HB Grandi : Brighter fishing on blue whiting

23.04.2019

Brighter fishing on blue whiting

HB Grandi's pelagic vessel Víkingur is on its way to Vopnafjörður with a full payload of blue whiting caught at the southern end of the Faroese EEZ. This is Víkingur's second capacity trip in a row, having landed 2600 tonnes to the Vopnafjörður factory on Wednesday last week.

'Catch rates have been good. We were fishing for three and a half days and generally had 400 tonne hauls after 12-14 hours tows. I reckon we have around 2600 tonnes, and that's a full trip with optimum cooling of the catch,' said skipper Hjalti Einarsson when we spoke to him earlier today. The course had been set for Vopnafjörður, with an expected arrival time of 2100 tomorrow.
According to Hjalti Einarsson, Víkingur spent the trip in the southern part of the Faroese zone and he said that is a real difference now over how much activity there is.

'There are many more ships there than there were before Easter. The fishing south of the line is drying up now, and there are mainly a few Dutch trawlers there now. I reckon the Norwegians have caught their quota and the same goes for the Scots and the Irish.'

He commented that the fishing is more or less what is expected at this time of year and the blue whiting situation appears to be healthy, as the sizes are nothing different from usual.