FOR SALE: 16' Seaking

PUNT FOR SALE

£750 ono

Popular and well know hull from Seaking. Currently in St Ives.

Length 4.42m x breadth 1.8m x depth 0.75m

Call Alex on 07934035148

Hard fishing aboard the Arpege!

Shooting away around 6:30am and completing her forth shot by 11:30am - the guys aboard France's futuristic seine netter, Arpege don't hang around.  The boat was funded largely by the French government to help create a fishing boat design for the future. 

De rigeur in the 1970s, the 'Classique' 16-18m sidewinder trawler that made up the bulk of the French fleet at the time - hundreds fished off the coast of Brittany, the Scillys and Ireland in relatively deep water on the banks, mainly for langoustine. Safety concious French fishing regulations meant that they had to radio in (les vacances) twice a day with a safety message: route pêche (steaming for the grounds), route + port name (steaming to land), en pêche (fishing, en cap (dodging head to wind) in which instance they would also give their lat/long position.

Back in the mid 1970s when the Breton fleets from Audierne, Guilvinec, Douarnenez, Loctudy, Lorient, Concarneau and St Guenole fishing way west of the Scillys lost what was deemed an unacceptable number the government of the day prompted the industry to come up with a design capable of working trips up to 15 days (Petite au Large) that would handle the weather likely to be encountered by boats working over 24 hours steam from their home ports...

French regulations restricted these boats to a maximum of 15 days at sea - the boats all worked by rotating the crew with an extra hand ashore - that way each crew had two lots of three weeks off in a year - generally the boat was in port for two nights only before sailing again.

as a result, from the early 1980s virtually the entire French fleet was replaced by (mostly) steel stern trawlers - fully aluminium shelterdecked with galley, mess, washroom, engineroom and accommodation offset to port and starboard leaving a clear deck space amidships for easy fish handling and net repairs - most had at least two or even three net drums mounted on a stern gantry.

Financing new vessels in France was made easier by virtue of support from a loan fund for young skippers (every French boat paid into this fund)and  excellent support and loan terms from the bank Crédite Maritime - which as its name suggests exists for the benefit of maritime industries (there is also Crédite Agricole for farming) - new vessels were used as collateral without owners having to secure their homes as a loan guarantee.

The first of the new boats were all around 16-18m...

and even then were only seen in Newlyn when the weather was particularly poor - sometimes well over 20 would take shelter (more would be in Falmouth and the Scillys, or Dunmore and Milford Haven)...

23m Roxanne in Guilvinec

eventually, replacement still more seaworthy boats increased in size to around 23m - as a result they seldom ran from the weather to take shelter in ports like Newlyn, preferring to dodge head-to-wind until the weather passed...

even in 2104 when the umpteenth severe storm of the winter passed through the western approaches some of the French fleet stuck out the weather and fished, in the 'lulls'.

Le Royale in Douarnenez

Le Royale, probably the most notorious of all Breton trawlers for working any kind of weather -  the skipper speciliased and pioneered fishing for monk and other high value fish on the deep-water banks like the Great and Little Sole - which, given the huge distance involved in running to any port for weather, precluded him from doing so on all but a handful of occasions...

eventually, the boat's notoriety was forever enshrined in song before she was run down and sunk by a Norwegian merchant ship while returning home from a trip.

Where did all the Fishers Go? by Griffin Carpenter.

Five months after the referendum which, by a small margin, voted for leave many in the fishing industry will be wanting to know just when we will "take back control" of fishing - much of that based on the rhetoric of the Vote for Lerave campaigners. This article from Griffin Carpenter looks at two of the main gripes that many held the EU responsible.

The article is quoted in full but it is worth remembering that whatever feelings of all concerned the way ahead should now be a chance for the entire industry to hold the government to account and get them to deliver on their promise to "take back control" - the implication being that some of the very unfavourable restrictions emanating from EU's CFP based on an outdated and largely inflexible quota system can now be addressed - not forgetting of course that the subsequent distribution of quota is managed by the MMO and not the EU. ed

Read on:

"As a fisheries researcher, the ‘Brexit’ referendum on the UK’s membership back in June unexpectedly thrust fishing policy to the front of the political agenda. This was an unusual time for fisheries research, and it was accompanied by a flurry of claims that were widely reported without much scrutiny.

During the referendum campaign, the two claims I heard most often were: 1) that there are foreign vessels in British waters stealing our fish, and 2) that the fishing industry has all but vanished from many coastal communities, leaving behind an economic and cultural vacuum. While it’s understandable to draw a connection between the two claims – and there is some truth behind each claim – it would be a mistake to do so.

The first claim on foreign vessels in British waters has described effectively by other researchers on this blog and elsewhere. Between historic access rights, the division of quota to countries through relative stability, reciprocal access, mobile stocks and foreign investment in the UK fleet, the factors behind foreign vessels are complex, but united in the message that there are good and sensible reasons for why you might see a Dutch or Spanish vessel fishing off the UK coast or docked in port.

The second claim, that fishing activity has declined in many UK ports, has received less attention, and it is unquestionable that many people rooted in coastal communities have observed this decline first-hand during their lifetime. In 1973, when the UK ascended to the EU there were 22,000 fishers. Today, that figure is 12,000. That a decline in port activity is occurring is indisputable, and as fishing policy is EU jurisdiction, it’s easy to understand why all fingers point to Brussels.Unfortunately, few people remember coastal communities before EU ascension. Going back to the first industry records in 1938 show that there were 48,000 fishers at the time, so the EU clearly didn’t invent employment decline. Historic data also shows that overfishing was rampant for much of the twentieth century around the UK and that declining stocks were already leading to a decline in landings before the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy was in effect.

Major North Atlantic fleets:

Country	2000	2014	Decrease	%Decrease
Norway	13017	6128	6889	52.9%
Spain	16685	9632	7053	42.3%
Belgium	129	79	50	38.8%
Holland	1101	831	270	24.5%
France	8229	7069	1160	14.1%
UK	7440	6409	1031	13.9%

Like many industries, the fishing sector has undergone technological transformation with capital replacing labour at sea and vessels growing in size while decreasing in number. This general transformation of the industry is clear not only if you look at the UK industry over time, but also if you compare the UK to other countries. For all the talk about foreign vessels pillaging UK waters, the number of Spanish, Dutch, Belgian, French fishers (or whoever the villain of the day is) has declined at a similar rate of about 2% a year. Iceland and Norway, regional neighbours that manage their fisheries outside of the EU, have also seen similar declines.This perspective offered through a longer historical and wider geographical focus isn’t to dismiss the issue of declining fishing activity in ports. Coastal communities in the UK do face more economic hardship than the rest of the UK and the cultural impact of a disappearing port is undeniable. Yet the diagnosis of the problem affects the prescription.

A push to raise fishing quotas, ditch environmental regulations, or construct new aquatic borders will not protect employment in fisheries – at least not for very long. Instead, changes to how fishing access is allocated and ensuring the representation of small-scale fishers in industry organisations could go a long way to meeting the government’s objective to rebalance fishing activity to support the small-scale fleet. The trend in fisheries ownership leaving coastal communities should also be addressed – we need a system where fishers and local communities have really taken back control of their livelihood. Some of these issues were discussed in the recent series of cfooduw blogs on catch shares.

How Brexit will pan out is unclear. Right now, the various trade-offs to negotiate, such as access to waters versus access to markets, are beginning to emerge – although the EU may not be keen on negotiating a bespoke deal at all. It has even been suggested that major reforms to the UK-EU relationship are unlikely to take place for at least a decade. Yet, as many of the changes previously mentioned are the result of national policy, there is no need to wait on the outcomes of Brexit. Actions can be taken today that use the current focus on fisheries policy to bring sustainable employment to coastal communities."

Griffin Carpenter is an Economic Modeller at the New Economics Foundation. A full list of his publications can be found here. You can follow him on twitter here.

Top quality inshore fish provide most of Monday morning's market in Newlyn.

Top quality inshore fish provide most of Monday morning's market in Newlyn today...

apart from a part trip of fish from the beam trawler Twilight III...

though she did put the biggest bass of the day on the market floor...

guess the fish?...

often-times the inshore boats working just the daylight hours catch just the odd fish of one species or another...

the best fish flies off the market...

skipper Plugger on the Shiralee always has had a nose for the squid...

while Mark must have been made up with this huge trip of flats, especially as most of them were the very best, and expensive, brill...

name this flatfish...

its the quality not the quantity of dayboat fish that counts...

like these cracking monk tails...

tubs of black gold, black gold? at an average of £1,775 per tub catching cuttlefish makes economic sense for the beam trawl fleet...

more big bass...

and pristine red mullet...

outside just as R4's weatherman is describing how heavy rain is about to hit the south west...

the rain comes down and the wind picks up keeping the hull of Rowse's new crabber Harriet Eve blown well off the quayside...

and lights in the harbour have plenty to reflect.

Bound in from a fresh day - the supercrabber, Emma Louise TO60.

After working through her fleet of pots off Land's End, the crew aboard the flagship of the Rowse crabbing fleet head in through the gaps and a night ashore, a well-earned rest for Richard Carroll and the boys.

Fishing faces down the quay in Newlyn.

15 tons of the finest Cornish sardines tubbed-up and ready for the trasport...

maybe someone will try a tuna luree on their bass poles, there's a few about in the bay it seems...

PD, one of the faces of Newlyn...

what a punk wears when it's cold...

with a set of 23mm steel warps lasting around six months it's time to try some new technology, brand new Dyneema Dynice Dux warps going aboard the Crystal Sea ...

a fraction of the weight of wire warp and less wearing on the transport gear like sheaves and blocks aboard the boat...

here's how to splice an eye in 12 strand Dyneema to give you some idea what is involved...

meanwhile, out of the biting wind skipper David Stevens...

helped by brother and fellow skipper, Alex...

get to grips with splicing eyes in the new warp - using the same technique as with six strand wire warp - over one under one it's just starting off splice with 24 strands that is the tricky part...

the Imogen II takes time to clean the stocking and codend before sailing...

another job for the harbour crew to do...

along with the bigger challenge of installing the new harbour landing cranes.

Fishing in front of the Russian fleet

The prototype French trawler Arpege...

has been fly-fishing in the path of the Russian navy as it made its way through the English Channel - although only the oil tanker Osimov and the huge tug Nikolay Chiker are visible on the AIS tracking from VesselFinder.