Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1938, Page 320
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LE NORD
banks. The trawl is made ready for a haul — ur a trice it is
in the water and the strong wires roll over the winch. The crew
will now have to give up the rest they enjoyed while crossing the
Atlantic and work to the utmost of their ability day and night,
and no one works harder than the skipper himself. Almost always
he is on the bridge, ready to give orders; all depends on his
watchful eye. It is his duty to make the most that is possible of
every minute, because time is money, the cost of running such a
trawler may amount to £ 60 to £ 70 a day. There is good co-
operation and fellowship on board. The work goes on at a rapid
rate. Perhaps the trawl is taken up every hour and the catch
hauled onto the deck by machines. Often the catch is so large that
it has to be divided into several groups in order to make it pos-
sible to take it on board. The trawl is immediately put into the
sea again if it is ready, but if it is torn, it has to be mended at
once or a new trawl used in its place, because the fishing must
not be interrupted. While the trawl is being towed the crew are
busy sorting the catch according to the species — and there may
be many species — and according to the size of the fish. They
try to prepare the catches especially for the market the fishing
is done for, and since they know to which country the catch is
to be taken, special stress is laid upon catching the species of food-
fish suited for the market in question.
If our cruise on the trawler had taken place at another time
of the year, e. g. in March, it would have turned out differently.
Then the chief aim would have been cod fishing on the rich spaw-
ning grounds in the warm water area, and the fish would have
been dealt with in another way. Then we should have witnessed
a link in the chain of klipfish production. When the catch is on
deck the cod and other species suitable for klipfish are decapitated,
the guts and the front half of the vertebrae are removed. Then
the fish is washed and salted, and when the trip is over, the catch
is landed, washed, dried and prepared for the markets in the Me-
diterranean countries.
As regards the other fishing some remarks must be made. We
may conveniently, distinguish three main kinds of fisheries: (1)
codfishing with trawl and long-line, (2) herring fishery, (3)
Danish-seine fishery. On the big long-line steamships the daily
work is done in a different way from that on the trawler, for here
long-line are used and a great part of the time is spent in baiting
the hooks. But the curing of the fish when there is fishing for