Through the Gaps! - Newlyn Fishing News Cornwall UK fish commercial fishing fish cooking and art

Friday 30 January 2015

Freezing #FishyFriday? - not in Newlyn!

Friday's market full of fresh fish...

with Cefas Sam busy collecting otoliths from a good landing of big turbot...

all safely recorded and stored...

good to see ray back on the market floor and not being dumped like at the end of the year - this is one of those fish that will be a choke species come the implementation of the discards rule...

even murgies are making good money as crab bait...

all sorted...

stack them high when there are plenty...

name the fish...

some fish even appear to have feet...

these bream are a great alternative to bass when baked in a huge pile of sea salt...

scallops by the dozen...

not so much black gold this morning...

but plenty of hake with the gill netters...

including this monster in double figures...

all the lights are on with nowhere to go because of the weather.

Thursday 29 January 2015

Z85 Morgenster update

Latest news from a Dutch website at 7:53am today 9 (from a Google translation)

"The search for the missing cutter Z 85 is still plenty going on. It is intended that today also to look for two ships by means of sonar. Urk cutter Belgian flag is probably sunk Wednesday. On board were at that time Jan Kramer (29), Bert Woort (45), Maurice Coussaerd (64) from Belgium and Americo Martins dos Santos (48) from Portugal.

The cutter disappeared around a quarter to three Wednesday afternoon at sea, about half way between the British Hastings and Boulogne. The ship was then fishing and sea conditions were difficult. After colleagues alarm had beaten and no one managed to get in touch with the Z 85, a search was initiated by the British coastguard. A growing number of cutters searched it.

In the course of the evening was reported particularly on social media that the ship was found upside down. But that proved incorrect.

The search was now attended by three lifeboats. In daylight three helicopters go back in the air. Besides Dutch cutters, Belgians and French do it. There are still new cutters on the way to the English Channel, where the weather is still very impetuous: force 8 with heavy gusts. From the exit is an active emergency team, working with cutter owner Jelle Kramer, father of the missing skipper."

Belgian flagged beam trawler Z85 Morgenster missing in the Channel off Hastings

The Morgenster has been a regular visitor in Newlyn over the years - when most of the Dutch crewed beam trawlers fish up in the channel for Dover soles...

or when they shelter for weather...

when they traditionally hang their trawls by the cod end clear of the decks...

or in this case when she changed both beam trawls.

The first news (yesterday at 14.45pm) from the MCA was that the Belgian owned but Dutch run fishing vessel Z85 Morgenster (MorningStar) was missing in the channel. Gale force winds and poor visibility made conditions for the search difficult.

"This afternoon Dover Coastguard was alerted to a missing fishing vessel which had been fishing in the Dover Strait. The vessel is known to have four crew on board. A Coastguard Rescue helicopter is searching an area in the South East of the Channel, two all-weather lifeboats from Dungeness and Dover are on scene and a French Search and Rescue helicopter has also been supporting the search effort."

"According to the Dutch Coast Guard, there are four people on board. The captain and crew have Dutch nationality, the other two crew members were a Belgian and a Portuguese."

At 6am this morning a number of Dutch and Belgian fishing vessels were still in the area searching...

the last recorded track using AIS shows the vessel deviating from her course...

though using another AIS source system gives a different picture of the track.

Latest update from the BBC at 7.29am:

"A search for a trawler missing off the Kent coast, with four people on board, has been suspended.

Rescue teams began searching the Channel on Wednesday afternoon, after the Belgian fishing boat went missing in rough seas and gale force winds. Dover Coastguard said the search was stood down at about 03:40 GMT because of bad weather. No trace has been found of the boat or the crew, who are believed to be Dutch, Portuguese and Belgian.

Coastguards said their families had been informed. A coastguard helicopter, two Kent lifeboats and a French search and rescue helicopter carried out the search. They were joined by several other fishing boats."

Wednesday 28 January 2015

Sea to Plate: The Fisherman, as told by Peter Bruce of FV Budding Rose

Sea to Plate : The Fisherman from Jade Beard on Vimeo.

The Scottish White Fish Producers Association (SWFPA) wanted to explain how an MSC certified Scottish haddock is caught, handled, landed, sold at market, processed, delivered and sold to eat all with in 24 hours.

Calum Richardson, owner of The Bay, Stonehaven, believes that shops need to act responsibly and provide customers with not only as much fresh produce as possible, but also educate customers to the provenance of the food we eat. This is exactly what the people in this series believe.

In the first in the series we meet Peter Bruce, skipper of The Budding Rose. Peter has been going to sea for more than 30 years. We spoke to Peter immediately after he landed 400 boxes of MSC accredited haddock and he explained his part of the process.

Britain's favourite takeaway #fishandchips unwrapped!

Watch our video where we chart the history of the nation’s favourite dish

They’re a national institution and every week 7 million portions of fish and chips are consumed in the UK – that’s a staggering 380 million portions a year. Not only do we love to eat them, but they’re good for the economy too with the industry worth £1.2billion a year to the UK.

But whoever thought of serving fish with chips? And why? And how long has Britain enjoyed this very British delicacy for?

Well, it was actually the beginning of Victoria's reign that saw fried fish being sold as leftovers to the working-classes in London Billingsgate fish market. Alexis Soyer, the celebrity chef of the time, used to eat it with his fingers on his way home from work.

From there, the rest, as they say is history….so to find out how they spread from East London, to the outreaches of Britain and across the world, watch our video…

www.seafish.org