A blue whiting trawl with exceptional opening has shown what it can do on board Icelandic pelagic vessel Börkur starting with a five-day, full capacity trip. The skippers and mates of a number of pelagic vessels took an active part in the design process behind the 2560m SeaKing trawl.
‘This trawl is is an incredible set of fishing gear, with 50-60% more opening than comparable trawls,’ said Börkur’s co-skipper Herbert Jónsson.
‘The trawl herds effectively and delivers catch to the codend, so it’s great to work with. It’s always a pleasure to try out new gear and it doesn’t do any harm to have had such a successful first trip as Börkur’s skipper. It’s clear that this trawl functions well and we’re highly satisfied with both trawl and codend after a capacity trip of 3300 tonnes in five days.’
Egersund Ísland and parent company Egersund Traal in Norway began working on the design for the blue whiting fishery in the later part of last year, which included sessions at the Flume Tank North Sea in Hirtshals. In a departure from the usual design process, skippers and mates were consulted at an early stage to provide their input.
‘Egersund contacted me in the spring of 2025 to ask if I would be interested to take part in designing a new blue whiting trawl and this was immediately an exciting prospect,’ said Börkur’s skipper Hjörvar Hjálmarsson.
‘There were meetings with Egersund to talk through ideas of the trawl’s arrangement and choice of materials. When we were all satisfied with the design, it was tested in the flume tank in October. We saw right away that this trawl has an exceptional opening, which I haven’t seen from any comparable trawl, so it was an exciting prospect to try this out.’
The SeaKing trawl was constructed at Egersund Ísland. A new blue whiting codend was also delivered to Börkur with the trawl, and this is another innovation with a design that supports better catch rates. The same design of codend has also been delivered to Beitir.
Egersund Ísland project manager Hlynur Bjarnason commented that they are delighted with the co-operation with Síldarvinnslan and Börkur’s crew.
‘We’ve seen from the moment we started work on this development how important collaboration with skippers and crews is,’ he said.
‘To our way of thinking this is the basis of fishing gear design and development. We’re very appreciative of the faith Síldarvinnslan put in us.’
