HB Grandi: Blue whiting dispersed

‘We have 370 tonnes of blue whiting on board now after three fairly short tows. There was some talk of landing in the Faroes, but that idea was scratched when it became clear that getting a landing spot there is easier said than done. There's a queue to discharge in the Faroes at the moment,' said Gudlaugur Jónsson, skipper of HB Grandi's pelagic vessel Ingunn AK when we spoke to him on Friday when Ingunn was fishing on blue whiting around 70 nautical miles south of the southern point of the Faroe Islands, reports www.megafishnet.com with reference to HB Grandi.

Ingunn had taken around 48 hours to steam to Faroese waters from Akranes, where it has been since the capelin season came to an end.

‘There was some rough weather on the way and it was still bad when we go there, but it's improving. There weather's fine and there isn't a lot of swell, but we're having to work for our fish. The blue whiting are very dispersed but as the fish aren't being landed for human consumption, we can tow longer and we can expect to go for a capacity trip this time,' he said, commenting that Ingunn's full capacity is 2000 tonnes.

A number of vessels are now fishing in the same area and in addition to what Gudlaugur Jónsson described as the ‘Grandi Herd' of Faxi RE and Lundey NS, there are Icelandic, Faroese and Russian ships all fishing for blue whiting there.