Building you own boat isn’t for everyone, but Pieter Louwe van Slooten has never been one to turn down a challenge.
The pulse trawling pioneer, he left electrical fishing behind to switch to seine netting, but first needed a new boat and ended up building it for himself, and in the process setting up van Slooten Shipbuilding, a stripped-back operation now building more vessels in Poland in co-operation with a band of sub-contractors.
While the shipbuilding operation continues, his full-time job is now running Urk fishing company Quotter, a venture with van der Zwan and Fishcom that now runs small fleet of beamers, twin-riggers and seine netters.
Van Slooten Shipbuilding is closely involved as well, having just lengthened and refitted twin-rigger Noordværder as Stellar UK-151, a combined twin-rigger/seine netter. A newbuild for Quotter is also on the way, with the Polar UK-150 due to be complete next year.
He said that the arrival of Quotter was not universally liked, but the company came into the demersal fishing business just as things were at their most difficult with poor fish prices and high fuel costs.
‘There was a long-term plan from the outset and while this was to buy quotas, the intention was never to be slipper skippers but to catch our own quotas ourselves,’ he said.
‘This is an Urk fishing company catching demersal fish, and Urk is the centre of the flatfish industry. It’s a good combination. We meet once a month and they can see that the company is doing well. The aim was never to be the biggest, but more to be professional and to produce good results for the company and the crews.’
He said that in spite of people’s misgivings, Quotter has been accepted and the company has been determined to keep is business in Urk.
‘At the moment everyone is doing well, but that can always change and we have to be prepared for that. Right now the markets look good and the only real worry is the discard ban. We are doing our best to be prepared for that, and if it means investing in fishing gear or equipment, then we can do that,’ he said.
‘The investments Quotter has made are for the long term and we pan to be doing this for a long time.’
Read the full two-part interview with Pieter Louwe van Slooten in Hook and Net.
