Danish skipper Jørgen B Olsen has been ashore for a couple of weeks, just as the weather and fishing have been fine, thanks picking up an discarded set of gear in the boat’s propeller.
Just off Thyborøn on Denmark’s west coast, his trawler Anette Helene RI-427 picked up the unwanted netting while fishing for plaice, and the result was that the boat’s gearbox was damaged so badly that major repairs or a replacement were the only options.
With the boat alongside in Thyborøn, staff from Thyborøn Skibs & Motor (3XJ) were among the first on board.
‘They just dropped everything and started on Anette Helene’s gearbox to identify the problem and see what could be done,’ he said, less than happy to be missing the first spell of decent weather after three days of storms had battered the coast.
‘Two weeks in dock is the last thing we need now that the weather is behaving again,’ he said.
He makes the point that there is no reason for fishing vessels to dump worm out gear at sea, although it seems to happen frequently.
‘All Danish ports have waste disposal facilities at no cost to either Danish or foreign vessels,’ he said. ‘There should be the same facilities in German, Dutch and UK ports.’
When ports devote considerable resources to making waste collection facilities available at no cost to fishing vessels needing to dispose of waste gear, and while the ports subsidise this by covering the substantial costs of disposal and incineration for hundreds of tonnes of gash gear every year, it seems unreasonable that some vessels are still dumping their worn out gear at sea
