Penlee lifeboat called out at 03:47 to medivac fishing boat crewman.

Penlee all-weather lifeboat 'Ivan Ellen' launched at 03:47am this morning to medivac a fisherman with an eye injury who was onboard a Newlyn trawler 1 mile south of Tater-Dhu Lighthouse.

The fisherman was transferred to the lifeboat, assessed and taken to Newlyn to an awaiting ambulance. Once the casualty had been taken ashore the lifeboat was washed down, refuelled and ready for service at 04:50am.

Crew - Patch (cox) Tony (mech) Dan, Sam, James, Andrew and Tom Matson
Weather - Light winds, 1m swell

Belgian beam trawler capsizes off Kent coast around midnight - one rescued, one critically ill, one missing.

Z582 Assant - Photo courtesy of shiphenters.be

Off the coast of England at midnight a Belgian fishing vessel Assanat Z582 from Zeebrugge, capsized. There were three people on board. One of them was called with the English rescue helicopter of the hull of the ship and transported to the hospital. Meanwhile, there has been found a second crew member at sea. This confirms the Maritime Rescue and Co-ordination Centre in Ostend. The man is unconscious flown to the hospital. His condition is critical. It is with might and looked for the last drowning, with both English and Belgian rescue helicopter, two rescue vessels from Ramsgate on the English coast, and a merchant vessel that was nearby. Belgians were two of the three crew members.

Story translated by Google from www.hin.be

The fleet sails from Newlyn on their final trips for 2016.

One of the last sunrises for 2016 makes a stroll along Penzance promenade worthwhile this morning...

with a few lucky houses across the Bay in Newlyn bathing in the glow...

despite a choppy onshore sea berating the shoreline...

three-cornered contrail...

over the beam trawler setting sail to land her first trip in 2017...

Guilvinec registered Itasca against the ice berth...

as the sun nears the horizon dep out in the bay...

more of the fleet show signs of life with lights...

aboard in readiness for the final trips of 2016...

which should see the port devoid of boats over the next couple of days...

the light always provides the opportunity for early morning photographers...

the Itasca's trawl doors stowed in their steaming position to stop them constantly beating the hull every time the boat rolls...

flying her Breton flag...

Curtiss senior makes fast the shore line of the Elisabeth Veronique in the ice berth...

dawn breaks down the quay...

making good use of harbour land once fully covered in trawl gear when there were around 25 trawlers in the port, not the nine that there are left now!

NFFO Fights Back against Appeasement

The National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, which represents fishermen in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, has launched a blistering attack on UK Fisheries Minister George Eustice, after he made quota concessions to appease nationalist pressure from Scotland during the annual quota negotiations in Brussels.


1500 tonnes of English quota has been taken from the Humberside based Fish Producers Organisation and promised to Scotland without consultation or notice. Also, George Eustice is “consulting” on a revised concordat between the devolved administrations. If implemented, the concordat would mean the transfer of almost the entire English North Sea whitefish fleet into Scottish administration, along with its licences and quota allocations. The NFFO regards as a bogus consultation because the Scottish minister has already announced that the concordat will be implemented as written.

The NFFO statement says, “All this is being done behind closed doors, in secret. English fishing interests are being systematically traded away to appease the clamour from Scotland. It stinks.

“This is all about high politics – the Westminster government is desperate to avoid creating conditions that would favour a second referendum in Scotland. And the nationalist government is determined to create defacto independence where it can, and also to wring concession after concession out of a government preoccupied with delivering Brexit.”

“The UK overall, will lose out as a result of this quota grab because the only European countries licensed to fish in the North East Arctic apart from England, are French, German, Portuguese and Spanish. That cod will be landed, processed and consumed in those countries with value added all along the supply chain. Apart from being opportunist, and unprincipled, this transfer makes no economic sense. The Scots would swap it away for lower value species that they catch.”

“This ministerial decision has been presented as a way of dealing with chokes* that will result from implementation of the landings obligation in 2017 but it has not escaped our notice that no Scottish quota is being tagged for this purpose – only English.”

“Devolved administrations have their individual ministers to speak up for them but the English industry has no such champion. How else can you explain this policy of appeasement? Our minister needs to find the word “no” in his vocabulary. “

The NFFO statement added: “We have as much to fear from an aggressive nationalist agenda in Scotland and our own supine minister, as we have to gain from a successful Brexit.”

The statement concludes: “Scotland’s continual demand is to sit at the table during international negotiations, when this is plainly a reserved responsibility. This shows the level of ambition that there is in Edinburgh but there is no push-back from our own minister. The opposite in fact. We can get no assurances even on this clear-cut matter.”

“Scottish ministers make much of the tonnage of fish landed into Scotland. But there are more UK fishermen’s livelihoods at stake outside Scotland than in, and a significant proportion of those landings are made by English vessels landing into Peterhead. Politically, fishing carries more weight in Scotland. We are being sacrificed as part of a wider game but we will not go down without a fight.”

NFFO 19th December 2016

Note: A choke is when one quota in a mixed fishery is exhausted, meaning that the vessel has to tie up for the rest of the year. It is a problem faced when a discard ban is applied to a quota system in mixed fisheries.

Seasonal Fishy greetings to one and all from Through the Gaps!

Public Comment Draft Report Cornwall Sardine Fishery

Public Comment Draft Report

Cornwall Sardine Fishery

MEC Certification Ltd (MEC) is pleased to announce that the Public Comment Draft Report for the above fishery is now available for comment on the MSC website: https://fisheries.msc.org/en/fisheries/cornwall-sardine-uk/@@assessments).

MEC is happy to receive comments from stakeholders on the report at any time during the comment period. All interested stakeholders are encouraged to contact Gavin Fitzgerald (gavin.fitzgerald@me-cert.com) or Kat Collinson (kat.collinson@me-cert.com) at MEC by email, telephone or post at the below number and address:

ME Certification
56 High Street Lymington
SO41 9AH
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)1590 613007 Fax: +44 (0)1590 671573

The deadline for this consultation is 17:00 GMT 29th December 2016.
Please note that comments should be factual and should be supported by data or other evidence. Comments may remain unattributed. Furthermore, information that cannot be shared with any other stakeholder will not be referenced in the assessment and cannot be used in determining the outcome of the fishery’s assessment nor used as a basis for an objection. Information can be kept confidential if it is restricted to financial transactions about certification, the financial affairs of individual companies or information that may lead to this information being known, or information that is the subject of relevant national privacy or data protection legislation in the assessed fishery’s country.

Last market for 2016

Sadly, the Excellent is likely to see the old year out and the New Year in in much the same place...

while the rest of the fleet are now tied up for the Xmas break...

including the entire beam trawl fleet...

apart from the sardine boats that land direct to the processors... 

even if they have to handball ice aboard!...

the port makes a huge contribution to recycling old fishing gear...

looks like the Ajax has joined in with the lights...

as the last of the fish from the auction this morning are loaded.