Through mutually beneficial agreements between Russia and Norway, the Russian whitefish fleet has enjoyed access to the fishing grounds in the western Barents Sea and inside the Norwegian zone.
In return, Norwegian trawlers get access to the Russian fishing sectors – but an added bonus for Norway is that many Russian vessels have established Norwegian landing bases and this has boosted the onshore service providing sector.
With many Russian trawlers now landing their catches into Norway and in particular the Norebo Norwegian-based fleet, vital services for existing and new fishing gear, trawl doors and marine electronics are benefitting from the needs of this additional fleet of vessels.
Landing in Norway has also given Russian vessel operators opportunities to see many other Norwegian and other European fishing vessels, providing them with an insight into the products and services available to them – which includes Norwegian trawl gear monitoring specialist Scanmar, which has played a role for many years in supplying this highly specialised technology for fishing vessels around the world. One of Russia’s largest fishing companies, Norebo, with a fleet of forty fishing vessels in total, operates twelve twin-rig trawlers in Norwegian sectors, and the company is now planning to install Scanmar systems on board all ten of the new 85 metre trawlers it currently has under construction.
“We have found that the old saying that you get what you pay for is very true in the case of these types of systems,” said Norebo Technical Manager (Norway Division) Evgeniy Geroev, adding that other products might be slightly cheaper but when you have to pay for many repairs of the cheaper product over time, it makes better economic sense to purchase the more reliable item at the start.
“It’s not just about money. As a fleet operating company we listen carefully to feedback from our skippers and from our experienced fishermen and when they tell us that one product is more reliable and better than another then naturally, we take this into consideration when improving an existing vessel or building a new one,” he explained.
“Most importantly, we are well aware that Scanmar is the most stable trawl monitoring system on the market and while some other products might include more functions, it is often a case that these extra functions are unnecessary features which perhaps make the overall system look good but hide the fact that the important functions are not up to the standard that they should be,” Evgeniy Geroev added.
