The last few years haven’t been kind to Andy McLeod and Brixham scalloper van Dijck, as anyone who saw the Channel 4 series The Catch earlier this year will be aware.
In 2012 scallopers were hit with a massive reduction in available days at sea for Area 7, limiting them to around ten days per month, and the result has been some very grim years for the scallopers over 15 metre with no entitlement to fish for anything else – such as van Dijck.
Now van Dijck is back on track since a deal was worked out with France last year to give the UK additional days at sea on scallops. The agreement is for return for a scalloping closure of area 7D during August and September, plus an agreement not to go south of the Barfleur-Antifer line until the French scallop season opens. Plus some scallopers hit by the hard times of the last few years have dropped out of the industry, freeing up more days to allow around 60 days per quarter.
‘We’ve had two and a half years of ten days a month. You don’t earn a living like that and it nearly broke us financially,’ Andy McLeod said. ‘Now we’re turning things around. This is the first refit we’ve been able to afford for almost four years. We’ve been here a month and we’re hoping to get a trip in before the trawler race,” he said.
Van Dijck has been tied up for the best part of a month and a great deal of paint and hard work have gone into the refit, with the derricks taken off to be refurbished by local company Champion Engineering.
Andy McLeod said that the boat is in good condition and a lot of investment went into it during the busy years before 2012, and much of the refit is cosmetic.
‘It was in the second quarter of last year that the days were increased again to around 60 days each quarter, which doubled the amount of time we could spend at sea, which has been massively beneficial. We’re definitely back on track now and the extra days have given us a fighting chance,’ he said. ‘Now we can survive, if not thrive. At least we can get out to sea and keep earning now. Even if the fishing isn’t spectacular, we can keep going.’
The Channel 4 series The Catch, which featured new recruits to fishing being placed on fishing vessels, including van Dijck, has been sold to New Zealand, Australia and France.
‘We had one a week, and this was when we were fishing ten days a month when it was obvious we weren’t doing well, so they picked the perfect time to film it. Some of them came back for another trip,’ he said, adding that others could hardly get ashore fast enough.
‘We had four camera crew on board, plus fixed cameras in the wheelhouse, the galley, the accommodation and seven or eight around the deck,’ he said, adding that he’d be happy to repeat the experience, but so far there has been no word from Channel 4 on whether or not another series is being commissioned.
