Islay single malt whisky Bunnahabhain has partnered with The Fishermen’s Mission, a charity which cares for the families of fishermen lost or injured at sea, to launch an international design competition.

The project aims to nurture emerging design talent while also raising funds to help The Fishermen’s Mission, the only charity which provides emergency support alongside practical and emotional care to help fishermen and their families.

The competition, which launched on 24 April and is open to amateur and professional designers, asks entrants to design a contemporary label based on the return of the brand’s iconic travelling Helmsman to the safety of Bunnahabhain Distillery. In addition to the UK, Bunnahabhain will run the competition in other markets, including the USA, to produce an exclusive Tales of the Sea collection which will be auctioned later in the year.

All proceeds of the auction and a portion of sales from the 500 limited edition bottles will go to The Fishermen’s Mission to help it carry out vital work supporting fishermen and their families.  

Over 13,000 men and women are employed in the UK's toughest and most dangerous peacetime occupation – inshore and deep sea commercial fishing. They face fatal injury on a daily basis and are 115 times more likely to suffer a fatal accident than the rest of the nation’s workforce.

Michelle Lansdowne, Senior Brand Manager at Burn Stewart, said: “Bunnahabhain’s Helmsman and his maritime stories have inspired the brand for generations. Tales of the Sea is an opportunity for us to add a contemporary twist to our current label, in addition to fostering fresh design talent and highlighting the important and groundbreaking work of The Fishermen’s Mission.”

David Dickens, CEO of The Fishermen’s Mission, said: “Every day the Mission staff sees the devastating aftermath of death and serious injury of fishermen at sea. Launching Tales of the Sea with Bunnahabhain will help us to raise further awareness of the Mission’s vital work and help to raise the funds necessary to continue our work supporting fishermen and their families.”

The winner will receive a cash prize of £2,000 and will see their design produced commercially as part of a limited collection. Chosen by a panel of expert judges, the winning design must perfectly embody Bunnahabhain’s nautical theme of the Helmsman returning home to recount his tales by the fireside.

To register for the competition, entrants must send an email with their name, date of birth and contact telephone number to: talesofthesea@stripecommunications.com or phone 0131 526 3083 with these details.

Deadline to register for the competition is 24th May 2013.

Deadline for submissions is 24th June 2013.

Sunny Saturday!

Saturday morning and a few of the inshore boats made it in to land...

 and take on gear...

including Mr Pascoe Snr...

and the Sapphire II is in for the weekend...

along with the early season yachts...

the giant scalloper Jacoba has a few days off it seems...

the pots are nearly ready to go aboard...

over on the slip the latest Rowse crabber is begiining to take shape as tons of steel from the hull is cit away...

exposing the old fishroom...

cutaway both sides...

which will become the new vivier hold...

not exactly the prettiest of boats afloat...

with her busted nose earnt when she was a 'rule-beater'...

if your lucky!!!...

in soft focus...

don't miss it!

Pair trawling in a gale of wind - top seamanship skills!

All in a day's work - when pair trawling the boats have to pass a line between them before they can tow the net - in poor weather this requires considerable skill - the Lapwing has to approach the Budding Rose at high speed because the wind would keep her off course - a tense moment every time the boats do so - which is probably around five times a day - and even more hair-raising at night! 

Escaping the cod in the North Sea - Rockall update from the Reliance III

Update from Reliance III via satellite link:- now with her gear in the water south west of the Rock!

Twin rig trawls streaming away from the stern of the boat

"Well after steaming near 62 hours and covering 460 miles in some pretty crap weather that's finally gotten my fishing gear shot 50miles sw of Rockall.  In all that time steaming I pass 1 Scottish fishing boat and 16 foreign fishing boats. 
If anything its not the fish that's going extinct is fishermen. 
Anyway its a great day at Rockall flat calm and light winds and you dont get many days like this out here so we will enjoy our day fishing and heres hoping we nail some fish"........jc

You dinna get a lot of Cod out at Rockall but when you do there all this size,we call them Bull Cod..
Will get a couple Cod steaks out of him for our supper tonight.....jc

 You would think that catching a cod this size might just put a smile on the skipper's face - but look at the consequences!

• Robert James Scally Heeds 'ats fit we also called them used to love a haul of heeds now we all this leasing there is no enjoyment in seeing them

  Like · Reply · 1 · 58 minutes ago via mobile
• 

  Realfishfight SOFC ats something on the west coast and oot here y dinna have to worry about with cod..1.5% bycatch for cod so for every say 6of that big cod you have to have arun 100boxs of other fish to meet your legal bycatch,whiting the same 1.5% bycatch....jc

Down the Line - A short documentary set on the North sea - can you help fund this to a full feature length film?

Down the Line Trailer from James Ewen on Vimeo.

This is a trailer for my graduation film at Edinburgh College of Art. The story concerns itself with the past, present and future of the fishing industry in Shetland as seen from the point of view of a father and his son working side-by-side on a trawler, at the mercy of the North Sea.

Short Summary

Down the Line is a short documentary set in and around the Shetland Islands, Scotland. It follows the story of David and his son Ross on their fishing boat the Mizpah.

The film's story concerns itself with the past, present and future of the Scottish fishing industry as seen from the point of view of a father and a son working side by side on a trawler, at the mercy of the North Sea.

The Production took place over the course of a week in March 2013. Which saw cameraman, Duncan Cowles and director James Ewen, travel far North to the Shetland Islands. While there, they were given the opportunity to accompany the crew of commercial fishing boat the Mizpha, skippered by David Robertson, for a three day trip. This saw them sail off from Lerwick, on the east of the Islands, into the North Sea. Soon after leaving they were forced to change course in order to head round the South of the island and into the Atlantic, due to adverse weather conditions.

Collaborating with James on this film are award winning production team, Sara Forbes and Stuart Condy of Arpeggio Pictures.

To see James' journey first hand, have a sneak peak at the behind the scenes photos please visit his online journal at http://cargocollective.com/jamesewen/Down-the-Line. 

What We Need & What You Get

We are using this campaign to help get the film out there for the world to see. Our hopes are to extend this story from it's short 10 minute form into a feature length project. We need your help to fund distribution and future screenings of the film. Each donation can help us do the following:

• Print DVD covers, posters and other promotional materials.
• Burn DVD's and blu-ray copies for distribution
• Cover the cost of festival and screening submissions
• Help fund the growth of the film into a full length feature project with people who want to share our journey. 

We will be updating our progress as we go. Keep checking back here for weekly updates and for breaking news on how the campaign is progressing.

Other Ways You Can Help

If you can't contribute any monetary donations, please don't worry. You can help us by supporting future screenings of the film at your cinema or venue or maybe you know someone who would be able to help distribute the film.

If you can provide any of the above or just want to ask further questions, drop us a line atarpeggiopictures@gmail.co or visit our website at www.arpeggiopictures.com

A massive THANK YOU for visiting our page and for your continued support. 

Pressure mounts on Council over fisheries reform

The European Parliament’s team of negotiators in the fisheries reform claim that progress has been brought to a halt by the failure of the Council to compromise. The European Parliament’s negotiator, Ulrike Rodust, on Tuesday warned: “Collapse of the reform talks with the Council is a real danger.”

Representatives from the EU governments meet in the morning 2 May to discuss the fisheries reform negotiations between Council and Parliament. The Irish presidency seeks support for a mandate to compromise with the European Parliament. However, a large number of member states have shown reluctance to depart from the Council’s position as agreed in the general approach.

If Council and Parliament cannot reach a genuine compromise agreement, “the Parliament may have to press for a second reading. Better no deal now than a bad deal for the next ten years,” Ulrike Rodust said according to a press release.

The Irish presidency downplays the differences between the Parliament and the Council on crucial issues such as ending overfishing and ending discards.

However, a group of MEPs this week wrote an open letter to EU governments highlighting that there is a real difference between ending overfishing 2015 (Parliament position) and doing it only “where possible” without even defining what is meant by “possible” (Council position). While the Parliament majority has voted for a complete discard ban, the Council wants to reduce discards to nine percent of total catches. The MEPs urged governments to strive to find middle ground.

220 Spanish scientists, coming from more than 50 universities, research centers and scientific associations have addressed an open letter to the Spanish fisheries minister, Arias Cañete, asking for a change in Spain’s previous position on the European Common Fisheries Policy. The scientists “are in favor of establishing a fishing mortality based on the existing biomass and set temporary goals that are as accurate as possible for the recovery of the stocks, a position better reflected in the current proposal by the European Parliament.”

A coalition of environmental NGOs on Tuesday issued a statement expressing “concern about the threat of delays or the possible collapse of negotiations on EU fisheries reform.”

“A number of countries, including France, Spain, Poland, Lithuania, Greece and Romania, are resisting efforts to find common ground with the European Parliament on key issues such as fleet management and discards. Coveney must not give in to these short-sighted positions but instead re-double his efforts to win agreement with all fisheries ministers for an ambitious reform,” the NGOs wrote.

Story courtesy of CFP Reform Watch.

The UK fleet under and over 10m statistics as at April 2013

Over 10m Uk fleet statistics:

	Overall length	Registered tonnage	Engine power	Vessel capacity units	Year built
Average	18.7	140	399	306	1984
Minimum	10.01	2.74	35.81	49.79	1896
Maximum	113.97	5579	8000	5140.14	2012

Under 10m Uk fleet statistics:

	Overall length	Registered tonnage	Engine Power (kw)	Vessel Capacity Units	Year Built
Average	7.1	4	55	46	1989
Minimum	2.5	0.1	0.0	4	1880
Maximum	10.0	21	374	216	2012