HB Grandi: Hoping to fill up today

HB Grandi's pelagic vessel Faxi RE is now close to finishing its last targeted trip on blue whiting for the year, and is currently at a position around 70 nautical miles south of the Faroe Islands. Faxi has around 1200 tonnes on board already and chief mate Ebenezer Gudmundsson said that they are hoping to have filled up by the end of today. As Faxi has a maximum carrying capacity of 1550 tonnes, there is every chance that they will be setting for Vopnafjördur later today, reports www.megafishnet.com with reference to HB Grandi.

According to Ebenezer Gudmundsson, the fishing area has shifted northwards over the last few days.

‘In the last trip we were fishing at the southern limit of the Faroese EEZ, south of what's referred to as the separator zone, but the fishing has dropped off there and the blue whiting have moved further north into the area where we have to use a separator grid to separate out fry and small fish, so the catches are smaller as a result,' he said this morning as the sixth tow of the trip was being hauled.

He commented that they would like to be able to fill the tanks so that they could start steaming for Vopnafjördur later today or tonight, which could see Faxi docking at Vopnafjördur on Wednesday after a 35- to 38-hour steam from the fishing grounds.

There are plenty of vessels fishing on blue whiting south of the Faroes. Many of them are Russian trawlers, with a few Faroese and Icelandic vessels among them, mostly those capable of processing catches at sea.

Before this trip, HB Grandi had 2500 tonnes of its 10,000 tonne blue whiting quota left to catch. This will leave around 1000 tonnes of blue whiting quota to cover by-catches taken later this year with the herring and mackerel fisheries, and any more remaining quota can be held over for next year.