The arrival of “Atlantic Dawn”, the world’s largest trawler, in the Dutch port of Velsen in March to join the Dutch fleet marked the end of Irish involvement in pelagic freezers and the strengthening of the Pelagic Freezer trawler Association’s (PFA) position, reports Pieter Tesch.
With her 145m length, gross tonnage (GT) of 14,055 tonnes and power of 20,000 kilowatt (KW) built for operating mainly in third countries such as Mauritania, she became known as the ‘controversial Irish super trawler’ and an object of hate for environmentalists.
This image was not helped by the controversial way in which “Atlantic Dawn” was placed on the Irish fishing register after her delivery from Norway in 2000. Her owner, the late Kevin McHugh, was allowed to take her sister ship “Veronica” off the register while retaining her GT.
Further controversy occurred when “Atlantic Dawn” was banned from Mauritania last year because of breaches under the old fisheries treaty with the EU and she subsequently went fishing in the South Pacific outside the 200 mile zone off Chilli, where the PFA’s “Maartje Theadora” was already fishing.
Following the unexpected death of Mr McHugh on 31 October last year the EU’s small freezer trawler community wondered about the long term future of “Atlantic Dawn”, but news of her sale to Dutch trawler firm Parlevliet & van der Plas, one of the core companies within the PFA, at the end of February caused a shock, especially in Ireland.
While no industry spokesman was prepared to comment on the record, a senior industry insider said that the owners of the remaining 22 pelagic trawlers would follow with interest what would happen to her GT and KW as the Atlantic Dawn company now only has two years to place another fishing vessel on the Irish register.
In The Netherlands, Dirk van der Plas said that “Atlantic Dawn” will be renamed and reflagged as Dutch and will initially fish in EU waters.
He confirmed that currently she can not return to Mauritania because under the new EU treaty there is an upper limit of 9500GT for pelagic freezers allowed to fish there, but he said that she might return to the South Pacific.
