The fresher trawlers operated by Brim (previously HB Grandi) have had a good summer, according to Viðey’s skipper Jóhannes Ellert Eiríksson, who landed his last trip of the 2018-19 quota year at the end of last week.
‘This time we had a short trip to the Hali grounds and had 100 tonnes of cod in 48 hours. We took a small amount of redfish off the Snæfellsnes glacier on the way back, and that was enough to finish our redfish quota for the year. We can say that this trip was to square everything before the quota New Year this weekend,’ he said.
The new quota 2019-20 year commenced on 1st September.
He commented that up to now, the fresher trawlers have been fishing off the north coast for part of this summer, with catches landed in Sauðárkrókur and trucked to Reykjavík for processing.
‘We can say that the summer turned out well for us,’ he said.
‘It’s true that the cod vanished from the Westfjords grounds once we were into July, but we followed them and there was good fishing for cod off the north this summer. In fact, the cod were so far north that we often had to steam ten or twelve hours to Sauðárkrókur, but that’s nothing compared to steaming all the way home to Reykjavík.’
There was some excellent fishing for saithe on the Hali grounds off the Westfjords at the same time as the cod went elsewhere, but he said that the cod are now returning to the western areas again.
Brim currently operates two fresher trawlers, Viðey and Akurey, after one of the the three sister vessels, Engey, was sold to Russia earlier this year. An older fresher trawler, Helga María, is being brought back into service for the company after first having been laid up and subsequently leased to the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources to carry out research work off western Greenland this summer.
