HB Grandi’s pelagic vessel Víkingur was due to dock at Vopnafjörður last night with 1040 tonnes of herring on board, caught in five shots in the Faroese EEZ, 40 to 65 nautical miles east of the mid-line between Icelandic and Faroese zones.
‘We sailed from Vopnafjörður on Saturday in foul weather, which had cleared away by the time we reached the fishing area and we had fine weather while we were fishing,’ said Víkingur’s skipper Albert Sveinsson.
He commented that as there had been no reports of herring fishing in Icelandic waters, they decided to head for the Faroese zone where there had been fishing reported.
‘The storm meant that there hadn’t been much activity in the Icelandic zone since last week and it was only when we were steaming home that we heard there had been some good fishing on the Icelandic side of the line. Several pelagic boats did well due east of Reyðarfjörður and it’s clear there was a large volume of herring there,’ he said, adding that it now seems that the herring in Faroese waters are heading eastwards.
‘On the other hand, there were no pelagic vessels fishing in the Herring Loophole. A couple of Faroese boats had a look and didn’t think much of the outlook there. There’s no way to tell how things will shape up. I reckon we’ll have around 3000 tonnes of our quota left once Venus has landed and I expect we’ll be looking for that amount before fishing for blue whiting starts. What follows the blue whiting fishery depends on whether or not enough capelin are found during the research surveys. We’ll have to wait and see what the outcome is,’ Albert Sveinsson said.
