Penzance Atlantic rowing challenge talk at Mission

Later this year, two local rowers will set out to cross the Atlantic in their plywood boat. Phil Pring and Skippy Cummings have built the plywood boat while Phil has attended Truro & Penwith College to obtain his yachtmaster certificate.

You can here all about the adventure from the two men will givea talk at the Newlyn Fishermen's Mission on Tuesday at 7.30pm.

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Now the good news! - Stevenson's beamer breaks port record!

Hard men of Newlyn - Captain Billy Worth and crew are all smiles after setting a new port record for Newlyn, whic now stands at £50,300 - photo courtesy of Phil Lockley. As a sign of the times, not many years ago the crew on this boat would have probably numbered seven hands.....

As if to compensate for yesterday's gloom shrouding the port, the sun shone over the market this morning as W&S beamer St Georges under the command of skipper Billy Worth smashed the port record with a trip worth £50,300!

"It was need , not greed"

Black fish court case sentences - after many months of proceedings the biggest case of its kind in Cornwall was settled in part at Truro Crown Court today.

Read the press release: "The owners and skippers of six Newlyn fishing vessels who deliberately over-fished protected fish stocks for financial gain and an auctioneer who sold their fish were ordered to pay a total of £188,450 in fines and costs by a judge at Truro Crown Court on January 6th 2009."

Coverage in the media includes:
The Cornishman
Western Morning news
and an article which appears, interestingly enough, in the Environment section of the Guardian's website
and a response from fellow fishermen in the Devon port of Brixham - home to the country's largets beamer fleet.

and here is a reminder of a short video made for the Guardian Newspaper earlier this year highlighting the eniquity of the quoat system and the law.

Hake, which made up much of the fish identified as illegally retained, landed and sold as 'black fish', is the main target for gill netters during the summer months....
owners of the Ben Loyal (at the time) pensioners Don and Joan Turtle seen here leaving the court, "it was need, not greed.... our family boat directly supported 25 people"........
others involved were the owners, including 83 year old Doreen Hicks, of the Ben My Chree,......
the CKS, then owned and skippered by Drew Davies, "the fine doesn't match the crime"....
the CarolH and......
the Ajax owned by Barney and Cynthia Thomas, and their respective skippers were given the largest fines......
the owners of the Girl Patricia, sadly lost last summer, were also fined....
the Ben Loyal was skippered by John Turtle, son of Don and Joan Turtle.

Looking ahead

Gulls look for every scrap of fish they can after the Christmas break......
and in weather this cold ice on the fish seems almost superfluous....
with three boats in the fleet and a 16m steel vivier crabber currently under construction at a Cornish yard - the Rowse fleet looks forward to a prosperous New Year.....
for the unwary seeking to drive across the prom when coming in from the Penzance side be warned - Ross Bridge is now shut for repairs.....
gutting at sea, even singlehanded means never being alone!

Early contender for the Turner prize

With the weather preventing all but a handful of boats putting in time at sea before the New Year there were three cavernous articulated lorries waiting to be filled with not much on Friday....
if this was a pot of yoghurt you'd say it had gone past its sell by date.....
the beginnings of a new work alongside the George Johannes could be another masterpiece in the making from the modernist Newlyn School 'industrial context' art movement - title not known.

Out with the old.....

There's life on the Nova Spero for the last time this year....
two pots and a bit of Intuition go a long way......

always time for a lick of fresh paint on the Harvest Reaper.

The fleet kept in

Home-made gravlax in a home-made box - take advantage of good prices on salmon at this time of year and make your own - enough sea-salt & golden sugar to cover a side, a handful chopped dill and a dash of brandy - place a weight on top, cured after 5 days in the fridge and ready to slice very thinly accompanied by a mustard and dill sauce.....
this may look like a turkey but inside, mixed with several stuffings are a duck, guinea fowl and pheasant - all boned including the turkey apart from the wing and leg joints - makes carving a doddle!......
oysters make the ideal starter along with gravlax.....
back down the quay, and well protected from the chilly sou' easterly blast, the ends from the CarolH are let go for a trip that will be landed in the New Year....
evidence of the blast can be seen down an empty Strand in Newlyn.....
time for the Penlee Lifeboat to stretch her legs early on a Sunday morning.....
while the rest of the fleet rest against the quay.