Stormy Monday morning in Newlyn - waves over 40ft off Lands End!

This morning the wave buoy sou'west of Scilly has recorded significant wave heights of over 40 feet!..

Dark as a cow's guts this morning...

with 100% cloud cover...

things are bright enough in the market...

with trips of hake from ther Stelissa...

Ocean Pride...

Ajax...

 and Silver Dawn...

not long before these will be off the menus...

though the uschins will keep on coming...

haddock are still a thing bit ot in the quantity they were for a good few years...

there's a seemingly never-ending supply of monk tails though...

and Dovers...

winter scallops by the dozen...

the wily weaver...

and head-on Scottish caught monk...

cracking tubs...

Dory...

and red mullet...

quality flats will be making a fortune this week gven the lack of boats currently at sea around the UK...

time to shift those fish...

the lights are on.

 

'Signicant wave height' - so much to appreciate.

Sunday morning and another night of heavy ground sea in the bay sees the main mast on the lugger Ripple brought down...

and laid to rest in the harbour...

soon enough...

Jeremy is on hand to help sort a safer berth for the lugger to weather out the next few days...

meanwhile, the South Pier constructed at a cost (in today's money of £8 million) in 1887, just nine years before the Ripple was built, is doing its job of protecting the harbour, something the Ripple  and the lugger fleet 130years ago would have been very grateful for...

the heavy swell and forecast storm have forced the Billy Rowney...

to head for home...

through the gaps...

and back in port for the morning market...

evidence of the heavy swell all to apparent in the gaps - and tomorrow, an unprecedented 36ft swell...

is predicted west off Lands End during the day...

the swell in the bay today is all too apparent as the Steph of Ladram and the Billy Rowney make it through the gaps and home.

Closure of the Bay of Biscay:

 

From Les Pêcheurs de Bretagne whoae aim is to promote the professions, women and men of fishing and encourage consumers to choose responsible fishing products from the PO. 

Today marks the start of the month-long closure of the Bay of Biscay, affecting around 300 fishing vessels (pelagic trawlers, gillnetters and purse seiners).

This measure, validated by the Council of State on December 30th last for the winters 2025 and 2026, follows the decree taken urgently in December 2023. It raises numerous questions and worries a sector already under pressure.

Despite the closure, the 2024 data shows that the number of strandings remained within the average of recent years. An observation that invites us to question the real effectiveness of this measure and the other factors that can influence these phenomena.

How have fishermen mobilized in recent years to meet the challenges related to this issue? 

• What are the real stakes of this decision? 
• The Fishermen of Brittany wish to shed light on the debate by taking a step back.

Since 2016, the first year marked by an increase in strandings of marine mammals, Breton fishermen have never ceased to be proactive, to develop concrete and sustainable solutions allowing the coexistence between cetaceans and fishermen.

Over the next few weeks, we will publish a series of thematic posts to decipher the major issues related to this decision and the issue of strandings.

Dolphin population in the Bay of Biscay: an increase in interactions does not necessarily lead to a decline in populations. * Fishermen/scientists research programs: a look back at initiatives since 2017 (PIC, LICADO, DOLPHIN FREE, OBSCAMe…).

Closure of the Bay of Biscay: a short-term decision that threatens the sustainability of the sector, and results to be nuanced. 

Projection after 2026: the expectations and proposals of professionals to get out of this situation.

Record breaking winds hit Irieland during storm Eowyn.

 

Wind speed and max wave height as recorded by the M4 buoy...

 on the west coast of Ireland from 1300 on Thursday to 1300 on Friday 24th...

one of the Irish trawlers headed for port on Thursday afternoon ahead of storm Eowyn, video courtesy of Andrew Letcher.

Final Fresh #FishyFriday before February.

After a long night grading, the market is chocker with fish...

with hake landings better than they have been of late...

the Ygraine, Britannia V...

and Kerry Marie all landing shots...

though there were plenty of dogs...

with all the netters just to make life hard...

trawl fish came courtesy of boats like the Crystal Sea...

 and Anne Louise...

cock crabs don't come much bigger...

fish on the move...

more ray and reds...

and a few zarts...

and plenty of mixed fish...

from the trawlers...

Graham lends Roger a hand with his heavy shopping...

first light...

local lugger, Ripple just taking the bottom...

most of the fkeet are in port...

though the Stelissa, Silver Dawn, Ajax, Amanda of Ladram and Ocean Pride all stuck out last nights weather and stood by their nets...

a tale of two cats...

Aaron is back in town...

as are the big fellas...

and not one, but two Admirals...

Rowse's newcrabber...

has a huge working deck...

and captain Nudd has an ever better view of the work deck...

your transport awaits.

 

#StormÉowyn - not just any storm.

This WindyTV animation sequence for the low pressure system #StormÉowyn currently crossing the Atlantic has it deepening from 1004 millibars right now (Wednesday 19:00) and falling to 936 by midnight on Thursday.

You wouldn't want to be anywere near the Porcupine Bank west of Irelan in the next 24 hours - this VesselTracker AIS chart shows that there are plenty of mainly Spanish liners and trawlers there at the moment.

Fail to plan: plan to fail

 NFFO Chief Executive Mike Cohen argues that we need a plan for our seas and a strategy for developing the fishing industry’s place in them.

The NFFO has been campaigning for a national strategy for fishing for some time now and the need is only becoming more apparent with every passing day.

Everyone who works at or lives by the sea has long realised that the ways that it is being used have changed fundamentally in recent years. Once, it carried goods and people, and it produced food. Now it also produces electricity; it supplies building materials; it carries our electronic communications; it gives up fossil fuels from beneath it and has carbon emissions and nuclear waste buried in their place; it is ‘conserved’; it is a playground.

As the NFFO has consistently pointed out, this transition has occurred piecemeal. The sea has become a new frontier, open for exploration and exploitation by whoever has the power to stake a claim. No strategy has underpinned this free-for-all and we have warned on numerous occasions that, if this is allowed to continue, those users of the sea without deep pockets or powerful political connections will be soon squeezed out. Fishers are firmly in this category. Despite pursuing a calling that has helped to feed the people of these islands for millennia, they must pay for a licence to pursue their livelihoods, but in doing so acquire no right to use it. Farmers can own the land they work, but fishers can’t own their fishing grounds. Our seabed is owned by the Crown Estate, which leases out portions of its property portfolio for profit. This makes it possible for others to take parts of the sea that we depend on for food production and effectively privatise them: developing that area for their own benefit, in such a way that excludes fishing.

This is happening already. The Crown Estate has recently announced plans to lease out the seabed for offshore wind farm construction. They hope to see 125 GW of new offshore electricity generating capacity leased out by 2050. At the same time, the Scottish government has plans for power stations generating up to 42 GW north of the border. Much of this new development will involve floating wind farms, which are acknowledged to be incompatible with fishing activity. At an estimated size of 250Km2 per gigawatt (and acknowledging that some existing wind farms take up significantly more space than that), this will occupy 41,750 km2 of sea space – a little under twice the area of Wales.

This represents the industrialisation of the marine environment on an almost unimaginable scale and its justification has not been made clear. In addition to this planned 167 GW of new generating capacity at sea, there are plans for 24 GW of new nuclear power generation on land and the government has already announced support for 2 GW of new solar power, with more to come. The UK currently consumes around 30 GW of electricity and is already capable of generating almost all of that domestically. Clearly, as we switch to using more electricity to heat homes and power vehicles that demand will increase, but it is surely stretching credulity to assume that it will increase by 550% in the next 26 years. No doubt the multinational energy giants – almost all non-UK corporations – that build and control the offshore power stations in UK waters will find a way to make even larger fortunes from them, but the benefit to the people of the UK is opaque, particularly when their construction may come at the cost of the UK’s marine environment, food security and coastal jobs.

Alongside the offshore construction gold rush, there are increasingly loud calls for large parts of the sea to be closed to fishing because of ‘nature’. 38% of the UK’s EEZ is already subject to some form of conservation designation. The goal of ‘nature recovery’ is cited at every turn. Even the Crown Estate uses the phase continuously – and seemingly without irony – when discussing how it plans to lease off the seabed for industrial development. There is a distinct reluctance to define terms here. ‘Recovery’ implies return to a prior condition, but what point in the past is it intended that we should reproduce? Before offshore developers started digging up the seabed? Before the age of modern shipping? Before humans used the sea at all? Whichever historical point we choose, how are we supposed to know what the marine environment was like back then, so that we know what actions to take to recover that state? Given the almost complete lack of baseline scientific surveys conducted to support the marine conservation process, we don’t even have a particularly clear idea about what the marine environment is like now.

We are doing more things in the sea now than at any time in human history, so why is it almost always just fishing that the loudest proponents of ‘nature’ want to prohibit? It all starts to look a bit performative: promoting a sense of permanent crisis, while placing the blame only on those without the money or power to defend themselves. The double standard is striking: theatrical dismay at every fishing net that skims the seabed to produce food, but seeming unconcern about the thousands of square kilometres that will be dug up, trenched and continually scoured by anchor chains to accommodate new power stations.

Contradictions like this abound. We must conserve the marine environment, yet also build power stations there that far exceed our energy needs. We will protect the security of our food supply, but restrict fishing on the shakiest of evidential foundations. We must take urgent action to combat climate change, but also restrict one of the least carbon intensive sources of dietary protein. Growth is vital and coastal communities will be supported, but we consistently privilege the demands of foreign corporations and the self-appointed and well-funded champions of undefined ‘nature’ over the economic and social wellbeing of working-class people.

If any of this was being done in pursuit of an ultimate aim, for the betterment of the UK at large, we would have no grounds for complaint. We elect parliamentarians to take decisions about the future of our nation. Very often those decisions are truly difficult. Once taken, they are very likely to bring hardship to some even as they benefit the majority. As long as such decisions are taken in full possession of the facts, however, with a clear underlying rationale and an understanding of the consequences, then – while we may not like the outcome – there can be no injustice in the process. That is emphatically not true here, however. We are drifting towards an unplanned future, where short-term thinking and empty but eye-catching slogans have benefitted the few but disadvantaged the many, while no-one takes responsibility.

We need a plan. Now.

The UK needs a national fishing strategy that will stop our industry being squeezed out of the marine space; will protect core fishing grounds and promote sustainable harvesting; will improve safety and working conditions; will support job creation; and will allow fishing to realise its potential as a core part of revitalised coastal economies. This will not be easy, but it is possible – and the benefits could be enormous.