some data input as a mere boy. That contract was soon extended to three months and then everyone seemed to forget I was supposed to leave and I kept being paid, so here I still am.
I soon found myself part of the market sampling team and learning to read otoliths - our way of determining the age of fish. The former found me travelling all over the country to ports, sampling the catch and taking otoliths from fish. The latter fascinated me from day one; learning to age megrim and then herring and sprat in my early years. I moved away from market sampling and eventually took over the co-ordination of the age determination programme, having expanded my expertise across many species and being involved in and running a number of international workshops around Europe and numerous otolith exchange programmes between different institutes.
Sea-going has always been an element of my work at Cefas and it is one that I always look forward to, providing a complete change to the office and a wonderful experience of being out on the waves in our own research vessel.
Many eyes, not only those of fishermen in Ireland, will be watching what happens to see where this story goes!
"Trawler trying to land €17,000 worth of fish in Kilmore quay tonight which should have been 'discarded', skipper says he wont dump it at sea, Lots of monkfish, dept officials in 'discussions' with owners to see what happens next, Skipper says EU rules on throwing good fish overboard is crazy and he wont do it"
