ANNONCER
Three of HB Grandi’s pelagic vessels have started fishing on blue whiting and have made an excellent start to the season. Ingunn AK was first on the fishing grounds and is now on the way home with 1900 tonnes on board for two days fishing. There’s a price to be paid for such good fishing as the grounds are west of Ireland, around 700 nautical miles from Iceland.
Unless new developments occur, HB Grandi’s pelagic vessels have finished
HB Grandi has 5500 tonnes remaining of its capelin quota,
HB Grandi’s purse seiner Víkingur AK is now steaming to Vopnafjördur with a full load of 1400 tonnes of capelin on board. The fish were caught over two days south-west of Malarrif on the Snæfellsnes peninsula. According to skipper Magnús Thorvaldsson, this is Víkingur’s first full trip of the season after the decision was taken last week to bring the ship out of mothballs to help catch enough capelin to use as much as possible for roe extraction.
At the end of the year 2009 the total number
HB Grandi has decided to send veteran purse seiner Víkingur
‘The best I can say is that this has been very quiet fishing. We tow all day long and are satisfied with 100 tonnes at the end of it. Yesterday we finished up with only 60 tonnes, which isn’t enough to be satisfied with,’ said skipper Arnthór Hjörleifsson of Lundey NS when we spoke to him yesterday afternoon.
Total catch of Icelandic vessels in January 2010 was 55,445
An initial capelin quota has been set following the results of research by R/V Árni Fridriksson. According to the quota issued by the Ministry of Fisheries, 28.431 tonnes are allocated to Norway, 6500 tonnes to the Faroe Islands and 4290 tonnes to Greenland. This leaves 90,779 tonnes for the Icelandic fleet, of which 16,954 tonnes fall to HB Grandi’s pelagic vessels.
Protesting a Government plan to revoke an old ”tax rebate”, most trawlers in the Westman Islands region of Iceland have been returning to port prematurely lately.