It was a shoulder injury that prompted Norwegian crab fisherman Jim Harald Sæternes to take a hard look at the way things have always been done, and to come up with a set of new ideas – which have been highly successful.
So that he could continue to fish without adding to the strain on his shoulder, he developed the design of a larger and more effective crab pot, as well as a handling system for his boat that took out the repetitive heavy lifting. But the catch rates that his Vikingteina pots have shown is the clincher.
During his first autumn fishing with these pots and the lifting boom used to handle them, his average catch rate was 38kg per pot, and this shot up to 58kg when the bait was placed in a better position. Over the season as a whole, his catch was a third up on the previous year’s fishing with conventional gear.
‘Instead of hauling a hundred conventional pots in a day, you can fish the same with 30 to 35 of these pots,’ said Jim Harald Sæternes, who has fished coastal waters for twenty years to catch edible crab, wrasse and cod.
A significant factor is that the Vikingteina pots are constructed on a larger scale than conventional crab pots that are made to be handled and emptied manually. The larger frame means that three entrances at different levels are a key part of the design.
‘The problem with traditional pots is that they normally have two entrances. When brown crabs get in, they quite quickly block the way for more crabs to follow. In practice, 30% of the volume in a traditional pot is not filled,’ he said, explaining that the larger pot with more entrances means that even with a substantial catch inside, there’s still room for more higher up.
Alongside this, there is a reduced bait consumption, in addition to the benefits that come with cutting out much of the physical effort of emptying and re-baiting the pots.
Jim Harald’s crab pots are taller and have a larger volume than traditional version. The design makes them easily stackable the hinged hatch at the base of the pot opened.
The idea for the Vikingteina pots and the handling boom for lifting and emptying has been at the back of his mind for a long time, but it took his shoulder condition for him to make it a reality, and the results have been better than he could have hoped – good enough to set up Proffteiner AS to produce and market this unique design of pots and he’s convinced this concept could be widely applied.
‘It works for smaller coastal fishing vessels, and for bigger vessels fishing with a large number of pots, Vikingteina represents a significant potential to deliver better catches and increase profitability,’ he said.
‘I’m certain that there is real potential for these pots to make crab fishing more efficient, especially in the UK and Ireland. This is where there are much more extensive fisheries for crab than we have in Norway,’ he said.
‘We are also looking at the options to adapt this design for the fishery in the US for Dungeness crab, and for snow crab in Arctic waters.’
