Polar Fishing Gear of Iceland has recently introduced its new ‘Hercules’ trawl doors - a low aspect version of it semi-pelagic ‘Mercury’ trawl doors suitable for bottom and ‘off the seabed’ fishing.

FV Carina and FV Marina Polaris from Scotland and FV Fuschia from South Africa had the first pairs of Hercules doors installed.

Nathan, skipper on Fuschia said: “These doors are definitely lighter for towing, hauling and shooting than our previous doors. For the monktrawl, it is perfect towing at slow speed. With the hake trawl, it performs at best when towing at 3.6 to 3.7 knots.”

Atli Már Jósafatsson of Polar Fishing Gear says: “Trawl doors like the semi-pelagic series of Polar’s standard Mercury doors or the low aspect ratio version Hercules doors are ideal to obtain full spread of the gear without bottom contact.”

Skipper Birgir Sverrisson on FV Vestmannaey was the first to install Hercules doors in Iceland and during his first trips he tried the doors on depth from 30 to 420 fathoms with good results. Most of the time he used long bridles with extra weight keeping the doors “off the seabed”.

Orders have also been coming in for Polar Fishing Gear’s other trawl doors. A pair of Jupiter 10m2 doors (3600kg) was recently delivered to the St. Petersburg based company INOK for its factory trawler FV King Bora, which fishes in Mauritania. INOK’s FV King Dory also has a pair of Jupiter 10m2 doors.

A pair of Jupiter 9.5m2 doors (3500kg) was delivered to Russian factory trawler, FV Lazurnyy, owned by the Kaliningrad based Westrybflot. Lazurnyy fishes for mackerel and horse-mackerel in Mauritania.

A pair of Neptune 10.5m2 (3200kg) have been delivered to Seattle for Trident Seafood’s factory trawler, FV Seattle Enterprise. Her sister vessel, FV Island Enterprise has used Neptune 10.5m2 doors for the past three seasons catching Yellowfin sole in Alaska with very good results.

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