Three seine netters are currently fishing around 45 miles south west of Newlyn, the French boat Arpege...
and the Dutch boats Polar and...
Lub Senior. Historically, there have only been two Cornish boats using the same fishing gear, both worked form Newlyn in the 1980s...
Jim Nixon's very traditional wooden Scarlet Thread...
and Robert George's more modern Sputnik steel-hulled Dew-Genen-Ny...
neither of those vessels compare to the huge modern seiners that have become the norm in recent years, all capable of travelling and fishing in heavy weather and with much larger nets.
AIS picks out the tracks of the diamond pattern of each seine net 'set'.
Seine netting requires relatively clean ground to fish as the combination sweeps cover a huge area during the hauling process as they herd fish towards the net as it is drawn closer to the boat. There are plenty of WWII wrecks and patches of hard and stone-laden grounds in the Western Approaches that restrict seiners from operating in many areas.
These boats are already coming under scrutiny from many French inshore fishing organisations fearful that they will adversely affect the fishing viability of day and short trip French boats working close inshore, many of whom are between 10-15m and heavily restricted by weather and tides as all inshore skippers know only too well.