Hampidjan’s fishing gear specialist Aðalsteinn Snæbjörnsson spent a trip on redfish in the Irminger Sea to help the crew of German trawler Mark with their new pelagic Gloria trawl.
‘The skipper said that the new 3072 metre Gloria redfish trawl works like a dream, especially on dispersed fish, and he was fishing better than others in the same area,’ said Aðalsteinn Snæbjörnsson, who departed briefly from his role as foreman at the Hampiðjan’s Reykjavík net loft to spend part of a trip on board Rostock trawler Mark ROS-777. He stepped ashore just before the Seamen’s Day stopover after having spent two weeks at sea with them.
‘The crew were surprised at how easy it turned out to be to handle this very large gear in bad weather and how quickly they could turn around during a tow. There was some good fishing all through the first trip in the Irminger Sea, and some days the fishing was so good that they had to lay to,’ he said.
Mark was making its first trip on offshore redfish in the Irminger Sea, using a Hampiðjan 3072 metre Gloria trawl with codend rigged for redfish. The trawl was squared using the 15 square metre Thyborøn trawl doors that were already on board and a set of 300 metre sweeplines.
Aðalsteinn Snæbjörnsson joined Mark on the fishing grounds on the 15th of May and spent 15 days at sea with the crew as they got to grips with this new fishing gear.
‘We can say that everything went like clockwork. This was the first time that redfish in these amounts was processed on board, so the catch handling system for redfish was also getting a baptism of fire during this trip,’ he said. ‘Otherwise production would have been run at full speed, which is around 100 tonnes per 24 hours.’
