Setting up a new fishing gear company with a net loft on the quayside at Thyborøn is a marker of the health of the Danish fishing industry.
Not that many years ago it might have been seen as a hopelessly optimistic venture, but today there is plenty of activity to keep a new net loft in Thyborøn busy.
The name isn’t a new one. Thyborøn Trawlbinderi was a well-known name for many years as a supplier of fishing gear to both local boats and further afield, but the company went out of business more than a decade ago.
So when fishing vessel owner Henning Kjeldsen was looking to set up a new net loft primarily to supply his own vessels with fishing gear, the old name was resurrected and John Bech, who had been a netmaker at the original company, was taken on to run it.
We spoke to Bent Larsen, who has been a netmaker for close to forty years and who joined the company a couple of years ago as it began to expand past supplying its original modest target market.
For its newest pelagic gears, Thyborøn Trawlbinderi is using a new Power-4 rope, which combined nylon and Dyneema fibres in its construction to provide the qualities of both. Pure Dyneema has huge strength but minimal elasticity, so the Power 4 combination provides a rope that has much of the strength of Dyneema while also retaining some of the stretch that nylon has.
‘We can go down in sizes,’ Bent Larsen said, adding that Power-4 is made specially for Thyborøn Trawlbinderi by Euronete. ‘12 and 14mm Power-4 replace 16 and 18mm in Danline. It’s a twisted rope, made in four strands as that keeps a better shape.’
The full 2-part article can be read on the Hook & Net app, or on the web version of H&N.
