When Whitehills skipper David Lovie took delivery in 2020 of the 34-metre Endeavour V from Macduff, one of the largest and most innovative of the latest generation of Scottish whitefish trawlers, he opted for a pair of Vónin’s Storm trawl doors.
The choice of Endeavour V’s 4.5 square metre Storm doors had a lot to do with the clear success his uncle Mark Lovie, skipper of Venture, has had with these robust doors from Vónin.
These doors have worked well enough for Endeavour V, fishing in UK and Faroese waters, for David Lovie to replace them in October 2022 with a new pair, demonstrating his faith in Vónin to deliver gear that works.
“The Storm doors have proven to be powerful, highly durable and robust. Unlike our previous doors that required replacement every 12 months, we were able to use these for a remarkable 31 months before considering a replacement. In fact, the first minor maintenance we performed was after a substantial 24 months of use,” he said as the new doors were delivered to Endeavour V.
Last year he travelled to Hirtshals with Vónin to observe a variety of fishing gears streamed in the flume tank, and immediately liked the look of the Zenith groundfish trawl. The outcome was an order a Zenith 572 trawl, which has met all of his expectations – and he described the Zenith trawl and 4.5 square metre Storm doors as “a perfect match.”
He commented that the Zenith trawl meets the main requirement, as it fishes well, with excellent spread and headline height of eight metres, and it doesn’t do any harm that it’s light to tow.
This is a legacy of Vónin’s Fortis netting, formulated for a combination of high strength and stiffness, which provides the company’s designers with new options to scale down twine sizes in fishing gears, and took full advantage of the possibilities offered by Fortis netting as a starting point in the Zenith design.
Comparative trials have demonstrated that Fortis provides an excellent water flow through the gear, and Vónin’s customers who have switched to this netting report that this has resulted in improved catch rates.
Although the Zenith design has fewer meshes in the fishing circle than comparable trawl gears, by optimising cutting rates and hanging ratios, Vónin’s designers have been able to produce a compact trawl that outstrips other gears in terms of headline height and horizontal spread, while maintaining steady ground contact.
“Everything Vónin has promised has met David’s expectations and when a client returns, it’s clear evidence that they’re happy with our gear,” said Vónin’s Jan Klein.
