Westman Islands groundfish trawlers Vestmannaey and Bergey have started 2026 with a bang, delivering two landings each in the space of a week.
The sister vessels landed in Neskaupstaður on Monday, and were back on Thursday morning to land another trip – and for a crew change before heading back to sea the same day.
Bergey’s skipper Jón Valgeirsson said that the first trip was quiet to begin with before fishing picked up and they landed 46 tonnes before sailing again, into worsening weather. The second landing was 30 tonnes of mainly cod.
On Vestmannaey skipper Egill Guðni Guðnason said that the first of their two trips was three days of patchy fishing across a wide area.
‘We saw the same pattern everywhere, fishing would pick up around the middle of the day and was otherwise slow,’ he said, adding that their landing at the beginning of the weeks was 37 tonnes of mostly cod and haddock.
‘The second trip was in really lousy weather, especially to begin with. The catch is 25 tonnes, mostly haddock,’ he said.
