Gerda Maria was the breakthrough to the Norwegian market, Jógvan S Jacobsen at Vónin’s pelagic division said. During the winter of 2014, the Norwegian pelagic vessel was fishing for capelin in Icelandic waters, landing some of its trips in Fuglafjørður.
‘Gerda Maria’s skipper Stein Magnar Melingen was landing in Fuglafjørður and came to see us. We started talking about blue whiting trawls, and he ordered a 2016 metre trawl made from Capto for the 2015 season,’ he said,
‘Gerda Maria took its 7500 tonne quota in four trips and Stein Magnar has spoken very highly of the Capto trawl we supplied for them. Vónin supplied a full package, including trawl doors a a 68 metre codend with a 700 tonne capacity’.
Using Vónin’s Capto rope has made a significant difference to the company’s pelagic trawls, making them easier to handle than this kind of gear had been in the past, as well as easier to shoot and haul.
‘The deck crews like the Capto trawls because they’re so easy to work with, and because the deck is a safer place and the gear is also easier to overhaul and repair. The skippers really appreciate how light these trawl are to tow compared to older gears, while the strength and high abrasion resistance mean that trawls made in Capto have a much longer working lifetime than what they had been used to.’
The Gerda Maria order was followed by an order for another full package for the new Kvannøy to be delivered as it was completed at the Karstensen yard in Skagen. This was for the same 2016 metre trawl made from Capto that went to Gerda Maria, a 14 square metre pair of doors and both 68 and 78 metre codends.
Since then there have been more orders from Norwegian operators for Vónin’s pelagic gear, including a 2304 metre trawl that Åkerøy called at Fuglafjørdur to collect, and another 2304 metre set of gear for Tronderbas, while Viking Bank and Cetus ordered smaller 1728 metre gear, giving Vónin a secure foothold on the Norwegian market.
‘All of the trawls are made in our Capto rope in the large meshes, which has proved to be a very successful combination. The 2034, 2016 and 1728 metre trawls are the same design, scaled to size. The 2034 metre trawl has 64 metre meshes in the forward sections, while the 2016 metre trawl starts with 56m metre mesh and the 1728 metre trawl has 48 metres as its largest mesh size, and the hand-made meshes in the forward sections of all these trawls decrease row by row down to the belly, providing a gradual reduction through the large mesh sections.
‘We have also been busy with sorting grids for blue whiting and these have been effective in filtering out non-target species from catches. They aren’t used early in the year, but when the fish move north into Faroese waters, they are a requirement north of 60°20’N, so we have supplied a lot of these to Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese pelagic vessels,’ Jógvan S Jacobsen said
