Petrel Engineering, the Cape Town based deck machinery supplier, recently equipped local vessel “Castella” with her net handling gear.
“Castella” is a 19m GRP hulled vessel operated by Laingville Fishing, located near St Helena Bay, on the Cape West Coast.
The equipment was specifically designed for the smaller inshore pelagic purse seiners and was based on Petrel’s experience in providing efficient deck machinery to international commercial fishing fleets. Innovative new features such as the synthetic maintenance-free sheave bushes running on stainless steel shafts, as well as interchangeable sheaves between the net hauler and the net stacker, together with Petrel’s traditional use of stainless steel rather than cast aluminium material for the net guides, compliment these new models.
The basic design of the net hauler evolved from Petrel’s NW 39 vee sheave models, which were recently sold to tuna seiner vessel owners on France’s North Atlantic coastline. These French skippers are the first European owners to use the Petrel system of a vee sheave net hauler, coupled with a separate vee sheave net stacker, rather than the traditional single hanging power block, for tuna seining.
Skippers and owners in countries such as Ecuador, Philippines and Australia have been using the Petrel system successfully on skipjack, yellowfin and southern bluefin tuna species for many years. Prior to awarding the contracts to Petrel to supply the deck equipment for their new boats, three of the French skippers visited Chile and South Africa to see Petrel equipped vessels in operation.
Advantages such as reduced net hauling time, the ability to fish in rough weather, less damage to nets and floats and fewer crew in the netbin area, are achieved with the Petrel system. The vee-sheave net hauler, Petrel model NW32-H2 has a core pull of 5t and the net stacker, NS 32-H, a pull of 2.5t. Petrel is now able to offer net haulers with sheave diameters ranging from 0.8m through to 2m with pulls ranging from 5t to 47t. Net stackers range from the 0.8m sheave model with a pull of 2.5t and a maximum stacking radius of 2.6m to the articulated net crane stacker with a core pull of 9t and stacking radius of 13.6m.
Other deck machinery such as fixed and knuckle boom marine cranes, purse, trawl and general purpose winches, anchor winches, submersible fish pumps, vertical and horizontal capstans, together with the required hydraulic power packs and controls, complete Petrel’s range of deck machinery.
