A fun afternoon

This weekend is the Aberdeenshire 'Open Days', where entrance to many venues is free or places not normally open to the public may be visited.

Yesterday we spent a very interesting afternoon on a guided tour of the ocean going trawler "Forever Grateful".
This 64 mtr long fishing boat, costing about £20million in todays money, is powered by a massive diesel engine that uses about 1 million litres of fuel per year - at 52p. / litre.
It has a crew of 10 (including 3 engineers and a cook - who also work as fishermen) and can catch up to 400 tons of mackerel or herring at a time.

Herring have a swim bladder so when the football stadium sized net is pulled in, it floats. When they catch mackerel, the net sinks.
They do not haul the fish on board, but use a large 'vacuum cleaner' to suck the fish from the net and into tanks of refrigerated water.
The temperature is carefully monitored and a printout is given to the fish merchant to show that the fish have been stored properly.

Most of the fish is landed in Norway and much of this ends up in Japan in sushi dishes!

The bridge of the boat is like the USS Enterprise! No ship's wheel, just arrays of computer screens, radars and sonars.
This is high tech fishing.

Every part of the boat was spotlessly clean and tidy. The crew's accomodation is immaculate - Hardwood furniture and leather armchairs. It would put many houses to shame.
The cook says that the crew like plain food - cottage pie, chicken & chips etc.. Chinese food is popular, but they don't tend to eat fish!

It was a fascinating insight into how large scale commercial fishing is carried out - but the quota system only allows 12 weeks a year and the overheads are very high.

Re: A fun afternoon

Sounds fascinating George, I love ships and all things maritime...

Re: A fun afternoon

What an interesting afternoon that sounds George

Re: A fun afternoon

there was something like that on TV a couple of years ago where they pitted an old type fishing vessel with a new high tec one and the new one won hands down but at tremendous cost.

Re: A fun afternoon

Here's the boat in question. Several similar ocean trawlers and dozens of smaller fishing boats are moored at Fraserburgh.

http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/3IpFY...uring+Scotland

Re: A fun afternoon

Marvelous

Re: A fun afternoon

Sounds like a fascinating day out George, I'm glad you enjoyed it..

Re: A fun afternoon

very interesting