News: Kirkella lands final cod of year after Flemish Cap trip

Hull’s distant-water trawler fills quota in 11 weeks, but season is now a fraction of pre-Brexit

Kirkella, the Hull-based freezer trawler operated by UK Fisheries, has fished its quota for the year after landing 621 tonnes in Hull following an 11-week trip to the Flemish Cap.

The catch, landed on 20 September, included 553 tonnes of frozen cod fillets bound for fish and chip shops across the UK, as well as 60 tonnes of fishmeal.

The vessel left Hull on 3 July and began fishing a week later on the Flemish Cap, a fishing bank about 300 nautical miles east of Newfoundland, where cod is managed under quotas set by the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO). Kirkella filled its quota on 12 September and was back in Hull eight days later.

“Catches were steady throughout the trip and improved in the second half, after we refuelled in St John’s,” said Sigurbjörn Sigurdsson, who skippered the vessel on this trip and shares command with Sigurbjörn Reimarsson. “The weather was exceptionally good through July and August and only turned in the final days. We’re very satisfied with the trip.”

Although Kirkella can tow two trawls at once, the crew used a single trawl for almost the whole trip, which cut fuel consumption.

New gear

The Flemish Cap has been hard on equipment in recent years, causing costly wear to trawl door shoes, bobbins and wires. For this season, Kirkella was fitted with a new type of trawl door, and conventional rockhopper ground gear was replaced with Flow Gear, a relatively new Norwegian system. The Flow Gear, under both trawls, was used on its second trip of the year.

“We’re very pleased with the results and will keep using Flow Gear next year,” said Sigurdsson. “It’s a real game-changer for the deck crew. It’s lighter and much easier to handle than conventional rockhopper gear.”

Most of the crew left the vessel in Hull. Following two weeks in port, Kirkella has sailed for Cuxhaven in Germany with a crew of 13, where it will spend the winter preparing for the next season, which begins in January.

Before Brexit, Kirkella fished about 300 days a year. Since then, lost access to fishing grounds and an industry-wide decline in cod stocks have cut its season considerably, leaving one of Britain’s few remaining distant-water trawlers tied up for months at a time.