All three of HB Grandi’s pelagic vessels are going back onto blue whiting. Ingunn AK is scheduled to sail later today and Faxi RE and Lundey NS tonight or tomorrow. All three had left the blue whiting grounds after the fish vanished from waters deep west of Ireland.
‘Two Icelandic vessels have been fishing in the southern end of the Faroese zone for the last few days and although catches haven’t been anything special, we can expect things to improve,’ said Vilhjálmur Vilhjálmsson, head of HB Grandi’s pelagic division, and comments that Norwegian vessels have been fishing in Scottish waters on blue whiting. Experience says that it takes the fish roughly seven to ten days to migrate from the international waters where the Icelandic fleet was fishing in March, to the grey zone between UK and Faroese EEZs and from there into Faroese waters.
So far this year HB Grandi’s vessel shave landed around 13,000 tonnes of blue whiting, leaving 10,950 tonnes of their quota still to be caught.
According to Vilhjálmur Vilhjálmsson, 2000 tonnes can be carried over from one year to the next.
‘We could keep 2000 tonnes of this year’s quota and hold it over for next year, or we have the option of taking that amount this year out of next year’s quota,’ he said.
