Danish industrial trawler Lonny Hedwig, based in Thyborøn, has been rigged with a pair of Thyborøn Trawldoor’s type 21VF Flipper doors, incorporating slots that can be opened and closed as required to adjust the surface area of the doors.
Skippers Rene and Dan Schmidt started using their 10 square metre Type 21 Flippers on this year’s sprat season in the North Sea, and were satisfied with the results.
The key to the Flipper doors is that they provide a two-in-one solution. Opening the slots reduces the spreading power by up to 17% and the water resistance by 24%, with further reductions made possible by adjust the angle of attack. This means that instead of switching doors to shift to a different fishery requiring other set of gear, the Flipper doors can be adjusted to suit the trawl and depth and towing speed.
These new Type 21VF Flipper doors, built for fishing industrial species close to the bottom follow the success of the Type 20VF Flippers that have been shown to be highly successful in pelagic fisheries, as well as in demersal fisheries with the gear spread by a pair of flying pelagic doors.
