A new way of mounted gillnets has been invented by Icelandic company Neptunas.
The invention consists of a pre-mounted net on a mounting line with self-hardening knots. Björn Halldórsson, Neptunas' founder says, "Nobody believed the mounting would hold when being hauled in but the self hardening knots did their job even though they where only slightly tilted. And with the gained flexibility in the net because of the mounting line, the nets are reported to be catching more fish. Also the loose meshes take the force together evenly when being hauled in, instead of only one mesh when the net is sewed, making the nets last much longer."
“Apart from being much faster and easier to mount and cut off, according to reports from over 800 customers in Norway, The Faroe Islands and Iceland that use our new way of mounting, our expectations have been exceeded by far," says Mr Halldórsson. "I admit we had some difficulties to begin with, such as the material in the mounting line, as well as having our customers mount correctly by pulling ONLY the mounting line instead of the rope. Once this was cleared our customers became extremely happy."
When compared to other existing methods by hand and sewing, mounting the new net multiplies the productivity speed from triple up to 10 times. Neptunus' machine, MOUNTER EC-1500, can mount both ropes simultaneously. Mr Halldórsson says that this is the only machine in the world capable of that. Equipment for mounting by hand is also provided by Neptunus.
“Some customers still insist on the knots being hardened. We have solved that by making a new special knot that hardens to no return. It can be used with our machine and our other mounting equipment” says Mr Halldórsson.
