May the fifth first #FishyFriday be with you.

The North quay, now devoid of the presence of the two classic wooden trawlers looks somewhat bare this morning...

as only a handful of boats put fish ashore for this morning's market...

with just the one big landing of trawl fish from the beam trawler, St Georges...

with plenty of monk and megrim soles...

the visiting inshore trawler, Nicola Anne looks to have purloined a few of Mr Nowell's JDs...

and the Ajax banged a few boxes of excellent haddock ashore...

1+1 = 2 +4s...

pristine line-caught pollack...

and a sure sign there's fish from a Scottish boat, in this case the prawn trawler, Orion BF432 built in 2008...

what Newlyn fishworkers pull with...

all hail the hake, latest landing form the Ajax - the subject of a major article in this week's Fishing News covering the impact that MSC Certification has had on the twelve Westcountry netters that are a part of the scheme...

'tis a tad breezy with a fresh easterly breeze blowing through the harbour this morning...

two bream or not two bream...

at £5 a kilo on the market yesterday, some hardy handline boys will be braving the choppy waters of Mount's Bay hunting for more today - working in an easterly breeze is always uncomfortable, short, sharp, steep seas make boats roll much more than big, heavy Atlantic swells that normally fetch up on Cornish coasts...

> 6 kilo, the biggest of the Ajax's hake...

an overnight pit stop for another windfarm support cat...

the resplendent prawn trawler Orion...

the Fishermen's Mission flag flies stiffly in the breeze...

just in case you hadn't spotted the deck was missing...

daughter and mother together at last...

the business end of the Orion...

and some of her navigation lights - green over white, trawling at night, red over white, fishing at night (by any method other than trawling), red over red is not under command which does not mean the skipper is tired and has turned in as the boy aboard the boat once said but that the vessel is temporarily unable to navigate or comply with the collision regulations for fishing vessels through some kind of impediment - most especially used by a trawler when the trawl has come fast (caught) on a wreck or some kind of underwater obstruction and the vessel is therefore unable to move...

daybreak and probably the only sunshine of the day...

the Trinity House flagship, Galatea looks as though as she has decided to take shelter off Newlyn ...

AIS track courtesy of VesselTracker's new Cockpit Live view which provides a line chart of a vessel's speed over the ground.

after a long steam out of the channel from Ilfracombe

Fishing Industry Survey - please participate to help create a better future in changing times.

Plymouth City Council is conducting a survey into the challenges currently faced by the fishing industry in Plymouth, and exploring ways in which it can support the industry going forward.

Your responses are essential in helping us to effectively support local fishermen and the wider industry.  There are no right or wrong answers – we are just asking for your honest opinions. 

We are asking for contact details to ensure that the survey is seen as valid and trustworthy, but please be assured that all information given will be treated confidentially and be made totally anonymous if used in future reports.  Survey responses will be collated together, but individual responses will not be shared at all.   

Please help PTA and Plymouth City Council help you - take this important survey and tell your friends and work colleagues.

Take the survey here: Fishing Industry Survey - it will only take 5 minutes of your time but will help us a great deal!

If you have any questions about the survey, please don't hesitate to contact me via email: thomas.clenaghan@plymouth.gov.uk

Dutch beam trawler Landing Obligation live discard trials.

A Dutch beam trawler is currently carrying out sea trials to help tackle the waste of even more perfectly good fish being dumped by holding the catch, live, in sea water and returning the undersized fish back to the sea in the hope that a large percentage will survive the experience.  As the boat fishes in relatively shallow water of the North Sea (<20m in the southern parts) the mortality rate of the fish should be significantly lower than if the beam trawlers working in the south west were to do the same where the average depth of water often exceeds >100m.

It is still hard to believe that in 2017, with huge numbers of the world's population malnourished, we allow scientific thinking and crude legislation to mange one of the planet's greatest resources - there must be a better way.


The following is a Google translation of the post:

The fishing boat, UK 33 Jan De Boer does survival research this week. This is the result after a 'tow' of no less than two hours. Or the fish in the coming days and weeks to survive, to be clear in a laboratory environment.
The research is of great importance for the facilitation of the #LandingObligation. At high survival can undersized fish of specific types of possible be exempted from " everything dead land,' as the unnatural EU aanlandwet (Landing Obligation) now requires.

One fisherman commented:
Fishermen like the breath...
And in the meantime, stay holy convinced of an old visserswijsheid: if non-marktwaardige fish and babyvis directly back into the sea, is always going to be a good percentage of life. Fish who can't make it, is food for other marine life.

Excellent news; the last wooden sidewinder trawler in Newlyn is no more.

The Excellent as she was back in 1992 when she was fully restored and sent to attend the 1992 Brest & Dournenez Working Boat Festival ...

photo courtesy of @Phil Lockley

with one or two notable characters on board...

photo courtesy of @Phil Lockley

under L-R, skipper Mervyn Mountjoy, WS&S chief shore engineer John Swann (who slipped from the top of the wheelhouse while they were filming!), Sapphire skipper Mike Corin, fish merchant Pete Tonkin, shipwright, Roger Treneer and last, but not least, the irrepressible Roger Nowell - who spent most of the Brest festival hiding aboard the Excellent away from the TV crew that were trying to film him for the second series of The Skipper, What Happened Next?..

she was one of the Stevenson's fleet of wooden sidewinders that included the Anthony PZ33

Jacqueline PZ192, Trewarveneth PZ196, Marie Claire, Elisabeth Anne Webster, and the Elisabeth Caroline... 

a few years later both the Trewarveneth...

and the Excellent were recommissioned as a hake netters, the Excellent under command of skipper 'Mad' Joe Andrews...

with the North Quay closed off to all-comers the harbour provided a water taxi for workers and fishermen to access the boats...

with the oil spillage boom in place as a precaution the crusher and crane set to work on destroying the what is left of the South West's oldest wooden sidewinder trawler...

at high water the vulture-like crusher, was able to pick away at the ribs of the hull...

as if to herald her impending destruction, she appears to make a final, last-gasp act of defiance and set off a smoke flare on board...

the remains of her rare, eight ton, enameled Lister Blackstone now clearly visible as the tide dropped...

by he time low water came to pass there was precious little left of a boat that was requisitioned by the Admiralty for the duration of the Second World War for clandestine operations in the North Sea...

by now, just a pile of shattered frames, planks and ballast remains along with the gearbox...

shaft and propeller...

with the grab able to burrow easily into the bowels of the hull...

and discharge the remnants into the waiting trailer...

watched over by the destruction team's H&S crew.

In her day, the Excellent was possibly the oldest wooden sidewinder still to be fishing.

May Day aftermath

The scrapping gear is all set to break up the wooden fishing boat Excellent, 81 years after she was built...

with a huge inflatable floating boom in place to catch any oil that might be spilt...

arrivals over the weekend included two more prawn boats, though they only put their white fish ashore - the prawns are either shipped directly back for processing to Scotland or if frozen off to Spain...

there was plenty of fish from a couple of big trips form the beamers that landed...

including the a large number of in-season megrim soles...

and a few boxes of John Dory...

half a dozen cuttles as opposed to six tons of cuttles well and truly indicate the end of their season...

the biggest of the turbot this morning were form the Algrie...

it seems as though there are more witches this year on the grounds than normal...

big whole monk...

and a handful of Dorys...

and hake...

along with a few megrims from the Vision III...

as the netter, Ygraine sails in a flat calm...

surely the Galilee is nearing completion...

as another boat is given a severe refit...

judging by the amount of steel plate on the quayside waiting to be fitted...

there are three main components to the footrope of a bottom trawl, the wire fishing line that passes through the centre of the rubber discs and bobbins that makes up the actual footrope, next comes the fishing line made of combination which is connected to the footrope and then the bolsh line on which the meshes of the trawl are set...

good to see Billy basking in the morning sun...

modern, purpose built scallopers have plenty of working deck space...

showing the full extent of the preventative oil spillage boom...

the AA's  boxes are ready for her arrival at the iceworks berth...

a reminder of the work in progress...

and one of the tolls being used to break up the old boat - with its extremely rare enamelled Kelvin main engine...

the tool for the job, modelled it would seem on a cross between the cutting and crushing claw of a lobster...

and ready to go...

local fans have been enjoying the BT Experience for so many years now that some must be taking their grandchildren along to see them by now!