While development in purse seine technology has generally been a gradual process, a co-operation between Mørenot Fishery in Norway and Japanese manufacturer Asano has resulted in a new generation of purse rings that are easier and safer to use.
The collaboration goes back to when Mørenot Fishery’s purse seine expert Lars Tor Silnes came across Asano’s Auto Shackle purse line clips for smaller-scale purse seiners at an exhibition, and started providing these to Norwegian vessels.
‘These have been very popular. The advantage is that these can be opened with a spike, which makes handling the gear easier and faster,’ he said. ‘Some customers went for the full set, replacing all of their purse rings with Asano’s easy-open clips. But a lot of customers have also gone for ten at each end, where the weight is greatest.’
The success of these small clips was such that they decided to take a look at options for larger scale fishing gear.
‘I asked Asano to see if we could incorporate this concept into the roller rings. Being able to open the purse ring as the gear is being hauled is a vital part of the operation and it’s especially at the two ends that this can be difficult, particularly when there’s a lot of weight on the gear.’
The outcome of the development is a versatile new version roller purse ring – Type O-IIA – with both side and front openings to trigger the gate release to unclip from the leadline, making life easier for the crewman at the hauler as the rings are presented side-on. There’s also a 65mm gate in the upper roller section, so that rings can be unclipped quickly from the purse line and sent back to the ring needle. This roller section gate also offers two spike openings to release the catch.
‘We’ve been working on several versions, for the largest vessels where there can be some heavy catches with big tensions on the gear, and also for the coastal fleet,’ he said.
The outcome is that these roller rings with the easy-open facility are available in three sizes, so there’s an option for every size of purse seiner. The nature of purse seine gear is such that change takes place more gradually than with other fishing gears, but the new heavyweight Asano purse rings are in use on board Norwegian vessels, and the feedback has been positive.
‘It’s easier when it’s a new vessel and the whole set of fishing gear is being changed,’ Lars Tor Silnes said.
‘The inclination is normally to swap like for like when renewing just part of the rig. But we have a customer in the south of Norway who took fifty rings to change half of the setup on board, and the new Havsnurp took a full set of purse rings when it was delivered last year. Now they’ll be back purse seining for mackerel in August after trawling for herring and blue whiting.’
Mørenot Fishery has a number of Asano products on its shelves, including the full range of purse seine clips, as well as blocks, spikes and other hardware.
‘Asano is a good company to work with. We have meetings online and give them ideas, and after a few weeks we have a 3D printed model that we can assess to check if the gates are large enough or if there are any points that need to be refined. This gives us the opportunity to make all these detailed changes before going into production with the hardware,’ he explained.
‘We also have an interactive relationship with our customers. I can take these models or prototypes to show to purse seine skippers. So they are part of the process, and that gives us some very useful feedback.’
