Seafood Champion finalist!

Seafood Champion finalist - Congratulations to David Stevens skipper of the Newlyn based twin-rig trawler Crystal Sea II

Crystal Sea II - twin rig stern trawler from Newlyn

When your family business is a 158 tonne 21m trawler its pays to stay on top of things and keep one step ahead of the game. Skipper David Stevens has learned to do more than just be successful fisherman - in a bid to counteract reduced quotas, often based on out of data or even inaccurate data he's been taking the fight to the MMO and others by being at the forefront of technological measures that monitor or modify what he catches and puts ashore for auction and it seems his efforts have now been recognised.

Skipper David was also keen to point out that this work was very much a team effort - without a crew willing to make changes to the way they work - sometimes at a cost - it would not have been possible.

"I would really like to emphasise that the work we were nominated for is very much a team effort of Crystal Sea fishing. Our vessel is the Crystal Sea SS 118 and my brother and I skipper the boat with a crew of four others. The work we undertake is very much a team effort, from the gear innovations to working of the catch and data gathering. The work we do is continuous we are constantly striving to improve our fishing gear and adapt to whatever our fishery presents ourselves with."

Where the money comes from that pays the wages - the cod end.

He has now become one of the 2016 Seafood Champion Awards finalists.

For some #FishyFriday means a market full of fish - like Newlyn!

A few shots from Thursday evening to begin with...

Extra paint protection needed for the sides of the beam trawler where the chain mat and beam constantly chafe the steel...

the sardine boats now have place for their insulated tubs...

best friends, Charlie & Billy...

Friday morning's market is full of fish...

spot which one...

is a well-known card game...

Cefas Sam is busy this morning, recording...

removing...

measuring...

why is it most fish have white bellies?...

tub gurnards ought to be able to fly...

like witches can...

there's a good shot of ray up for auction again...

while at the western end of the market there's two big trips...

 of hake and white fish from the Ajax...

and Charisma...

full-on 100% cloud cover this morning.

"CFP: The External Dimension as a Driver for Change"

"CFP: The External Dimension as a Driver for Change" is a two-day conference, to be held by the Long Distance Advisory Council (LDAC) in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain, on the 16th and 17th September.

With a range of panel sessions, debates and plenary discussion, the event will function as a high-level workshop examining the role of the External Dimension of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) as a driver for sustainability and good governance outside EU waters, with a special focus on Africa. Tune in for selected panel debates and question and answer sessions.

The event will be livecasted here:

Find out more: www.ldac.eu

Follow on twitter: @ldac_eu / #CFPED #PPC

2016 World Seafood Congress at Grimsby

Tweets about #WSC2015

There's a live summary of the Congress events here:

Daybreak on Wednesday in Newlyn, Cornwall's largest and the UK's third largest fishing port.

Just as the sun was rising I heard.....

more rays, this time glistening white ones for the New Harmony who fishes form Cadgwith Cove and supplies Newlyn with some of the best fish to go up for auction every week...

a favourite in any good restaurant...

along with these guys of course...

and there's always a place for these spotted fishy heroes...

two reds go head-to-head...

the Filly had a good shot of ray...

while up the other end of the market hake from the Ajax was flying off the auction floor..

as did these pristine line caught {Pollack for the Sea Spray...

eyes down...

unusual to see one of the mini-scallopers bend a derrick...

all set for another day aboard the Girl Pamela, maybe JT will find the time to shoot some more informative videos from the deck of the boat......

where there's wind there's a cat it seems...

the AA...

crabs coming ashore from the Emma...

as the Britannia V makes her way to the ice berth...

the day looks promising despite the sou' easterly breeze.

Jack Nowell on penmanship.

The instructions sound like something out of a spaghetti western. “Walk down the main street and you’ll find me.” And, sure enough, there is English rugby’s most far-flung international player, standing in the narrow lane, clutching a pint-sized French bulldog named Boo. With the golden Cornish sunshine lending an extra twinkle to Newlyn’s sparkling harbour and the sea beyond, Twickenham seems a thousand miles away.

This sense of separation comes at a price. When the Nowell family wanted to watch their son Jack win his second cap, against Scotland at Murrayfield, the round trip involved spending 20 hours in the car. It takes two hours to reach Exeter, his home during the rugby season, and five hours to drive to England’s training base in Bagshot.

The family trawler, Louisa N, named after Jack's Mum

As he leads the way uphill to the family house, within sight of his father Michael’s trawler on the quayside below, the long-haul existence of the Nowell clan becomes ever more apparent. “My parents are so used to the road up to Exeter they could almost do it in their sleep. It used to be the furthest point we’d go when we were minis. Now it’s a home game.”

It reinforces just how much time and effort is required for any Cornish kid to play elite professional sport, although the proposed new Stadium for Cornwall in Truro should help.

England have capped some Kernow kings down the years but most have been forwards: Stack Stevens, Phil Vickery, Graham Dawe, Trevor Woodman. The great Richard Sharp first played for England while at Oxford University. “I know people have dreams but it never happens to someone from down here,” continues Nowell, having led his visitors past the “Gone Fishing” sign on the gate and settled down on the terrace with Boo. “There was no way you’d ever think you’d be here in Penzance one day and the next at Twickenham playing for England. There was no way that was going to happen to me.”

And yet it has. While his friends have taken jobs as lifeguards or relocated to the Scilly Isles – far handier than London – to start businesses, Nowell is very much the local hero. The wave of pride felt in Newlyn if he plays any kind of role will outstrip even the extraordinary reaction to his England debut last year. “Mum said all the chalkboards outside the pubs simply read: ‘England v France. Jack Nowell. Make sure you’re here.’ My nan went out to walk the dogs and said there were floods and floods of people.”

Many were relations. “We worked out the other day we’ve got 28 cousins on my dad’s side. He’s one of four and they’ve all had four kids each. My aunties, uncles and cousins didn’t get the chance to come out to Paris so they all made sure they were there. They said watching it was one of their best-ever experiences.”

Such is the interest they have even commissioned commemorative World Cup banknotes in Exeter with the 22-year-old Nowell’s image on the front.

It illustrates one of life’s enduring truths: the smaller or more remote the community, the more intense the emotion when one of their own makes it big. Nowell is effectively representing not just Newlyn but its bigger neighbour Penzance, the whole of Cornwall and Devon and every deep-sea fisherman in the country.

On our way down to meet Nowell Sr on the quayside and discuss the local fishing industry (on the rise), we even spot a side street called Jack Lane. It turns out his grandmother lives there. “It’s always been called that … I’ve got a banknote but I haven’t got a lane named after me.”

Nowell, though, never really fancied going to sea himself. He would more likely have become a gym instructor or joined the armed forces but his multiple tattoos still reflect the family’s heritage. “A lot of them are about protection from the sea. Walk down there and every single fisherman would have a tattoo, even if some of them are not very good. A lot of them will be naked girls with their boobs out.”

Both he and his dad have more artistic Japanese-style designs. “I’ve been brought up with tattoos. Everyone’s got a tattoo in my family. My brothers are now 10 and 16 and they’re both talking about getting full tattoos when they’re old enough. In the old days that’s what fishermen used to do. They’d go out fishing, come in, get a taxi to Plymouth for the weekend, get drunk and get tattooed. Then they’d come back and go fishing again.”

While the leisure pursuits of English rugby players may have changed somewhat since Wavell Wakefield’s day, the traditional eating habits of the Cornish athlete are also deeply ingrained. “I do enjoy a good pasty,” says Nowell. “My family know my favourite is steak and gravy so Mum bought me about 20 of them up to Exeter for my birthday in April. I can’t tell you how many I’ve eaten – that’s a secret – but I’ve got a few left in my freezer.”

It can only be hoped England’s conditioning staff are not Guardian readers. But one of Nowell’s greatest qualities is his refreshing openness; he doesn’t care where he’s playing, who he’s playing against or what Twickenham’s alickadoos make of his appearance. “No one’s ever mentioned my tattoos or my haircuts. The big thing when you’re playing for England is that everyone is from different backgrounds. Some are from inside the M25, some are from Cornwall, but you’ve got to be as one as a team. Everyone’s very respectful.”

Nowell, even so, admits he feels luckier than most. It is his firm belief – and Vickery has long felt the same – that too much raw sporting material in the far south-west goes untapped. “Definitely. The amount of talented players I’ve seen playing down here is amazing. There was a guy at Penryn who always wore a blue scrum hat. He was awesome. And whenever we played against Bodmin, they had the ‘Bodmin Beast’. We were only 14 but I swear he had a bigger beard than my old man. He’d make about 50 metres with about five of us on his back. Every single local side has those players.

“But you have to be lucky to get picked up from down here. When I was starting out my idea of what I was going to do in future was maybe to play for Penzance.”

The turning point – for both him and his close friend Luke Cowan‑Dickie – was Exeter’s promotion to the Premiership in 2010. “Exeter getting promoted came at the perfect moment for me and Dickie. We realised that if we went to Truro college and put our heads down there could be a chance for us.”

Nowell, whose mother remembers her six-year-old son initially clinging to her leg at Penzance & Newlyn RFC and refusing to play mini-rugby, was selected for Redruth’s first team at 16 but still pinches himself at his rapid rise from the World Cup-winning England Under-20 ranks to the senior squad. “It’s a weird feeling, especially because I’m a back rather than one of those stereotypical big Cornish props with scary beards and hands like pasties. At least Dickie’s carrying on that tradition.”

Yet beneath the surface the engaging Nowell has carried a secret he can only now reveal fully. When he made his England debut he did so on virtually one leg; a long-standing knee problem, belatedly diagnosed as patella tendinitis, was threatening to curtail his career. “I can say it now: it was very painful. I didn’t want to make a big thing out of it at the time because I wanted to keep on playing. In one of my first Exeter games, against Prato, I ruptured my medial ligament. I went to see the specialist who took a look and said: ‘Don’t worry about that, it’ll mend. I’m worried about your tendon.’

“He reckoned if I’d carried on I wouldn’t have been able to play for another year or so. I was 18. It was one of the scariest things I’ve experienced. A lot of people grow out of it but, for me, it carried on and got worse. Thank God I snapped my MCL [medial cruciate ligament].”

As recently as last season, even so, it was still a concern. “I’d learned to deal with the pain. I came to the stage where I could have kept going but I didn’t know how long the knee would last. After a while I wouldn’t sidestep off my left leg. One day, when I was training with the Under 20s, a few of us were chatting and someone jokingly said: ‘It’s all right when we play against you because we know you only step off your right.’ I just thought: ‘Everyone’s starting to notice now.’”

The upshot was an operation that forced him to miss last summer’s tour of New Zealand and threatened his international development. “It was a hard decision, because I’d got the shirt and wanted to keep it. But if I wanted a good, long, healthy career I knew I had to have the operation. It was tough but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. The difference from a year and a half ago to now is ridiculous. Crazy.”

The 80kg (12st 8lb) kid who joined Exeter had swelled to 98kg (15st 6lb) by the time he returned from his operation, although England’s punishing summer fitness regime has dragged his weight down again. Whether he can oust the in-form Jonny May from the starting XV or not, his ability to bust tackles, scrap for anything and fill in at both 13 and 15 make him a hugely valuable squad asset. “I’d honestly say I’m not one of the fastest wingers in England but I definitely prefer the contact side. I enjoy getting stuck in. If I was a bit smaller I wouldn’t be able to do that sort of stuff.”

This is not a player likely to be paralysed with fear when the World Cup comes. “I’m a big believer that if you get yourself too worked up you’re not going to perform. On the bus to the ground I don’t want to be too serious straightaway or get too worried about it. My shut-off point is when I come in from the team warm-up. You do have a little think about all your family watching but then you concentrate on your game.”

As we bid farewell to Boo and her attentive owner one final thought occurs. Nowell is as comfortable in his tattooed skin as any rugby player I’ve ever interviewed, utterly at home at the furthest end of England. “When I walk around here I’m not Jack the rugby player. They just treat me as normal. I’m just Jack, that’s what I love about it.” Newlyn’s distant tranquillity, though, will be shattered once the World Cup starts.

From the tip of Cornwall to the bright lights of London, the sense of anticipation grows daily.

Full story courtesy of the Guardian:

World Seafood Congress 2015 at Grimsby

Through the Gaps will carry a live twitter feed #WSC2015 for the conference.

GRIMSBY was today preparing to host its biggest fishing event to date – the 2015 World Seafood Congress.

With almost 100 speakers from more than a dozen countries, it is truly a global event and it has come to the Humber for the first time.

Last night the delegates were treated to a civic welcome at the newly refurbished pier in the neighbouring seaside resort of Cleethorpes.

Local North East Lincolnshire Council Leader Ray Oxby told the 250 delegates they had come to a town which was the centre of the largest concentration of fish processing in the UK.

Although the World Seafood Congress mainly represents international fish inspectors, the three-day line-up of speakers is drawn from virtually every sector of the fishing and seafood industry.

The theme is ‘Upskillling for a Sustainable Future’.

The congress will welcome 46 speakers from its host nation, while the rest of the programme has been filled with experts from five of the world’s seven continents, representing leading industry bodies, academic institutions and non-government organisations

Three of the speakers will be making a 10,000-mile journey from Australia to address the delegates.

Dr Lahsen Ababouch, director at the Food and Agriculture Organisation, and Steffen Kaeser, from the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation in Vienna, will speak on the opening day.

They will be joined on day two by UK based Geoff Ogle, director at the Food Standards Agency for Scotland, and Carl O’Brien, Defra’s chief fisheries science adviser, who will discuss the food safety challenges facing the sector and the state of the North East Atlantic seafood stocks.

Also speaking is Stephen Hall of the World Fish Centre, and Brussels based Stelios Mitolidis, deputy head of the Illegal Unregulated and Unreported Unit for catches at the Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries.

Mountaineer and explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes is guest speaker at the gala dinner tomorrow.

The closing day of the congress will feature a talk from Liv Homefjord, director of fisheries in Norway, while Chris Grieve, executive director at Meridian Prime, will round off the keynote speaker programme with a discussion centred on the congress’ sustainability theme.

Paul Williams, chief executive of Seafish, the Grimsby based industry authority hosting this year’s congress, said: ‘The commercial success of the fishing industry relies upon effective export and trade relationships between different nations. The opportunities are vast.’