Hervé Berville at Guilvinec: many questions, few answers

 

Hervé Berville meeting professionals in the fishing industry, at the Guilvinec auction. (The Telegram/Benjamin Billot) 

The Secretary of State for the Sea, Hervé Berville, came to meet fishing professionals on Friday, October 28, at Guilvinec. Fishermen and wholesalers expressed their concerns about the price of fuel and the fleet exit plan.

It is 5:30 a.m. when Hervé Berville gets out of his government sedan, to rush into the Guilvinec fish auction, Friday, October 28. The Secretary of State for the Sea, followed by a handful of local elected officials, is expected by fishing professionals who are facing a new crisis situation.

The price of fuel , which jumped with the war in Ukraine, is the first burning issue. The second is the Brexit-related fleet exit plan, which has reduced the fishing areas accessible to the French. Strategically renamed “individual support plan” by the government, it offers financial support for skippers who choose to send a ship for scrapping.

The visit to the auction is an opportunity for the Secretary of State to discuss with the employees.(The Telegram/Benjamin Billot) 

The visit to the auction is an opportunity for the Secretary of State to discuss with the employees. (The Telegram/Benjamin Billot) After visiting the auction to shake a few hands and discuss with the employees, the Secretary of State and the local elected officials sat around a table, with representatives of the sector, to take stock of the situation. On leaving, Christophe Collin, the boss of the Bigouden Armament , which has eleven offshore vessels, was not really happy: “In a fortnight, we won't have any more help. At the current price of diesel, it will no longer be possible to send ships out to sea”.

The state wants supermarkets to take over Hervé Berville, announced it previously, he wishes that the large distribution take over to finance the assistance with the fuel. An idea reminiscent of the "fish tax", set up between 2007 and 2011 , to help fishermen cope, already, with the increase in the price of diesel.

But the negotiations have not been successful for the moment: “It has not progressed as much as I wanted, gets annoyed Hervé Berville. I asked the government to put the legislative mechanism on the table, to ensure that the contribution of the players in the sector is up to the challenges. I say it once again, the sector must show solidarity. We need to have products from the French fishery on our stalls”.

Hervé Berville in the cutting workshop at the Guilvinec auction. Hervé Berville in the cutting workshop at the Guilvinec auction. (The Telegram/Benjamin Billot) While the end of the aid is approaching, the rest is still not settled: "We will have to make announcements in the coming days", specifies Hervé Berville, who wanted to remind the State of support for fishermen: “We would like there to be boats that go out, to supply the auctions”.

About thirty boats eligible for the fleet exit plan The fleet exit plan is another sensitive topic discussed during the visit. Eligibility conditions and financial compensation were published at the beginning of October. Christine Zamuner, mayor of Loctudy and vice-president of the community of communes of the Pays bigouden sud in charge of the economy, assures that, out of the fifty deep-sea vessels in the ports of Cornouaille, around thirty are eligible for the plan and could submit a file. A figure from an estimate by the local fisheries committee.

To read on the subject Brexit: the conditions of the fleet exit plan for dockside fishermen However, not all applications submitted will necessarily be accepted. Choices will be made at the level of the regional prefecture and the State undertook, during the meeting this Friday morning, to be vigilant so as not to “unbalance the territories”. Shipowners will have until November 18 to submit their applications.

Storm ground sea swell in Newlyn.

Moving boats made all the more difficult as a heavy ground swell flows past the harbour lighthouse. After a refit lasting six months the Trevessa IV is ready to take ice and fuel for her maiden voyage with a new 900hp cCaterpillar main engine.

Seafarers' Charity safety film for fishing vessels.

 

The Seafarers’ Charity has funded a new information film to help fishers meet new MCA inspection standards.

In partnership with the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations (NFFO) and supported by the Fishing Industry Safety Group (FISG) the film is aimed at helping all owners to prepare for their MCA inspection following changes to the regulations for fishing vessels under 15 metres.

The Seafarers’ Charity aims to make working at sea safer for all and ensuring fishers can work and return home safely from voyages without experiencing harm or an accident is a big part of that.

The Seafarers’ Charity has supported the production of the film which highlights the changes to the MCA’s inspections of under 15-metre vessels. It will help owners to get their vessels ready for survey as well as signposting resources to help prepare for a successful inspection.

Charles Blyth, Risk, Safety & Training Lead at the NFFO identified that many fishers were not aware of the changes to the MCA’s inspection regime and were therefore finding themselves tied up and prevented from fishing for longer periods because they did not meet the new requirements. Charles approached The Seafarers’ Charity with his idea for a short film to help share information on preparing for the new inspection requirements. As a previous Marine Surveyor with the MCA, Charles is well placed to help fishing vessel owners and the wider industry maintain high safety standards for their crews and their vessels.

'Recently, the under 15 metre fleet has seen some significant changes to the MCA inspection requirements including new stability tests and an out of water inspection, with some vessels struggling to meet all the requirements and therefore being tied up and unable to fish. We have made this information film to support all owners of under 15-metre vessels.' 

Charles Blyth, Risk, Safety & Training Lead at the NFFO

#FishyFriday in Newlyn.

 

Late Thursday evening saw the Ajax back in town after her refit - looking very spruce indeed!..

Rowse's latest crabber to join the fleet, Francesca...

a juvenile black backed, it will be interesting to see just how many birds there are in the harbour next year after bird-flu ravaged the local gull population...

first light at high water and the fleet is ablaze...

most of this morning's fish came from two beam trawl landings...

along with a good run of mackerel from the smallest boats from around the area that supply Newlyn with handline caught fish...

the top team on the case this morning...

it was fish from the Cornishman...

and St Georges that supplied the bulk of the auction with fish like these Dover sole...

megrim...

lemons...

ray...

cracking tub gurnard...

a pair of greater weavers...

beautiful turbot...

and bass...

anyone would think there wasn't a market out there for monk cheeks and livers, untouched monk heads all going for pot bait...

a fine Mediterranean octopus...

red mullet...

and john Dory topped off the quality end of things...

while this meaty conger...

and cod provide the flavour for some...

the doleful eyed ray...

there was also a good supply of prime brill...

and a few boxes of the chippy's favourite, whiting...

and this beauty, one of the largest plaice ever landed on the market for many years...

down the quay, the working deck of a crabber...

after a month long refit it's time to put all the hake nets back aboard the Ajax...

and after a six months major refit including a new Caterpillar engine skipper Mike is chomping at the bit to get away and get the first haul in...

but before then it's a case of slipping out from inside the Karen N...

under the watchful eye of Stevenson's fleet manger Abby...

it's a tight squeeze when air is in short supply...

but with assistant harbourmaster Roger supervising what can go wrong...

heading back in, the Karen N...

heading back out, the crabber Emma Louise...

time to take ice and fuel for her first post-refit trip....

a timelapse of the early morning action.

Recommendations for advancing the Joint Fisheries Statement

Associate, Dr Bryce Stewart (York) contributed to this list of 8 recommendations for improving the draft Joint Fisheries Statement, which has been developed by the four UK administrations. The final JFS is expected in November 2022.

In Cornwall (Brittany) , the octopus, a diversely appreciated invader

This article is a translation from the French newspaper, Le Télégramme - in France the region of Brittany translates as Cornwall - there are are strong ties between the two, especially with language - undoubtedly, in days gone by, Cornish and Breton fishermen could speak together in their own language and make themselves easily understood.

In the port of Loctudy, since January there have been 130 tonnes of octopus landed (186 tonnes in 2021). (File photo)

"For a year, octopus fishing, which proliferates on the Cornish coast and more particularly at the Glénan level, has intensified to the detriment of crustaceans or fish such as pollack, bass or sea bream. This is not without consequences for the local market. “The direct consequence is the radical change of activity. This does not really concern coastal fishing or langoustine fishing but the small boats that work in the coastal strip of 10-12 nautical miles. They started fishing for octopus permanently. It is extremely lucrative for them and we can understand them. The problem is that the species they were fishing until now, we no longer have them? regrets Emmanuel Garrec, fishmonger in Loctudy whose company Terre de Pêche delivers baskets of fish and shellfish to individuals. 

This concerns both pollack, sea bass, sea bream and flatfish, which are popular with local consumers. He cites the example of the sale at the auction of Concarneau, at the beginning of last week where there were 20 tonnes of goods including 16 tonnes of octopus. “It is revealing! he says. At the Loctudy auction, we have been unloaded since January at 130 tonnes. The total was 186 tonnes in 2021. br>
Here, people don't have the culture of eating octopus at all. We're not going to eat octopus salad three times a week. 

“Much less diversity for our customers”

“The problem is that we have nothing to offer. The few goods, apart from the octopus, are overpriced. We are out of step with other regions such as the Channel, Normandy or Boulogne, which have no octopus problem”, continues the fishmonger. “Here, people don't have the culture of eating octopus at all. It remains an occasional product. It is not a product that can be marketed. For one kilo of octopus tentacles to eat, you need 4 kg of octopus. When you pay it €8, you have to multiply it by four. People wouldn't understand the price,” says Emmanuel Garrec. “Some products are out of stock, such as cakes, spider crabs or lobsters, and this also has an impact on the price of fish. We wait. There is not much to do despite good fishing quotas,” 

An export market to Spain and Portugal

Carmen Desnos, in charge of exports within the fish trading company Furic tide in Guilvinec, seized this market and saw its sales explode. “Since September of last year, we have sold 650 tons of octopus. There is a deposit on the Glénans and, every morning, at the moment, we are at 13 or 14 tonnes landed under the Concarneau auction. There are a good two dozen boats to fish for pot and octopus pot. They learned everything by getting closer to what is done in Morocco or Spain. We, it's the same for purchases, packaging, we learned as we went along”, she describes “It goes mainly to Spain, Portugal. These are large factories that process the octopus to offer it vacuum-packed or frozen. The best way to tenderise it is freezing,” she adds. This proliferation of octopus on the Glénan site will again have an impact. “This year again, there will be no scallops. There is also a lack of fish because they do not put nets or lines,” admits Carmen Desnos."

Full story here.

Another Life: Will robots do better at counting the ‘prawns’?

 

Image courtesy of The Fish Site.

Michael Viney: Modern surveys of the small lobsters known as Dublin Bay prawns rely on underwater surveillance by video cameras

The Dublin Bay prawn is one of Europe’s key Atlantic and Mediterranean fisheries with landings of almost 60,000 tonnes, worth some €300 million a year

When the second World War finally ended, we could get to the sea again. Landmines were dug out carefully from the pebbles of Brighton’s beaches and the anti-tank spikes of girders hauled away. At our end of town, where the white cliffs began, the last barbed wire was unwound from access to the shore.

I was 12 years old and keen to fish for the prawns the family talked about. With hand nets baited with bits of crab, I waded the chalky pools below the cliffs. After years left in peace the prawns were abundant, some as long as your finger. Their spiky snouts could prick your finger, too.

All this to show that I know what prawns are and that Dublin Bay prawns are not in that family at all but skinny, brightly orange and rather elegant little lobsters, 18-20cm long. Linnaeus knew them first from Norway, hence Nephrops norvegicus or Norwegian lobster, nephrops being the kidney shape of their eyes.

The Dublin Bay label comes from their bycatch by fishermen who brought them ashore for private sale in the city. This was before the Irish Sea cod stocks collapsed and nephrops, with fewer fish predators, were left to become a mainstay of the nation’s trawler industry. The catch from muddy seabeds round the island is now worth some €60 million, or more than that from all whitefish combined.



The little lobster is, indeed, one of Europe’s key Atlantic and Mediterranean fisheries with landings of almost 60,000 tonnes, worth some €300 million a year. There are, inevitably, signs of decline, hastened by threats from climate change and plastic pollution.

The most urgent threat, from overfishing, has brought even greater need to know how many nephrops there are. Some 30 European scientists, including a couple from Ireland’s Marine Institute, have just produced a remarkable paper for the journal Frontiers in Marine Science that explores assessment of nephrops stocks, with new monitoring technologies. These include mobile seabed robots, telemetry, environmental DNA and artificial intelligence.

Learn more

Dublin Bay prawns live in individual burrows, some almost as complex as badger setts. In shallower depths at sunset they emerge to hunt shrimps and molluscs and seabed worms.

Since their holes in the muddy seabed are perfectly visible and nephrops will vigorously defend its home, traditional counting of holes had assumed that one burrow equalled one lobster. Occasional occupants perched at the entrance — “doorkeepers” as surveyors called them — encouraged that view.

Traditional estimates of nephrops numbers were often based on the catch in trawler hauls. But modern figures derive from hours of footage of the holes from underwater, sled-borne televisions, widely employed by the Maríne Institiute and other agencies.

These can suggest phenomenal populations. At the big nephrops ground on the Porcupine Bank, off Ireland’s southwest, a 2019 survey at 57 television sites estimated 1,010 million burrows across some 7,100 square kilometres. That was nearly 10 per cent fewer than in 2018, with trawl marks at many of the stations.

This left the problem of knowing how many burrows had hidden occupants. MI scientists Jennifer Doyle and Colm Lordan joined colleagues from Italy and New Zealand in a first mass observation of nephrops at times of maximum emergence. These can vary between day and night and important sunsets and dawns, according to the light at different depths of seabed.

Using MI research vessels, the team made 3,055 video transects at nephrops grounds around Ireland. These averaged only one visible animal per 10 tunnel systems.

But this may not fit all nephrops fisheries and the research team was expanded to 30 to study “new autonomous robotic technologies” for monitoring these valuable but vulnerable stocks.

Among many explorations of nephrops comings and goings, captured animals have been fitted with acoustic tags, hydrophones tracking their travels. The team propose fixed and mobile robots to count and track everything.

The review of possibilities is wide-ranging. But even far more accurate estimates of stocks seem unlikely to change the new and common practice of pair-trawling to scoop up the catch.

A less damaging way of fishing is with baited pots, a traditional mode still used in Strangford Lough and some lochs in western Scotland.

In 2007, when Northern Ireland trawlers were stopped from fishing out the last Irish Sea cod, a group of skippers, with EU encouragement, tried catching nephrops off the Co Down coast, setting 240 pots at a time.

They caught larger animals fetching higher restaurant prices, but the catches were poor. They decided that only the wider spread of 1,000 pots would be economic, and this could lead to too many rows between skippers as to whose pots were whose.

Full story courtesy of Michael Viney writing in the Irish Times.

Fishing Crews Today and Tomorrow - join in the debate live!

 

This APPG event will be hosted online via Zoom, and in-person at 1 Parliament Street, London. Wednesday, October 26, 2022 10:00 AM 11:30 AM

Labour availability for UK fishing crews is facing challenges, in the form of an ageing workforce, low recruitment, and sometimes limited potential for career progression. Efforts to address this problem include through improving education and exposure, building in opportunities for career development, and encouraging less traditional demographics. There are projects underway and opportunities to explore to build a more diverse and resilient workforce, and improve welfare, recruitment, and job security.

This event will discuss current and possible future workforce demographics in the fishing industry. We will hear from a range of speakers exploring recruitment, education, and transferable skills in the industry. Presentations will be followed by opportunities to ask questions and engage with speakers.

Please note that in-person places are very limited. Please only sign up for an in-person ticket if you can definitely attend.

Sign up to the event here.

In Lorient, the Drakkar, a new hunter for octopus hunting

The crew of the Drakkar, bought from an owner in Belle-Ile and still registered in the maritime district of Auray. On the left the boss Nicolas Coguen, Ilan Le Bouille, Maxime Valer and Corentin Didier,

The Drakkar is Nicolas Coguen's third boat. With his friend Tony Samséou, owner of the Capricious, he has just bought, in Lorient, this trap, to fish exclusively for octopus.

And three! After the Ikaria, the Ikaria 2, here is Le Drakkar, Nicolas Coguen's third boat. He has just bought it from a fisherman from Belle-Ile, with his friend Tony Samséou, owner of the Lorient gillnetter La Capricieuse. “We put in €200,000 each and I am the manager,” explains Nicolas Coguen. The potter will be armed for the same species as the Capricious: the octopus. An almost miraculous catch.

The guys are making a fortune right now, with octopus. They've been everywhere for a year. “Guys are making a fortune right now with octopus. They've been everywhere for a year. Last weekend, La Capricieuse landed 2.4 tonnes of octopus. Antony stopped doing conger eel in September 2021, to fish exclusively for octopus. Around Les Glénans, there are around fifteen boats, sometimes one on top of the other, from Concarneau or Lorient. At the moment, it is sold at auction between 6 and 8 € per kg. This winter, it was €10. And since they eat everything around, lobsters, shells, clams, obviously everyone goes there”.

At sea on Wednesday

Nicolas transforms the Drakkar into a potter. “Everything is removable. We can go back to the net, when we want. I have all the licenses, net, line, trap. I even have a small quota of sole. We'll see…” For the moment, from Wednesday, he will track down the cephalopod around Groix for daytime tides: 4am, return to quay at 4pm.

A new start for the Lorient boss, who could have baptized his new boat Resilience. Repeated health problems turned his life into hell. A dirty bacterium, a golden staphylococcus, contracted during an operation for phlebitis of the arm, at the Salpêtrière hospital in 2009. Months of suffering, therapeutic wandering, five successive operations, a cocktail of 18 antibiotics to swallow for three months, eventually come to terms with the episode. The Ikaria 2 will be its resurrection in 2011. The story could have ended there and life could have started again.

An unfailing mind

This was the case for a while. But in 2020, Nicolas had to undergo a new therapeutic wandering, for an inguinal hernia which, once again, made him suffer enormously. The diagnosis (late) made, an operation, benign, is scheduled for August 2020. “I decided to sell my boat at that time. I was in too much pain,” he recalls. And history repeats itself. Intense pain for weeks, misunderstood by the medical profession, before the pain centre of the Mutualist Clinic found the reason. And the remedy. A nerve was severed during the operation. A long and painful treatment will eventually eradicate the pain. “When I saw that I was getting better, I decided to go back to sea and buy the Drakkar with Antony”.

Nicolas tells all this while having fun. "I have a foolproof mind, he argues in front of the round eyes of his interlocutor, in front of this relentlessness to find the sea. I understood that feeling sorry for my fate would not make me move forward".

MCA propose a British Seamen's card for British fishermen.

 A consultation is underway on plans by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) to extend the use of the British Seaman’s Card (BSC) to fishermen.

The BSC proves the holder is a seafarer, meaning they can have shore leave, and access medical care ashore. It also assists with transit. Under current UK regulations, fishers are not eligible for BSCs.

The MCA says the importance of the card became more apparent during the Covid-19 pandemic, when some countries had restrictions that were not applicable to key workers, but UK fishermen found themselves unable to prove their key worker status.

The BSC is issued in conformity with ILO Convention No. 108 on seaman’s identity documents. The MCA is working towards implementation of ILO Convention No. 185, which provides for an updated and improved seafarer identity document, but that is a longer and more complex project requiring a new digital system and Home Office policy agreement.

Extending BSC eligibility is an interim measure to solve the immediate problem.

Katy Ware, director of UK Maritime Services, said: “We have said all along that seafarers are key workers, and this interim measure to help fishers who need this card and all its benefits is the right thing to do.”

The consultation can be accessed here and responses can be made until 28 November.

We are consulting on the proposal to amend the merchant shipping (seamen’s documents) regulations 1987 so that work on a fishing vessel makes the applicant eligible for issue of a British Seamen’s Card. The purpose of this measure is to secure the right of fishers, as bona fide seafarers, to free transit of third countries to join and leave ships and for the shore leave required for their well-being.

The British Seamen’s Card is widely accepted internationally as a seafarer identity document.

The amended regulations would apply to eligible British fishermen.

Please see the attached documents:

• consultation document 
• consultation de minimis assessment (DMA) 
• response form 

Responses are welcomed from 10 October 2022 until 28 November 2022 and emailed to workinfishing.convention@mcga.gov.uk

So you want to be an apprentice fisherman?

Great news for the industry at a time when it is getting some excellent exposure n TV in the form of Trawlermen: Hunting the Catch!

What strikes me though is this, looking at the job description and what is expected of a fisherman - how on earth was and is it classed as unskilled job?!! 

Read on!

 

This occupation is found in individually owned boats with small numbers of crew, up to company owned boats with large crews. They may operate inshore and offshore and use a range of catching methods. They use mobile and static gear, such as trawling, netting, potting and hand lining. Fishers work as part of a team. They may be at sea from a few hours at a time, up to a week. The type of boat, fishery and fishing method and gear being used will affect this.

Details of standard Occupation summary

Fishing is highly regulated and governed by complex fisheries management.

The broad purpose of the occupation is to sustainably harvest fish and shellfish.

• Fishing methods range from static gears such as shellfish pots through to modern, selective, high-tech trawl equipment. 
• Fishermen often work as part of a team, both onshore and at sea. 
• They are involved in the entire end-to-end process, through to transporting the catch to market to enable it to be sold. 
• They set up the fishing gear and fit it to a boat and watch-keep on a navigational passage to and from fishing grounds. 
• They deploy and retrieve gear. 
• They may use onboard hydraulics and powered machinery. 
• They catch, process, store and land the fish (or shellfish). 
• Fishermen also help look after the sea. 
• They collect data for policy makers. 
• This data informs plans for fishing, catch limits and quotas to ensure stocks remain sustainable.
• Fishermen adapt and improve processes to improve sustainability. 
• They adapt to seasonal changes and vary their approach to catch different types of fish. 
• They also adapt their approach in response to the sea, tides, and weather conditions.
• Fishermen are likely to be involved in maintaining the boat.

They can progress to roles such as: experienced deckhand mate, skipper of the boat, onboard marine engineer, onboard chef/ fisherman on larger boats, fisheries science/ observer, gear technologist, offshore survey and energy worker. There are also opportunities to become self-employed and a boat owner. This is a rewarding occupation. It involves working outdoors and can be physically demanding.

In their daily work, an employee in this occupation interacts with the skipper, boat owners and crew members and fisheries observers. They may include: Enforcement officers, Port and authorities, Scientists and Safety advisors. Onshore, they may have contact with logistics companies, harbour staff and fish market employees.

An employee in this occupation will be responsible for complying with maritime and safety Regulations. They must use personal protective equipment and check that it has been maintained. They are likely to report to a skipper or boat owner. They need to follow instructions and react quickly and positively to feedback. They will work as part of a team, logging details of the catch and reporting them to the skipper or boat owner. This may include the species caught along with estimates of size and weight. This will enable the skipper and boat to comply with regulations and submit live catch data. They will have to solve problems on a daily basis, taking into account changing weather and sea conditions. They will suggest improvements to working practices to increase efficiency, improve safety and ensure sustainability. Extra requirements may be to help new crew members or carry out navigation duties. Any food preparation should be carried out considering basic food hygiene and the cleanliness of the boat should be maintained at all times.

Entry requirements 

Employers will set their own entry requirements depending on boat size, fishery, fishing method and operation. Typically, employers may require the individual to have the correct attitude and ability to take on the typical practical and solve problems onboard a boat. They are likely to seek individuals that have a willingness to work onboard a boat, sometimes in confined spaces for extended periods of time. Individuals are likely to have a sense of adventure and keenness for the outdoors. The employer may require the apprentice to be flexible and able to work a range of shifts across different days and times of the week.

Visit the Institute for Apprenticeships website for a more detailed overview of what will be covered by the apprenticeship here.

In the meantime you can read the full assessment plan below:

Devon and Severn 6 years of wrongful pain and grief finally ended.

After a full day hearing on 3-4 October 2022, HHJ Linford sitting at Plymouth Crown Court made a court order which stayed all criminal proceedings brought by the Devon and Severn Inshore Fishing Conservation Authority (“D&S IFCA”) against 2 innocent men, the skipper (“MM”) and the owner (“Jack Baker”) of a Fishing Vessel “Stella Maris”. 

The effect of the stay is to acquit the men of all 16 charges each, expunge the £22000 each fines and costs orders of Plymouth Magistrates of November 2018 and to wipe the record clean in respect of the wrongful charges of fishing in a Marine Protected Area (MPA) located just outside Plymouth in Bigbury Bay in 2016.

This case involved uncorroborated or exclusively VMS evidence. VMS is the system by which a fishing boat automatically informs the D&S IFCA of its position, heading and speed.

This case mirrors the acquittal in July 2018 by a jury in Gloucester Crown Court of two other fishermen, Derek Meredith and David Bickerstaff, again wrongfully charged by D&S IFCA for fishing offences alleged to have occurred in 2016. That case was described by the D&S IFCA in 2018 as ‘The Test Case” for prosecuting cases on uncorroborated evidence of VMS.

The impact of these cases is to establish a worrying pattern of prosecution by D&S IFCA based on a false premise – that they only require the print outs of VMS before they prosecute and that they do not need eyewitness corroborating evidence of fishing in an MPA.

Jack Baker said: “This is a great relief for me, the skipper and our loved ones. We have all been made unwell physically and mentally by this. I had 2 suspected heart attacks with the stress. We were treated as guilty before we ever interviewed and all on the say so of their chief officer who simply “thought” we were fishing. Once we were charged, we had to then prove our innocence, which in their blinded eyes, we could never do. But I knew this whole thing was nonsense from start to finish, that the Stella Maris had never illegally fished with me as owner and that it was simply unfair to us. I had been one of the first to volunteer to have VMS before it was made compulsory. I believe in sustainable fishing stocks. 

Me and the skipper had greater experience of fishing in these waters than any one in or working with IFCA. We had together been fishing for a combined period of 50 years. Neither of us had any fishing problems let alone fishing convictions before this started. They ignored all that and treated us like criminals before we had even had a chance to speak. They never once told us of any problems but let the VMS unit of our Stella Maris send them information for a whole 4 months after they started the investigation. They carried on with the Magistrates trial even though they knew the skipper had a serious mental health problem and could not attend. 

They have blocked this case from proceeding for a year in the Magistrates claiming that they wanted to see what happened in the Gloucester Test case. They lost that on similar evidence to us and yet they ignored the result. They claimed in our case that they needed their own psychiatrist as they did not accept the word of the psychiatrist who saw the skipper, that he was too unfit to stand a trial but they failed to obey a Crown Court order to get their report done and wasted another year in producing an inadequate report the judge threw out. This was botched from the outset and when they realised they had done wrong they tried to stymie the Court from ever hearing the trial. They threw 4 new experts at the case which meant it would be a 6 day trial hoping we would abandon our case due to lack of money but the judge saw through that as that meant we would never get a court date. This has been 6 years of hell”.

Sarah Ready of NUTFA, who helped get a barrister to represent the pair in the Crown Court appeal said: “Justice has at last been done. The prosecution would usually begin with an eyewitness to actual fishing in an MPA. They never had one here and knew it before interviewing the appellants. VMS might be used to support a vessel entering and remaining and leaving an MPS but it could never be evidence to stand alone or to be corroborated unless there was an eyewitness. There never was one in this case. They have been shown now to have put the cart before the horse on this process and misunderstood completely what is and isn’t capable of being corroboration. 

Having an opinion isn’t corroboration to VMS. Having a log book of leaving port and returning to port cannot be corroboration to VMS. Having the record of the amount of total fish caught cannot be corroboration to VMS. Having the catch record of the type of fish caught would not be corroboration to VMS. The main MPA is within 1 kilometre of the Stoke Bay cliffs from where you can get a bird’s eye view. The D&S IFCA fast patrol vessels were logged for a whole month of alleged MPA fishing in the close vicinity but never went to see if there was any fishing going on. There were many hundreds of crabbing and lobster pots covering the sea bed of the MPA throughout the whole of the 4 months of alleged fishing by demersal trawling of the MPA and yet none of those were lifted by the Stella Maris or complained about. It is the lack of any of this type of direct evidence of actually fishing in an MPA which speaks volumes about the incompetent handling of this prosecution by a rogue elephant of an IFCA.”

She continued: “It is perfectly clear from Defra and the MMO and all other IFCAs that VMS evidence which cannot show to a criminal standard a proposition such as “fishing in an MPA” will be adequate to found a prosecution and it should not be sufficient alone for a properly conducted investigation. There has to be some direct evidence of fishing in the MPA at the times alleged.

She continued: “The judge actually gave the D&S IFCA six compelling reasons why he stopped this case from proceeding and why he made a defendant’s costs order for both the Magistrates Court and the Crown Court for both appellants.

Those 6 reasons were:

The skipper was so mentally unfit that he was unfit to plead and unfit to stand trial. The D&SIFCA offer no apology for choosing to continue to prosecute the skipper despite being in possession of evidence of this mental illness and on notice of such a problem from 2018.

The owner Mr. Baker, who was never on board the Stella Maris in the 4 months of the 2016 allegations, could not receive a fair trial when the skipper was too unfit to give evidence at any trial.

The offences were not ones of strict liability and so the owner Mr. Baker could not be tried fairly in the absence of the skipper when the prosecution had never alleged the owner had any knowledge of the movements of the Stella Maris until he was interviewed in 2017.

The case could not proceed to trial because it would not be heard in 2023 or even 2024. It was now so large, costly and complex a case on appeal with the prosecution introducing an additional 4 experts in the Crown Court (there had been 1 expert in the Magistrates and a half day hearing), that it would be at least a 6 day trial, and offend against the Rules to deal with cases expeditiously and efficiently.

The judge concluded that this was a case which mirrored that of the Gloucester Crown Court case and was based on VMS evidence which could never lead to a criminal conviction and would fail the test of the prosecution establishing a “case to answer”.

The judge said the public interest was to stay the case and not proceed to a 6 day trial when the outcome for both appellants would be no more than an absolute discharge. For the skipper, because there was no need for a medical order and for the owner because he was always less culpable than the skipper on the prosecution case.

John Nelligan RIP - the death of a fisherman from a different era.

Looking back to the 70s and 80s, though it might not have seemed like it at the time, South West ports like Newlyn were buzzing with fishermen, boats and fish.

Fishermen were learning that action through unity (though it has to be said, the incumbent government (and current) failed them on issues like an exclusive 12 mile limit) was needed to help protect the fleet, in particular the huge inshore handline fleet...

from winter visitors; displaced Grimsby and Hull distant-water stern trawlers...

and an all-powerful Scottish purse seine fleet chasing the mammoth mackerel shoals...

then, a group of visionary fishermen led by George Lawry and his wife Daphne set up the CFPO (Cornish Fish Producers Organisation) to protect and fight for a better fishing future - in it's first big fight, the CFPO was instrumental in bringing pressure to bear and the introduction of the protective 'mackerel box' that exists to this day...

but the times they were a'changing, the bulk of the bigger boats that had been longlining for decades...

changed over to multi- then mono-netting for white fish, and soon to include hake...

the port record, long held by the most powerful boats in the port, was smashed by the 37ft tosher, Boy Gary...

netting for dogs...

as the fleet diversified and the tiers grew to fifteen or more boats deep...

Newlyn harbour was dredged and the 'new quay' built to reduce the size of tiers and allow landing at all states of the tide...

the ageing fleet of wooden sidewinders was supplemented by...

rebuilt and an equally ageing fleet of ex-MFV wooden beam trawlers...

 

along with a growing number of steel ex-Dutch beam trawlers that were to dominate landings well into the 2000s...

meanwhile, the French boats, who sheltered in numbers in Newlyn...

 only in the most severe weather...

replaced their entire fleet in a matter of years with fully shelterdecked steel stern trawlers...

apart from netting boats diversified from traditional fisheries and methods and tried pair trawling, prawn trawling, wreck netting, tangle netting and more, there seemed plenty of fish to feed a growing number of boats all of which needed crewing...

there was even a Fishermen's Mission in Newlyn staffed to provide for the welfare and an amenity for the dozens of men living aboard visiting vessels...

at that time, the number of skipper-owners increased, one such venture saw the ex-Lorient Keriolet bought by Andrew 'Traz' Treloar after realising the crawfish fishery he had prosecuted was finished he saw a future... 

along with many other similar skippers in trawling - this band of brothers became known as the 'clan'.

Despite the skills needed, there were plenty of willing men (and a few women) keen to take on the fishing way of life which promised something way more attractive than a mundane shore job with bigger financial rewards to boot - even though that meant that, as share-fishermen, there was no job security or guarantee of a berth, wage, equal or sick pay, or any other of the niceties that trade unions had fought so hard for as a matter of right in regular shore employment - fishermen had but three 'rights', the right to be fed at sea, the right to be re-patriated from a port other than their own and, most crucially, the right to see the settling sheet (a record of all the fish landed from the trip and how much it made at auction) - though there were some boats for whom even that was a problem - but that did't stop the flow of new recruits...

and, so it was that guys like John Nelligan found themselves learning fast: to mend, to splice, to take a watch and to handle fish - here he's seen behind s good haul of prawns gutting a hake aboard the Keriolet SS114, trawling on the Smalls...

and here, with his summer headgear, helping skipper Traz make fast a full cod end with ...

a scene wonderfully re-created in charcoal by local artist Nick Henshaw. 

John's time aboard the Keriolet and other fishing boats about that time epitomised the freedoms and fortunes of the era. It's hard to imagine today, but back then there were no official log books, other than that kept by some skippers, no VMS, rarely any crew insurance, fishing operations and navigation was by rented Decca Mk21 and 350T plotter accurate to within a distance that varied by time of day, season and weather! Many trawlers still had belt driven winches with all the inherent grief of repairing the argumentative belt when it broke - which it did, often. 

Most boats under 60ft lacked even basic toilet facilities, a bucket - not the easiest thing to perch on in any weather - sufficed, being on watch for hours without an auto pilot meant hand steering, which took a lot of concentration in a heavy following sea if you didn't ant to piss off those down below trying to sleep and all fresh produce was kept on ice down below in the fishroom - making getting fresh milk while steaming in poor weather something of a challenge. Despite all this, from punts to the largest beam trawlers, boats were fully crewed - Grimmy Mike's was the only inshore trawler to work singlehanded through choice - Stevenson's and other owners controlled the steady flow of fishermen from those ports in decline and incomers like Nelligan, as he was known - all were willing to crew to keep the growing fleet at sea. The romance of the sea and fishing still drew them in, in droves. 

Ben My Chree hauling when pair trawling with the Keriolet

These incomers didn't consider themselves special in themselves. Simply, those that stuck at it were just prepared to put up with a huge amount of discomfort and shit for something different, the something different that fishing is. Back then, wooden boats were notorious for their leaking decks - some bunks were referred to as being 'en suite' to a new recruit - ie you got a shower when the weather was bad as the deck were constantly awash on a long steam home in a gale. Call it a dream, a calling or whatever, whatever 'it' was it made for different outlook and a special time - the 'best of times' according to retired skipper Steve Hicks recently at the passing of yet another fellow fishermen called to the big wheelhouse in the sky.

Today, many things are different. Pay goes straight to a bank account, crews are insured, many are paid during periods of layup, there are paid net setters and pot riggers ashore to keep the boats in gear. Crew can get paid time off. The boats too are way better today: much newer, better designed, safer, drier, fitted with every modern comfort - probably more so than the homes of many crew - especially the many foreign hands.  

Satellite navigation pinpoints not only the position of the boat but also the position of every hitch, obstacle and wreck on the seabed to within a few metres. AIS tracks every ship around showing who they are, how big they are and exactly the direction that each is headed which means that in thick fog or reduced visibility you never have to call everyone out of their bunks in a panic because the radar which was your only mens of 'seeing' where other vessels were was always only ever relative to yourself. ILO regulations have seen to it that the welfare and safety of skipper and crews are now enshrined in legislation in a way that the Nelligans of this world would not recognise - not that he would have argued with the improvements!

A hand on Grace

It would be good to think that what hasn't changed today is that same sense of not-knowing adventure that drew John and thousands of others to become fishermen, even if only for a short period of their lives. Like many his affinity with the sea (almost as strong as his affinity for women - which was legendary as attested to by his wife Maddie's piece in the Cornishman) never left him and in 2003 he bought and restored the lugger Britannia which he re-named, Grace after his mother. For many years Grace graced Penzance wet dock and many Breton ports and festivals, optimally with largely female crews - a floating testament to his sense of fun and endearing Irish love of the 'craic'. 

Two memories of sailing with the never-dull Nelligan come to mind. In heavy weather when he was down the fishroom putting fish away the ever-rolling and unpredictable Keriolet (notorious for rolling even in the confines of the harbour) would test his patience to the extreme. 

Profanities would emanate out of the fishroom hatch and he could be heard to engage in a totally one-sided conversation with an apparent and unknown crew member - constantly hurling abuse at him amidst the crash of boxes as he slid or fell heavily on the icy fishroom floor - all we knew was this mystery crewman, who only ever appeared when Nelligan was down below, was called, Eejit! He was a smoker, but never at sea, only when in the pub socialising!

RIP John, who has now gone to join those others who once chose to go to sea to fish for a part of their lives.

Here's an extract and final few words from his wife Maddie.

"And there's the folk from The Blue Anchor in Helston, and of course numerous ex-girlfriends - too many to mention - a first wife, friends from the past in St Ives and from years fishing out of Newlyn and the flower business, and those he met whilst keeping horses. So many friends and lives gently touched by my darling John, my love and my best friend. Raise a glass to him when you get a chance, and we will throw a party to celebrate his life on April 28, 2023, in Galicia. Please get in touch with John's wife Maddie Nelligan if you want to come.