Sapphire, the flagship brand of PE compact nettings from the Indian manufacturer Garware Wall Ropes Ltd, is becoming more and more popular amongst trawl owners around the world, with a particularly good response from skippers in South Africa and Namibia.
Irvin and Johnson (I&J) of Cape Town, South Africa, had excellent feedback on Sapphire from its bottom trawling vessels “Baronia” and “Crassula”, which catch hake. Now I&J uses Sapphire nettings for almost all of its trawler fleet.
Similarly, many trawlers in Iceland, Norway and Denmark had very good results when using Sapphire for fish and shrimp. Garware also sells to the shrimp industry in the USA and Australia. These shrimp trawls are part completed in India.
Fuel saving is one of the most important attributes of Sapphire, now that fuel prices are going up every day.
The company started in 1976 with the mission of supplying quality products to the industrial and fisheries sectors and has come a long way since then. Now it operates two large factories for ropes and nets and employs a total work force of 2,500. The netting factory is fully equipped to produce high quality PE Nylon nets. A year ago the company added knotless netting machines to complete its full range for trawling, purse seining and aquaculture.
Olivene Mk 3 netting, which is the second most successful brand after Sapphire, is becoming more and more popular in Russia for its high strength, improved abrasion resistance and compact twine geometry. Olivene is also very popular in the New Zealand and Scottish markets.
The company has made big inroads in the pelagic segment. In 2005 Garware Wall went in to collaboration with Carlsen Nets from Denmark to manufacture pelagic nets.
Garware Wall sells its pelagic nets under the brand name ‘Thor’. The fishing vessel “Athena” fishes in Mauritanian waters using the bellies supplied by Garware Wall. After few months of use, the bellies are performing to expectations during the demanding fishing conditions in West Africa for mackerel and sardinella. These bellies are fabricated out of Sapphire as well as nylon pelagic Thor nettings.
The pelagic ropes are sold under brand name ‘Maxi braid’ and these ropes have given good results.
To help current Net-loft customers to prosper in the current competitive market, Garware went ahead with forward integration by starting ‘Net Assembly Shop’ in 2002 and became a fabricator of products as per customer’s designs. Consistent high quality workmanship and a wide range of in-house products has helped the company to achieve more than 100% growth in the Net Assembly section in the last four years.
