Polar Fishing Gear from Iceland, has completed a big step in their latest development of trawl doors – the Poseidon Remote Controllable Trawl Doors – when a pair of 4.1m2 Poseidon trawl doors were tested onboard the modern 70m Icelandic research vessel, Árni Fridriksson.
The idea is to control the water flow through the trawl doors and guide the trawl doors and the complete fishing gear to a preferable position in the sea for the most effective fishing results.
The trawl doors are constructed from aerodynamic shaped wings – a total of 6 wings, 3 on the upper section and 3 on the lower section. By moving the wings, or part of the wings of the trawl door, the water flow can be controlled. The trawl doors can be guided to operate with either a little spreading force or its maximum spreading force and also controlled close to the surface or deeper in the sea.
Greater efficiency
This revolutionary idea, where each wing can be controlled individually, can move the fishing gear to the optimal position to catch the school. This is very effective when combined with other fish finding equipment in the fishing vessels.
During the test tows, with maximum doors spread and all wings closed for minimum flow of water, the door-to-door distance was 72m and when adjusting to minimum doors spread with all the wings open for greater flow of water, the door-to-door distance was reduced to 54m. The power output to the propeller dropped from 510kW towing at 4.8 knots down to 455kW when the spreading force was reduced. Fuel consumption during towing with the doors adjusted in maximum spread was 163litres per hour and was reduced to 138litres per hour during minimum doors spread.
Environmental friendly trawl doors
We expect that use of remote controllable trawl doors will have a huge effect on trawl fishing for the benefit of more economical operations and several environmental issues:
- Less fuel consumption – when there is no or little fish concentration, the doors can be controlled to reduce door-to-door distance and the complete fishing gear will have much less resistance;
- Greater catches – with high fish concentration, the doors can be controlled to the optimal position to increase door-to-door distance so the fishing gear will catch more fish;
- Less maintenance – the Poseidon remote controllable trawl doors and the total fishing gear can be guided to work ‘off the seabed’ with no bottom contact at all.
- Less lost fishing time – because the trawl doors can be controlled remotely from the fishing vessel. Currently the trawl doors must be taken onboard the fishing vessel, the chains and shackles unhooked, the doors set to different positions and lowered back into the sea.
Polar Fishing Gear
Tel +354 568 50 80
