Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to see Good Matters everybody. Today,
I'm speaking with Adrian Bartlett, a lifelong friend and heavily
involved with Ecomotives and Assured Marine companies are both working
on technology designed to cut fuel consumption and reduce drag
and lower emissions, not as a theory, but impractical working vessels.
This isn't about the slogans and policy targets. It's about
weather innovations can genuinely make fishing more efficient, more profitable
and fit for the future. Hi, Arian, welcome back to
see Good Matters. Thank you for joining us again.
Speaker 2: Now, Hi Jim, Now it's always a pleasure. You know
that we can never get too tired. Thank you for
inviting me back.
Speaker 1: Thank you you started late. And see, I know you're
pipping tick. That affects the whole commercial fishing fleet. What's
the biggest mainset shift you've had moving from fisher mode
marine tick.
Speaker 2: It was obviously when I started in the fishing industry
and then retired. There's always kind of difficult to know
where your place sits. And then it was a chance
meeting for a friend, a mutual friend between myself and
Jason Monroe, and that was over six years ago now,
and I entered the world in about hydrogen. I've always
known it's Hydrogen's there. I've always known it's been an
abundant element, or one of the most abundant abundant elements
in the universe. So it took me quite a few
years to take my mind away from going out catching
shellfish to start discussing high level hydrogen and moving the
ecomotors ecopro within the fishing industry. So I had to
learn pretty quickly about legislation, you know, explosive levels of hydrogen,
you know, working with the MCA, working with class. So
the mindset is still happening today. It's something that you
cannot not keep continually moving forward with Jim. So you know,
nearly every day is a learning day, which it should
be any rate, but when you're working, you know, in
the first instance, with hydrogen, and then you're trying to
convince people that we can aid the engines combustion efficiency
by just putting a little small amount of catalytic hydrogen
into the engine. It's a big tour order and an
ask when the technology is relatively new, even six years old,
still a new technology that we're putting on marine engines,
but I can never get bored by talking about it
because of the benefits of the system outwighs. If you've
got to explain yourself five ten times a day, Jim.
Speaker 1: I think that's interesting the litericing point. If I could
ask you and I know how I feel about the
same question, but you're talking the little bit hydrogen and
how you enjoy talking about it. I think I pressurement
started off going to see do you still feel you're
part of the fishing industry.
Speaker 2: I would love to think so, Jim. But outside working
alongside Jason and Kirsten, I still put a lot of
effort in to other organizations, you know, with the Plymouth
Fishing and Seafood Association, I do a lot with them,
and with Ed working between the fishermen and the supply
chain and trying to get the Plymouth public to understand
that they can still buy the fresh fish. And also
with Gemma at Devon Young Fishers working with them to
try to get more recruitment into the fishing industry. And
I still walk on keys in harbors around the country
and still try to stay so connected with the industry
because it doesn't make a difference if you're working in technology,
or you're a service provider, or you're actually working on
the boats. We've got to protect the boats that go
and catch our species. So all in all, it doesn't
make a difference what area you are in. You are
still connected to the fishing industry, and after spending the
amount of time of me being at sea, you would
hope that would carry some influence or some moving forward
when you do decide to go into a different area
of the industry, if it's innovation or tech or catching you.
Speaker 1: Get all that. I was just thinking what you feel
in your head? Do you in your head? Are you
still in it? I'll tell you where I'm coming from.
I don't want to trap you, Adrian, there's no traps.
I for twenty two years, my last twenty two years
working at our seafood restaurant and scrabs it. And yes,
I would accept some people saying to me, I was
in the hospitality industry, but my mein U is one
hundred percent seafood. So I still clasped myself as in
the fishing industry. And that's how I got away with it,
because the menu is one hundred percent seafood.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would think I would like to say that
I remember you phoning me up, Jim, years and years
ago and asking can you freeze down a home cook crab?
And I think if you remember and I told you
the process, and then you phone me back up, and
the worst thing to do is to obviously annoy a chef,
let alone a scott, a chef with a restaurant if
it was all wrong and it worked out quite fine.
So am I still a fisherman?
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, sorry, not a fisherman. Are you
still feel you're in the fishing industry?
Speaker 2: Yes, I do, simple quo. Yes I do. I think
I'm still in it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, But I'll just correct you on the point
you said they're when you talked about chefs, I always
clasped myself, even when I was round the tables in
the restaurant talking to customers and they would refer to
me as a chef, and I would say, no, no,
I'm not a chef, I'm the cook. Ye. I would say, oh, well,
what's a difference. Or I would say there's a massive difference.
A chef has lots of attitude, a cook as manegle
and eagle.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's like when me and Sarah. We set up
a pop up restaurant that we used to put in
in food vessels in during lockdown, we opened up The
Curious Crab. There was no chefs in the kitchen. Were
just cooking the best produce that was brought to our
door every day. And I think you get more passion.
Sorry chef, but I think you get more passion on
a plate if you're a cook, more so than if
you're a chef. Best product on a on a cook's
plate than there is a chef's plate. They kind of
put too much with it.
Speaker 1: They well, i'll tell you what you're one hundred percent
rate there, and I'll tell you something what it takes
to Miand when you see that, I class myself as
a cook because I had no ego as far as
that was concerned. And the number of teams I was
Roan teables And you know the comment many many customers
made they reckon they could see the love.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I was more front of the house where
Sarah was up in the kitchen, and I was even
with the pop up restaurant. You know, Sarah and a
couple of andies, you know, they were cooked, you know,
and they could see it on the plate without shadow
of doubt because it was just you know, it's like
when you come to the Curious Crab and you want
girded and chips. It was garnered and chips. There was
no foams, there was no split oils, there were no
no petals and pansies all over the top of it.
It was just glded and chips. And yeah, there's there's
a place for fine dining and there's a place where
mixed in Stark. It's just all about good food, isn't it.
But yeah, if it's girded and chips, you can't go wrong.
And if they didn't like it, they didn't either like
the chips or they didn't like the girner, did they
It was nothing else with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you've worn a lot of huts skipper seafood
and bussa or lecture or which rule has taught you
the most about we're at the seafood industry gets stuck
on innovation.
Speaker 2: Well, it's funny, it was on a on a three
hour Ever since meeting Jason, I started sitting in different
rooms with different people about innovation and there's there's certain
innovations out there that can aid the fishing industry today.
But when you're dealing with government then they they're not
moving fast enough and they're a little bit behind the time.
With other countries that's working to so called net zero.
But what they don't understand with the fishing industry, we've
we've got to kind of meet similar targets is the
other marine industries around the UK, but that they're they're
going going at the wrong way. We've got to look
at the efficiency in the bottom line of the boats
more so than talking about emissions and Tier three and
all that. That's it's happening. So I think we've got
a long way to go and the product's got to work,
isn't it And it's got to prove itself for any
fishermen to take it up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's good. If you could go back to your
personal point for the tame Idrian, I believe you're no
a point. Can you tell our listeners about of that?
Speaker 2: Well, accidents happen, doesn't it really? But when I was
at sea, it's getting the confidence even come to talk
to you or when you gain confidence, you know, so
you go to see for a reason you you don't
like people, you don't like talking to you apart from
your crew and you're doing a natural thing by a catching.
But I've always written down thoughts ideas letter in wording
when I was at sea, and sea states, sunrises, birds
landing on the water, the crews moving around the deck.
And I had a big personal issue in the early
noughties over me. Son and Suddody said you need to
just write, write your thoughts down, and write it down.
So I started kind of constructing a little bit of
poetry or a few stories over the troubles trying to
see the sun. Hector. It was a huge, huge, the
biggest thing I've ever had to ever have to task in.
You know, he's twenty three now and it's fine. But
I wrote some stories, write a bit of poetry, and
they were just in a box. And then last year
Besially Paul from the Channel Association said, look, we've been
invited to go to a there's a bio learning center
down in South Devon based in Totness and they were
doing a bio banquet in What the bio learning center
does is try to get people connected to food and
where it comes from. And they wanted somebody from the
fishing industry, and yeah, I've been standing up on stage
since twenty eleven showing seafood to the public, and Bestally
just thought I might be able to do that. But
I had seven or eight minutes since she said, look,
they need a story, they want a story. So I
drafted a story out about taking the audience in that
room to see one early morning to go and catch
some crab, and I thought, let's just try it. So
I just put a little poem in and it got
received really really well, and then it's just grown from there.
Jim to be Fair and then Gemma Jukes from them
and young Fishers. They've done an open day with a
load of young younger, younger people wanted to look and
then I kind of be spoke from there and it's
just snowboard and then Sarah ku tail with the iff.
So I opened up the ISFF in Newcastle the other
day and so what I'm putting together is a little
bit be spoke for people, and I've got a couple
more coming up. Now. I'm not going to write a book.
I'm not going to do anything like that, but I
think if what I want to try to it's like
when I read it at the ISFF, I'm dyslexic, and
I read the poem I wrote for Sarah, and that
isff Synopson was called a tideworth Turning. I read that
one hundred times and I still got to read it
off a page, and I still missed four important lines
out because my dyslexia was just moving that poem around
that my a five pages like I had to catch
the words to recite them. And I just want to
if I can get up and talk in a room,
and I think we might. I would like people to
understand if I can do it, and if you're in
a room with scientists, you know, please put your hand
up and get your your voice heard. And I think
that that's why I think I'm putting myself out of
my comfort zone by doing this. If I can do it,
anybody can do it, Jim, I would thinks I would
hope they could. If you see what I mean.
Speaker 1: Well, you know one of the thing in Idrian two
as it does as well, everyone loves us doory.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they do, they do. And you know in
the industry around what a tide worth turning is captured,
is captured. Every harbor fishing community around the UK coastline
on where we are now, and it's worth turning. It's
worth supporting the industry and the fishing boat in the
career and families that are still operating. I know we're
in difficult times again for no thought of our own
and but we've got to look at the communities and
provide our own food security. It comes down to that,
doesn't it in.
Speaker 1: The end totally before we move on. We're just like,
if you were comfortable about it, will maybe at the
end we'll come out with a recal from you if
you would like to, Jim, Yes, I would love to,
and I'm sure our listeners would as well, So we'll
look forward to that. If it's not putting you on
the spot.
Speaker 2: No, it's not putting me on the spot, Jim. As
you know, we've all every time you get over your nervousness,
and we always make mistakes and say the wrong thing.
But one thing I've never done is been political with
in our industry at all. I'm not interested in that.
I'm just interested in trying to put a bit of
positiveness within the industry and get the public towe eat
a bit more fish. Really so, but you're always always nervous,
you can get picked up. But as we got thick skins,
it goes above me head at the end of the day. Anyway,
we have nerves. That's a perfect simple body reaction. Yeah
it is, it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no credit to your credit to you.
Speaker 2: If I can follow Raymond Blanc from my very first
cooking demo in twenty twelve in Oxford with a thousand people,
and we've just had our new shirts come out, the
wrappers and I've still got the FOD lines down, I
think I can recite this poem for you this afternoon.
Speaker 1: Well my only response to that is I'm not interested
in Raymond Blong and you're not you for all you've
done in your career, Adrian, you're not a follower.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no. We got to.
Speaker 1: Say absolutely absolutely and you do. And see if you
don't see if ground as well here because right through
my career, when a factor is restaurant whatever, as far
as I was concerned anybody wanting to come on board
as a member of staff or in any situation, I
was never interested, no matter what the qualifications were. If
they never made mistakes, I wasn't interested.
Speaker 2: Now and you've got to learn by those mistakes, haven't
you really? You know it's anyway learning in it And
it's like anything. I remember being a kid and I
accidentally knit me brothers push bike and smash it the
pieces and I owned up to it. You can't hide
behind it and you can't say, oh something else is
that you know I micked it and bust it. Well
you know, sorry.
Speaker 1: You at least then you're seeing some an honest person
rather yeah, somebody that that speaks louder than what you've
actually done.
Speaker 2: But it does link into those gym, doesn't it about.
You've got to be a have credible and you've got
to be accountable for your actions in as we know
in the fishing industries, the every owner and every skipper
has got to be accountable of every minute there at
sea and every catch they catch. And then the people
that are providing policy or look into this, they're not accountable.
And I think they need to be accountable. If they've
made a decision it's not working, they should own it,
look at it, change it and move on. And it's
just unfortunate that they're not accountable and they should be accountable.
Because alfrom the Civics, eudents and half of them has
been voted in and if they're not working, I think
they need to be accountable for their actions. And you know,
I think we're further ahead if we can make make
them accountable. So it does lead into.
Speaker 1: That in the political world, or the people and the
men and the political people in the political world, that's
a tough ask to get.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they should be. It should be so simple.
You know, they have a review every year and if
they've not done a job, boot them out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the way it was with us as youngsters.
If you didn't do your job, you were out. You
lost it. E comotes an ecopro take let's cut to it,
a hydrogen electoralizer on a diesel engine. Zones Lake ski Fei.
For first, what's as simple as we're do we explain
why that ecoprol actually works well.
Speaker 2: Going back to Jason, you know the way he was
looking at hydrogen. He's looked at hydrogen in a totally
different way to most It's one of the most abundant
element in the universe, and he's just kind of harnessed it.
But simply we put a water container on a vessel
that hodes deer and knows water so break it down
and then we use electrolyzers to produce the hydrogen. But
when we produce hydrogen through electrolyzers, we also produce oxygen.
But Jason's technology and paintings and technology worldwide, we split
that off and in its pure hydrogen that just goes
into the air filter of any diesel engine or petrol engine.
In the splus concept is as the hydrogen is pulled
into the natural combustion chain of that cycle of that engine,
the hydrogen burns the last part of the fuel in
the combustion chamber. It's not burnt an engine hasn't got
enough energy to burn, or the fuel and fuel molecules
burn from outside in. It doesn't explode inside out. It's
the other way. So as the hydrogen is connected to
the carbon chain of the host cycle of that engine,
we give a quicker explosion and the hydrogen aids the
engine to burn ninety nine point nine percent of that
fuel and that's all all it's doing. That's that's the
simplest way of it's of explaining the ecopro It's diagnosed water.
We turn diagnosed water into hydrogen, goes into the engine
that aids the total burn or nearly the total burn
of the combustion cycle.
Speaker 1: Very good, you are savings and the missions reduction so
great on paper, but how much of this has an
independent metrivacation outside company trails?
Speaker 2: Well, when I started working with Jason, I remember having
a cup of coffee with him in a pub and
it's just the year of lockdown and I listened to
him and it was a lot of information to take in,
especially when you're not in that field. I knew straight
away we had to communicate and to get the mc
A on side. So the first call was to the
m c A and then we started working with the
m c A and they gave us some brilliant guidance,
but they said that seeing you're working in this field,
you have to go and get a class society to
sign off by class, which is twelve around the country.
Lloyd's been the most recognizable one. I checked loads of
emails out explaining what we want to do. One class society,
come back Rina and we got class and then from
there we've developed it with the MCA to be recognized.
So but we've had independent testing done in with universities
in Newfoundland, in Scotland, in the UK, or England iced
to say in further Afield, but the proofs in the
pudding really. So the oldest fishing vessel that we've had
it on is the Emma Jane and we put that
on nearly six years ago now and we've no issues,
no thoughts and saving. So I think for especially for
the fishing industry, you could have the best, I don't know,
the best microwave in the world that doesn't move when
you're in a gal. But you've got to get that
microwave on that boat to prove it doesn't move in
a gal if it's on a gimball whatever. So real
life trialing and testing with owners is the best way
to get new technology and new innovation in the fishing industry.
So we approached a few they're all still on there
and then that gain momentum and the savings is like
you know with Dave Stevens, I know you had them
on recently. There's only so many skippers and owners out
there willing to have a buy technology. One thing you
cannot do is to shrupt the cycle of that vessel.
They've got to go to see, they've got to catch.
So we work around odd hours, you know, fishing is
three hundred and sixty five days a year twenty four
to seven. So you work is a a supply, you
got to work that way. And in the last three
years we had an article go out the Fishing News.
We've saved the crystal see two hundred and thirty five
thousand pounds in three years of a cost after his
initial cost, which was fifty percent funded. You know, the
system takes about fifty p's worth of water a week
to save that amount. I haven't got the figures on hand,
but I know it was eighty six thousand pounds worth
of fuel savings and the rest was in maintenance savings
and oil changes. So you know, if you can get
a twenty five meter boat saving eighty grand a year
eighty ninety thousand pounds a year for forty per week
after the initial cost in the payback period, and it
comes back down to the bottom line. And it's just
not Dave's boat that saved money. All the vessels that
were on even we're on a dredger in the port
of Bria Stall and she's saving eighteen percent on fuel,
and some of the bigger scolopers are up between fifteen
and sixteen percent on fuel and maintenance. So the more
feedback new innovation can get, the better we can market
it within within the industry. So it's it's longevity. Six
years now Ecomotors has been operating in the fishing industry
and it's been a long six years. But the figures
can't lie. It just can't lie. It's impossible to adopt
or adjust those figures. It's coming from the owners operators itself.
Speaker 1: And the best forum of marketing you can get no
matter how much you want to spend on advertise in
world of most beats all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it does you know. I know the fishing
industry is spread around what is seven a half thousand
miles of coastline, but you can have a little whispering
Newlyn in Plymouth and it's in Peter d before you
know it. So we're a very small community.
Speaker 1: I used to always discribe it Idrian, just say it
on a Monday morning, I sneezed on scrubs their market.
But the next morning and Bulliams get ahead of the flute.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, most definitely. And it comes back to
being credible because when you know, when Jason said to me,
it says, look, because Jason when when I kind of
started working ecomotives, they were on transport, they were on coaches,
and they were trying to break into the HTV market
in farm machinery. The farm machinery is kept ticking along,
but we could see the biggest value to help the
bottom line was in the marine industry. So I went
out and knocked on doors in you know, even if
you did go to you know, Nigel and Kevin favors
of the Emma Chane and you're asking them to put
hydrogen on their boat where they don't understand it, there's
a lot of work to be done. It's a little
bit easier now because people are understanding of technology. But
if it didn't work, ecomotives could just go back into tractors,
buses and lorries. But I've still got to live with
me taking ecomotives to the industry. So I had to
be confident that it done ats exactly what it's said
on the tin, and it does basically.
Speaker 1: How do you've fishermen really feel once it's installed.
Speaker 2: Well, there's no moving part. It's such a sophisticated piece
of kit. With our electronics we've got, you know, between
Jason and the rest of the team, Sam and James,
they work tireless, always the best it can be. Sole
process really you you you you phone us or email
us and lucky enough, over the last three or four
years we've with really brilliant work from Nathan Derazio down
in Cornwall there that writes the bids. We're we're just
a one quote bid too fast and you can get
support up to eighty percent towards the cost. And once
it's once it's put on the boat, there's no moving parts.
All we ask you is to keep an eye up
on the water reservoir and just top it up with
water and we'll always make sure that you've got enough
water to keep it going. But if not, when you're
filling up with fuel, you can go in and get
dr and O's water or battery water out of the
garage and keep it going. So once it's there, it
becomes a part and parce L you know, you walk
down on all any of our vessels and it's just
a part of the engine room. Now it's it's not
alien anymore. It's become and a part of a marine
engine's makeup. If you see what I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you talk about hydrogen enrichment, improving combustion. Are there
practical down scenes. Of course, Maintland's crew training that people
aren't talking about.
Speaker 2: No, no, nothing at all. We've got to follow a
build requirement from RINA and the MCA, which is a
tick sheet we do. We've got to go through on
our test rigs. So each system is built and it's
built to a standard because obviously we're talking about safety
at sea, and then it goes through two weeks of
testing from the minimum what that boat requires to over
maximize in that the hydrogen production towards the engine, and
that goes through two weeks of rigorous that's all monitored
and then there's a installation criteria and process that we
follow and that's including crew engineers and skippers training on
the system, how to isolate the system, what the system
is actually doing. There's a troubleshooting booklet, and we leave
a whole ecomotors ecopro booklet in the wheelhouse for any
MCA visits or anything, so that they know the ecopros
on there and it's just part and part of there.
So there's no specialized training because they're dealing with water.
That's all they're dealing with is water. They're not dealing
with the hydrogen production itself. The hydrogen productions come from water.
There's one liter of water produces in and around two
and twenty two liters of hydrogen. So Dave Stephens Crystal
c is only using two hundred and three liters of
hydrogen per week. So when it comes to flag states
the MCA in over safety hydrogen L E L explosive
levels forty thousand ppm, which is a lot. But with
all our testing and when we measured the hydrogen we
do flow tests with the hydrogen, we're at no point,
not four percent. We don'e a report with Dave's boat
for us to get to L E L. We'll never
get there. We're nowhere. We never get to an explosive
level with hydrogen because it just will not get there.
We will not produce enough hydrogen. And as of all,
if fans turned off the engine running at four revs,
we will run out of water even before we get
there because there's a flow switch in the water reservoir.
That flow switch stops, it shuts the system down, so
we never get to well L. So last year we've
become SOLASS accredited for solast vessels, which we're working with
companies up in out of Aberdeen on the oil and
supporting the oil and gas fills like you know.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you do come up to all the standards required.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah. And we're just nearly completing Lloyd's now as well,
so and BP. So we're slowly getting recognized with of
a class that we've got a solution that can be
put on a boat started up six hours later and
it's meeting the requirements.
Speaker 1: Okay, I mean, you know the fishing industry well Inrian,
it lives and days by margins. So do we you
respond to skippers who say we don't care about emissions
until fuel places drop.
Speaker 2: Well, I said earlier, I think obviously we were driven
because you're looking at the government's net zero quality, which
is thirty twenty thirty. I think it's jumped up to
sixty five for twenty forty and net zero by twenty fifty.
And I sit on loads of webinars, sit in loads
of rooms, and we're not going to get there. We're
just not going to get there. But when you ask
the Department of Transport, and I know I'm not going
to mention names, but I work closely with the guy
that's overseeing net zero for marine and they're thirty percent
and they don't know where they are now in twenty
twenty six, let alone where they're going to be thirty percent. Now,
if you go to a fisherman, there's certain aspects of
the fishing industry that supermarkets may be looking at the
carbon footprint more so farm Let's say, so there's a
value there because we can reduce your carbon footprint down.
But it's the bottom line again any business, if we
were a car manufacturer or we had a fleet of boats,
it's the bottom line. And if you can make your
bottom line more healthier, you're working in the right direction
any rate. So, but we've tried to approach a sensible
you know, my friends in the fishing industry with the
two scenarios, right, we can reduce your emissions, but there's
an offset against fuel savings. What would you rather have
is fuel savings that come out every single time the
IMO has made our country into Tier three well from
five degrees east and four in Scotland they call it
in the Mission Control area the English Channel, North Sea,
Baltic Top of Scotland. Next year, the Irish Sea, the
Celtic Sea and the rest of the Northern Atlantic comes
into an ECA, So there is requirements from the MCA.
You know, a lot of people want to swap out
to a new engine since January January the first twenty
twenty one. But the solutions is not really practical, like
the sers and the add blue systems. So but if
there's a vessel, there got an eight LEXB in there,
and a LEXB is doing its job over the last
thirty forty years, you can still better that eight LEXB
to be a little bit more fuel efficient. So if
it's not broken, don't fix it kind of thing, you know,
just keep like with sorry Jim with Dave's boat. You know,
he's C thirty two. I've not listened to his podcast, yes,
but I will catch up, you know with his top
end overhauls and his four rebuilds. You know, he's got
to thirty six or thirty seven thousand hours and they
stripped the boat down, the engine down this year and
it could have done another ten thousand hours by putting
a little bit of hydrogen in. So that's where his
big savings are. He is in the main.
Speaker 1: He mentioned that in the podcast that it's been all
as he calls it, it's a nobody in it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So it's a system that can be put
on who will get support from FAST and hopefully when
when FAST is going to lead into the Growth Fund
and we'll still be covered under the Growth Fund because
the government's got to start hitting targets. So you know,
whatever the system costs, if you get fifty percent towards it,
like Dave paid, is fifty percent off in twelve weeks
and then the other two years in less eleven weeks,
is in profit. It pays you back, It looks after you,
and you can invest. What's what Dave's invested. You know,
he's probably invested in safety, a crew crew safety more
with his money? Is he paid the mortgage off a
little bit quicker with his vessel? You know, two hundred
and thirty five thousand pound is not a small amount
of money for a company to save in three years
in any business, no matter what you're doing. If if
somebody went to you in your own your restaurant says
well I can save you two hundred and thirty five
thousands on your operational costs in three years, you jump
at it.
Speaker 1: You would My answer would be yes, yes, and yes
again when you're talking a bit that if I could
just less on the on the subject you've mentioned funding
schemes like fast making installations more accessible. What stopping those
schemes being more universal across the UK countries Scotland, Whils
Northern Irelands.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well we were lucky enough of the fast scheme.
The funding team, we're pretty sensible and open at looking
at technologies and looking for the outcomes to be a
little bit wider than just looking at chucking it into projects.
If you see what I mean, then you know, yeah,
we all got to start with a project or a
scientific thing or it's not but at the end of
the day, or the technologies that can aid the fishing industry,
at some point they've got to go commercial. It's hand
and hand. What's the point of working four or five
years on a piece of the technology, don't matter if
it's net design, pop design. You know you've got the
claw binder designs coming up in you and obviously the
netflops and all that lot. We've got to get those
piece of equipment on the boat. So it's not worth done.
When it comes to Scotland, it seems to be really
difficult we submit funding applications into Marine Fund Scotland on
a yearly basis, we always get rejected and I've brought
the politicians in now in the MPs up there to
find out why. And we've had a response back from
Marine Fund Scotland and it might as well go into
Andy Pandy. Really it don't mean anything at all. There's
no substance behind their response at all. No, it's yeah,
and we've got a massive there's loads of boats from
the Shetlands to top of Scotland. And you know, I
was talking to Ian rightman this morning. We're going to
have another go with Ian to start with to see
if we can get across the line. You know when
you read into Marine First Scotland they got this blue
vision and well then then it's not is it? It's
it's a sixteen million pound just opened up there fast
is opening up next month. Where's that sixteen million going
to go in? I think it closes in May. You
haven't the operators, the suppliers haven't got an opportunity to
get an application in and get it through in such
a short period of time. And it does make you
wonder where this sixteen million is going to go. But
you know, if anybody from Marine Scotland listens to this podcast,
with all the innovation out there, you've got to start
supporting the vest to buy this innovation, to make the
industry better for them their bottom line. You know, they're
a business at the end of the day, and they're
just not the fishing industry. They're individual families that's trying
to survive and you need to pass and support them
by getting you know, the catch cans on the claw binders,
you know the eco pro you know now with the
other company I'm working with, with the prop coneens, and
there's loads of designs there and loads of innovation. But
you Marine Fund Scotland, please let the boats apply and
please support them because it's the only way you can
move forward or you're going to waste another sixteen million
quid up there and it's not going to go anywhere.
Speaker 1: The other part, which I don't understand, and maybe somebody
could explain it that I'm not getting. There's some part
I'm not getting, but I certainly have to see Adrian.
I'm not getting the seevings you were talking about. If
we wanted to make equivalent savings with her houses with
insuliation or something like that. We would not that they
would give us funding towards that.
Speaker 2: They would pay for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's Scotland. So if we have a house,
they'll do everything they can to reduce all the emissions
and energy of course, but if you go to see
they're not interested. I just don't get it.
Speaker 2: No, no, I don't get it either. That's what Look
when you look at what's happening in the world today,
you know, over the last two weeks, it's it's got
really ugly in it, and we're we're paying the price
for somebody else's and I'm not going to go into it,
but somebody else's thoughts and ideas is affecting every single
person in the UK daily, you know, on energy, and
that is now going to start affecting food security. And
what what what you cannot do is give away your resources.
You Okay, we've had to sell fish abroad because that's
where the markets are, but surely if it really goes wrong,
we need all our fish being landed and used inside
the UK, same as the farmers, every potato they produce,
every strawberry they get, every you know, everything that we
produce in the UK. We can feed our nation. Now,
what if it does go totally the wrong way? You know,
you know, going back in the first and second we
first and second World War, we fished for Britain and
we dug for Britain, you know, and we've lost that.
We've lost all of that efficiency and I think we
kind of need it bring it back. So if the
government's up there, don't look after the farmers and fishing.
We're going to be in rubbish food. It's really expensive
rubbish food being transported in on motible ships all the time.
Speaker 1: And we know.
Speaker 2: We've increasing the carbon foot blood and increase in the
carbon footprints. We'll never get to net zero? Will we.
Speaker 1: Could? Could there be a realistic is this realistic?
Speaker 2: Idrian?
Speaker 1: Could we put at risk of creating a two tier fleet?
Boards that can access funding and those that can't.
Speaker 2: What's happening now, isn't it. The Scottish fleet can't access it,
the English fleet can. And it's come from the same pot.
It's the same pot of money. But it's we've got
you know, sensible funders under fast. Yes they've you know,
they've researched it, but then why does the outcomes change
when it goes across the border to your neck of
the woods. I don't know. We can't put our finger
on it. And we've been trying four years up there
and you know, some of the some of the boat
owners yourself gym that's tried and they get rejected and
they don't They asked why the rejected in.
Speaker 1: Can we make us clearly, Drian, it's not just across
the border situation. You're lucky in England and you're we're
lucky and lucky in Scotland. This is decisions that in
England it's government approve it. In Scotland, our Scottish government don't.
So it's not something that's ablesm or you're lucky than
we're the poor, hard and people. We could we could approve.
Speaker 2: It as well. Just in my media, who runs is
it the Green Party?
Speaker 1: No, No, it's it's s n P Scottish national it's
a nationalist. But they'll do anything they can to make
it more awkward for their population.
Speaker 2: It's yeah, there's a lot of frustration with the with
the industry out there over funding a lot. There's a lot,
you know, and all they want to do is to
have the opportunity to get some funding too to invest
in these technologies.
Speaker 1: Just not they're laid by environmentalists who have who have
massive ports of money. And if they try to go
against them, the environmental groups, all the charities so called charities,
and they'll they'll take them to court and they can't
afford to go to court.
Speaker 2: So it's just a it makes you wonder, Yeah, it
makes you wonder how these people move and eat and sleep?
What are they eating? What are they what they're traveling
around in? You know, they got to get from A
to B. So they're using fossil fuels, no doubt for that.
And then they probably turn up somewhere and they're probably
eat in fish and chips, and hopefully the fish is
from the UK. So what do they expect. You know,
we still got to live, we're still human, and we've
still got to feed. Now, you can't alienate an industry.
You've got to work with all industries, haven't you, Because
the populations is only going to grow. I read somewhere
by twenty fifty, we need another five million tons of
food in the UK to even help support the population
of you know, and this food's got to come from somewhere,
and we've got to put the infrastructure in and we
got to support the farmers and fishermen to provide this
food because if we can't, where's it going to come from?
Where's it going to come from?
Speaker 1: Arian We have this Scottish Nationalist Party or our government
just now and they're they're talking about one independence for
Scotland now in the north. We're righting the far North here,
but it's the same in many many areas of our country.
We've had the depopulation of between twenty and twenty five
percent every year, and there's one mill's gone up everywhere
in our loveliest beauty spots and shore and at sea.
It's our best fishing grounds. So it's just beggars belief
what's going on. But it's a depopulation. And you know,
in any case like that, the people we lose first
are the younger people, the really people we want.
Speaker 2: And the very ones we need to support and carry
on exactly. You know, that's a massive point in it
really is just a rush to the bottom. Yeah, we
need to look at how we recruit, but that's another
total conversation. But you're right, we need you know, there's
a thing that's happening in Plymouth that the pair Fassay
is involved with at the moment with a national Marine
park is called season our schools and it's just in
the Plymouth area. So we go into schools. I was
in two schools this week. Year six is in eight
or nine year olds in primary school and we go
in there with a chef Matt Corner, and we go
in with a fisherman or me and we have two
hours with these young kids showing them the species and
we cook a posh fish finger for and what they
cook it themselves really chopped the advocado up and do
this in so this this week was about seventy five
children and seventy five children was just screaming and laughing
and you could see the joy about this fish and
we need we need to keep that kind of instilled
in some which they perform. So the passions there where
we just got to keep it going. And you would
hope that one of those kids come out so say,
I remember philing in Matt, I'll not walk down the
kiss if there's any chores, you know, you just don't know. Yep.
Speaker 1: What's your message to small under ten meters operators and
who simply don't have the carpitals to invest.
Speaker 2: Well, what invest in anything or just invest in general? Well,
hopefully you would have thought with this fast funding and
the GROWTHU there be amenity. So I know there's a
lot of work happening to try to provide a network
for the small scale fleet, how small that is, you know,
I sit on the steering group with that, and obviously
that's come out of the ISFF to try to give
them a bit of a voice. But I personal myself,
I don't think a small boat over a large show
it should be any different to access any type of funding.
I think it's got to be across the board, isn't it.
And you would hope somewhere at that for him, might
you know? But you're right to put money in there,
to take money out of the bank to kick start
the funding is got to be looked at. It's not
quite right, is it.
Speaker 1: I was maybe put it definitely? Do you balance talking
about name zero with fleets that don't have the cash
or infrastructure for big up grids? You know that?
Speaker 2: Right? Well, I think it's I think it's the same point.
I think it's just hugely difficult. You know. Personallyself, I
think that I might be speaking a little bit at
attorney here, but I think, you know, depending on your
grossings or where you are, I think there should be
one hundred percent funding, you know, And some of the
bigger boats, we know a lot of this. These funds
get wrapped up in academia, don't go anywhere, and I
think there'd be a greater value of swapping them out
in supporting the industry. But it is difficult for the
small scale, no doubt it is, you know. And at
the end of the day, you know, all the bigger
fleets started small scale, didn't they. We all started with
a punt in the small boat and the industry grew.
So yeah, no, it's a difficult question kind of answer, Jim,
Really where we can show that support?
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, on the curtains saying sure, marine courtings haven't
been our own. Our marine courtins have been our owned forever,
but you're don't buy us, saying free performance. What's the
real performance edge against the legacy folding tick?
Speaker 2: Well, we're start off. It's it's called a coating because
it is it's not a paint. Paint has failure applications,
and paint has failure in it. You know, if you paint,
you're railings on a boat and you chuck a chain
over it, you check the paint, Paint goes off, paint
goes hard. So a coating is totally that. The assured
marine coating is totally a different product entirely. You know,
it's the to coach. And I know you've had Mark
and Simon on previously so and obviously they've explained it
a lot better than I can. But I've bumped into
a short marine last year, and yet again, the same
with me bumping into Jason, I saw an opportunity to
help the bottom line of the fishing industry to be
a little bit more efficient. Again, so I've kind of
started working with a shore marine and opening up a
few doors in Yet again, you know, the first boat
that we went to was a good friend of ours,
Mike Ballinger, with the two brothers, to just try it
on his boat and on lead to believe he's done
something with you as well. But yet again, when I
spoke to Mike and I explained what I wanted, well
hang on a minute, well just stick it on, see
what happens. And then when we got the confidence of
we were worried a little bit if the prop was
going to be slipping under toe, and it was the opposite.
It was gripping. It was gripping the water really hard.
And it made the two brothers a lot more efficient,
up to five percent fuel savings. And he's got an
eight lex gardener in there, but no doubt might explain
that a lot more and lot better than I can.
And that gave me the confidence to phone gave up in.
But yet again you've still got to say, look, please
give it a go. There's going to be a benefit.
And that's what's happened. And now we're just trying to
you know, it's an annual thing and between the two
boats and obviously the other boats that Simon and Mark
done over the last four or five years has shown
this reduction in fuel and I think it's averaging between
four and five percent, you know, and it's coated on
once a year to give you that efficiency and of
all the work they've done, so it's just another product
that I think is worth worth inquiring about. You know,
under a Shure marine, it's not coming under fast it's
at all. It's it's it's a product. It's relatively cheap
to stick on your proper depending on your size.
Speaker 1: I was fascinated with marsh and Samon who when you
think of that when I couldn't get my hair drew.
Obviously I'm not in that. I'm not an engineer, but
it was more important having the coudding and the prop
than the hull. And I just thought that was incredible
when you think of the surfers area of the hull,
compare it to the prop.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's like with with Jason, you know, I
never get bored, you know, working with Jason at all.
I can't get bored working with Jason because you know,
his brain is just you know, what's what, what is
coming up in future for us? And it's like Mark,
you know, and it's like it's like you were saying,
how do you make that connection? And I listened to
his podcast, how do you make the connection from toothpaste
and mouth to the sea. And I don't want to understand.
I don't want to understand that. I just know it works.
And it is like with you know, with the ecomotor system.
It works, and I think it keeps my brain a
little bit clearer when I talk about it because I
can't go into the technical side of Mark or Jason,
but it's both products can aid relatively cheaply to reduce
and the way the fuel prices are going at the moment,
is there going to be a We just don't know,
and it doesn't seem to be a quick resolve like
Russia and Ukraine. This is this is a little bit
different this time around, isn't it? So yeah, So yeah,
I don't understand. I understand Mark where he comes from,
and I'll tell you what which is which is quite
heartwarming really is when I met Mark last year, He's
come from a total total on different background to marine. Yeah,
he's had his boat and then all of a sudden,
where does he make the connection from toothpaste and the
abs coat is to props. So it's nice that it's
like with Jason, it's nice that they've come from different
worlds and they're bringing their expertise in to an industry
that they love now and you know, because they all
eat fish. So it's brilliant that there's other people from
different backgrounds bringing technologies to the fish industry and I
think that's quite heartwarming. They're not forgetting that they can
pass their knowledge on and their skills on, so it
is heart woman. I think it's brilliantly.
Speaker 1: I'm one hundred percent behind that. I was asking them
when we were dinner recording, how on earth that came
from looking at the mouth and adopted? Yeah, it was amazing.
If you look at where the fleet needs to be
in ten years, Indrian, do you see anything that the
industry refuses to face?
Speaker 2: Well, you would hope the resilience to face it all.
It's like yesterday when I was on the event with
Wendy Chadwick, and you've had Wendy on before, you know,
And it was kind of kind of mentioned on there
that you know when I went to See in the
eighties and nineties, you went to see, you caught your catch.
You know, you kept your log book up together, You
dip your oils, check your waters, check the crews, check
your pots and gear, come home land, get the boat
ready and go back to See again. But that's not
the case anymore, is it.
Speaker 1: You know, the.
Speaker 2: Everything's thrown at the industry, isn't it now? And you
know you're you're not just a skipper or owner anymore.
Your managers, yourself and Hafty, your eighth jar. You know
you're getting pushed and pulled, you know, monitoring.
Speaker 1: I'm a lawyer and a politician.
Speaker 2: You're all of it now, aren't you. And it makes
you wonder why you would take a boat to see now,
because you know, all we want to do is go
catch land, go catch land. So I think what's happened
over the last ten to fifteen, Well, it's evolving every day,
isn't it. However, you look at it and we're still here,
aren't we. You know, you still got the boat owners.
That's historic. They've still got boats, they're still going to see,
they're still moving forward and you you know, so you
would hope we can still be a very part of
our history of the UK, that we're still here. But
what you said, you know, a few minutes back, is
we got to make the industry look good to get
the new generation of fishermen in. In fisher women, I
don't like the word fisher I tried putting fisher right
into some of my poetry and it does not work whatsoever.
It's fishermen, So sorry about that. But it's weird though,
how a work title can change.
Speaker 1: You know, you're just you just have to accept the
agree and you're not done to walk No but.
Speaker 2: Then you still got banksmen. You know, you walk onto
a site, or you reverse a tractor around anywhere or plant,
they're still called banksmen. They don't change their title the
work thing. And there's women doing that chop. So we
got a change from fishermen to fishers for christ.
Speaker 1: Well, you know what actually says a bit that she's
as far as she's concerned, she's a female pressureman.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and all of them. I've done a Radio
four BBC Radio four program about women in the industry
and they're all the same. It's a top job title.
It's not. Yeah, it's not for nothing else, is it?
Speaker 1: In or do you see the crossover between fuel tick
with ecomotives and surface tick with assured But in recordings, well, you.
Speaker 2: Would hope there'd be back to that bottom line, in't it.
It's two technologies. It's making the vessels more efficient. You know.
I can remember when we're trying to make safety at
sea a lot better, you know, in the crab and industry.
Touch would we I've had not such a troubled career
at sea, but I did have one of my crew
had a seriously leg injury back in the nineteen or
thirty years ago, Saint George's Day this year where he
lost his leg. And then this is when we were
looking to change the technology of the strings of toggling,
and the Euroclyding was the first boat to go completely toggle.
Speaker 1: With.
Speaker 2: You know, obviously Trevor's passed away now, but I remember
toggling that you're Clyde and steaming up to your neck
of the words for the first time, and then it's
kind of now a second nature in it. People tried
the doors, didn't They are shooting away for safety. So
we're always looking for safety and comfort in the boats.
Were always trying every time a new boat, like when
Nick had the Avenue built, you know, he was always
looking to better the last fifteen meter that was built,
and everybody's always looking to better and make it more efficient.
So these these technologies are not coming from the boatyard
to come in, let's say, from suppliers, and they're not
off the shelf, but they're off the shelf, and it's
harder to adapt technology that's not come with the boat
to say, right, put it with your boat and you'll
achieve this. So there's a little bit of differency there
from when you buy a boat with everything on there,
you've got the chances to change your you know, like
some of the fridges, and change your gases or change
paints or change whatever. So when you're trying to bring
innovation to the industry that's not recognized, it's a bit
more of a harder work to try to get them
on the vessels. When they show real positive results, can.
Speaker 1: They be in for a big leap inefficiency?
Speaker 2: Yes, I think there can be a big leap. You know,
we're trying to develop the eco pro to adhere to
the new regulations. It's going to come along and it's happening.
I don't want to talk too much about where we
are with that, but we're moving ahead. So we're always
trying to better that technology to meet what's coming up
in the future, and we're trying to make that really,
really more friendlier for the operators to operate that system
and what we're requiring from them. The better feedback these
technologies get, the better they can adhere to the market
into the questions. So we're always developing. It was in
the office there yesterday and James, our software engineer, was
in there. You know, I don't love many many men,
but I love James because his software Apart from Jason
and that but in sam But what James has done
with our software, it's just phenomenal and it's all in house.
We don't have sorts anything. We build it all in
house and his software. You know, we're controlling the hydrogen
from different When we did start it, it was off
a K and O C sensor, a listening sensor. And
now we can link into canvas, we can link into
the to wherever we want to give greater production of
hydrogen for that engine. So all these technologies are always
developing and it can only develop through feedback to make
it a better product. Good good?
Speaker 1: What's the tick? A regular elephant in the room that's
hold in the seafood sector. Back on decarbonization, well.
Speaker 2: I would say to start off with money. You know,
somebody said yesterday on I think it could be hands.
It might be I'm saying there's three hundred and sixty
million quid in the pot. I know it's not you know,
I know certain areas, certain you know, Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland's arguing over the dividend of it all. But
it's not a lot of money, is it. You know,
in the big grand scheme of things of what's happening,
and when you look at other markets, like in Europe,
I read somewhere last year across the home board there's
three trillion dollars being pumped into net zero in Europe alone,
not marine, you know, not just marine, but across the
board or so the UK doing not a lot at all,
but when we talk to other countries with our technologies,
they're light years ahead of the UK. So there needs
to be a bit more sensible way in private companies
like Ecomotives and Short Marine and tom Roster and you know,
they all struggle because it's all right, have an innovation
and it's alright researching it in the but you've still
got to get that innovation to market and that's where
it lacks. The funding needs to be there, as I
said before, to support all of this to make the
fleet more efficient and more safe.
Speaker 1: Definitely, and it's really encouraging and I feel that should
be supported more, and that we still have innovation and
clever people involved and coming up with important we used
to go forward. I think it's hugely encouraging and my goodness,
why they can't people can't see to support. That's beyond me.
Speaker 2: And I tell you what of all the innovation that
can aid the marine industry and especially the fishing industry
hasn't come out of university. It's come off of perers
and all private companies. Not I don't there's some innovation
that's come out from Plymouth, but just charging points really
for battery battery assisted vessels. I might be wrong, you know,
you might get some calls saying, but I don't think
there's one innovation that's come out of a university that's
made it to commercialization in the industry. Everything's come from
private countries, part private companies. If you see what I mean, now,
what does that say? What does that say?
Speaker 1: Well for me, if you ask me to see what
that see is Idrian, there's no substitute for experience.
Speaker 2: No, no, You're not going to walk into a university
and bump into Jason Monroe. It's certainly not going to
be walking into a university and bumping to Mark Edwards.
It's certainly not going to walk into a university in
what hands is achieved with his little Signa's twenty one.
It's phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal, but very very very little support,
and it's like us with ecomotis and what he went
through with the MCA made. The NCAA has got to
be a little bit more open to these technologies. There's
still at a bit of fingers and funds with what
direction they can advise in. They can't commercially endorse anything,
as we know.
Speaker 1: Yes, but Adrian, you know when you mentioned Hans, you
know Hans as well as I do. But I've spoken
to Hans since a recent podcast about the courtings and
you think for all he's done with his electric board.
Speaker 2: And how.
Speaker 1: Hugely reduced these expenses. But here's him looking at the
courtings because it just keeps going on. Credit to him,
and I think it's brilliant that you need to encourage.
Speaker 2: But there's not one answer out there. We need to
have a blanket look at this. There's not you know hands.
You know what he'd done with that sickness work. It
can fit in certain boats in if the investment was
there or the funding was there to help that out,
and it will fit in a certain sector of the
fishing industry. The ecomotor system will generally fit across all engines,
if it's an outboard or a big ABC or a
MAC and the big beamers. It will work across the
home board. Okay, it's price irrelevant against all of it.
The prop coating, well, chuck it on everything. He ain't
going to make any difference. Chuck it on a prop
because that's going to work. And then you've got the
technologies that's happening with gear types, fishing types, other innovations
for safety you know, are bumped into. Paul it done
this life float thing to get people scooped out the order.
I've not spoken to him recently. So there's all this
out there now that you can phone up in order
on your boat to aid. But it just all needs
financial support to do. It just needs it in You
just can't keep chucking it to find that one step
for twenty thirty or twenty fifty. You need to take
all these little steps to get there. And so that's
kind of one thing is everything has a purpose and
anything can do small indications to make your business more
effective and more cost Well, you save the Moneyed.
Speaker 1: Critics work to see hydrogen and regiment systems are just
marginal improvements. What can you saw them that shuts down
that skepticism?
Speaker 2: Well yeah again it's lucky we don't get bored talking
about hydrogen because me, Jason and Kirsten, the amount of
times we've repeated ourselves over here, there's always somebody like
Jason or Mark or Tom. It's got fresh ideas, fresh
ways of looking thing looking at things, and you go
with it. There's always going to be skeptics. It doesn't
make the difference. If I say to you, Jim myself,
I've just read that book, absolutely brilliant, must read. You know,
won't get bored you read it. I think, why did
you ever put me towards that book? So you've got
to work on the scenario that you can get the
message across sensibly, inaccurately that this is what it does.
But yet again, technologies, you know, look at how many
air friars were sold in the first year in the
UK and kitchens as soon as it worked, I RECOGNI
as an air fryer in every kitchen in the UK
and how or around the world, just like George Foreman's thing.
It's getting that technology recognize that it's a I said
earlier that well, I've got a boat. I'm going to
have all this done to it because we know it works.
But when you get people me and Jason in Kirstin,
we always bumped into the skeptics in nine times out,
the skeptics are the universities. They are academia because what
Jason's achieved and what's marked achieved is not gone through academia.
And that's the problem. So the only people that we
bump into, it's skeptical, are academia. So what's the point
of going to university for a career in engineering or
future fuels when they don't understand what is around them,
like you know, and that's firsthand, and it's very disappointing.
So we don't have anything to do with academia at all,
nothing or two to do with them at all.
Speaker 1: Yep, we often and all with before decimalization, and we
used to refer to it as two owns is of
common sense are better than two pone debrillions.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, because there's a lot of
people that can work with the hands, and a lot
of people can work with their brains. But you don't
need education to have that. You know, it's installed in you.
You know, it's where you are, you know, you don't
you know, with Jason's background and I'm not quite sure
of Mark's background, but I imagine he probably did go
university study chemistry. I'm not quite certain. But it doesn't
mean that somebody that's not gone through schooling or academia
that they're not stupid or silly. They just didn't fit
into that world. And it doesn't mean what what they
come up with or what they do is less important.
It's probably more importan because it's come from you know,
sensible day to day living, you know. So yeah, so
that's for an example.
Speaker 1: Just know, do you see fuel efficiency becoming a survival factor?
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's it's not going to be.
It's not gonna the one thing that's going to help
the industry. It's a certain it's the biggest cost, isn't
it really for for EF fishing boat to go to
see certain you know, the traing tralling side of all
is it's a it's a big chunk of their costs,
isn't it. So it's going to go a long way.
You know, even if an average boat can save five
six hundred pounds a week on fuel, you know, it
mounts up, doesn't it. You know? If I know I
can drive to you for the skipper Expo and save
fifty quid on fuel driving up there. You would take
that for sure. So it's a small part of it,
but it's it's aid in a big part of the industry.
The fuel burn across the UK is millions of liters,
millions and millions of lids and millions pounds of fuel,
and at some point we've got to I don't think
we'll ever move away from fossil fuels, but I think
what we need to do is just just burn the
fossil fuel correctly, or look at other activities to reduce
the fossil fuels and not totally move away. Move away.
Maybe there is going to be a magic solution by
twenty fifty, but I can't quite see it. So let's
look at the fossil fuels. Is the fossil fuel is
the ecomotis energy to produce hydrogen to reduce So we're
taking that, so we can't class it is green hydrogen.
But let the hydrogen do do the hard work and
look after the fossil fuels that we got here.
Speaker 1: Now, you know, when you see ten years from no
boats that survive, be the ones invested early in the efficiency.
Speaker 2: You would hope. So you know, we haven't got the
figures of the other fishing boats. But look at Dave
two hundred and thirty five thousand pounds for saving in
three years. He's paying the same same now out of
a tanker for his fuel as everybody else, but he
has two hundred and thirty five thousand in storage. If
you see what I mean. Does it soften the blow
through the price heights of fuel? We don't know. Like
with my little business, I've had to pull my savings
to survive in the darker times. But that's surviving for
the future. So just saving on that Crystal Sea give
them a stronger footprint through these high prices, you would hope. Yeah,
he can. He can soften the blow a little bit easier.
That's probably what I'm saying. So yes, I think you
if you look at it that way, it is probably thinking, oh,
I've just paid one pound five p for mef. You'll
hang on a minute. I've saved eighty six so I
can soften that blow a little bit more. So.
Speaker 1: You know, we when we were we were brought up
in our appearance. Drum then does look after the pennies
and the pones look after themselves.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's most most true. I can remember filling up
in Scherberg in eighty nine or nineteen ninety or something
like that, and we were really disgusted when it went
to tempeer lyter from eight p. Yeah, and we still
we still looked drop the revs back a little bit
to accommodate that extra twop back then. You know. So
a fisherman is always looking for ways of saving money
and there is technologies out there that can aid you
to do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely. As a man born and bred in the
West of England, Idrian, can you tell us what are
your reviews on the octopus bloom and that's been in
your area?
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, it's coming quite hard, isn't it. I know,
I know some of the fishermen that has been struggled
with some of the shell fishermen. Certainly it has been
struggling through through last year. I know there's been a
fair bit of studies looking into this. Is it here
to stay? We've had four blooms now in the early
nineteen hundreds, thirties and fifties, so I don't know where
they are now. I know a few people have gone
down into Portugal to look at how they're dealing with
it there.
Speaker 1: And I know.
Speaker 2: I get his name wrong over time, but Bryce, you know,
has done a bit of a study and I know
you've had him on there. I'm not quite certain where
the octopus is affecting today, but I did have a
brief look, you know, about the Australian model of dealing
with their octopus and they started seeing an increase in
octopus back in two thousand and two thousand and five,
and it was effecting theirs. It's not an invasive species,
it's a homegrown it's a native. Let's say it's a
native octopus. So the fisherman down there had to adapt
in Western Australia and Eastern Australia. But over the years
they've managed to get it an MSc accredited species so
in their markets, like everything is Asia in China, so
as ugly as it is, you know, some people argue
with the crab shell fishermen made money off of it.
Yeah they did, but then if they can't catch their species,
their boats designed to catch and it the octopus wasn't
all over the ground. It was in certain spots that
affected boats differently to other boats. But we all know,
like there's more tuner licenses this year. You know. The
first species, if I remember rightly that really come up
was the anchovies for the Mediterranean up and do we
look at adapting to the octopus bloom At the moment
it's all getting sold on the market and going into Europe,
But does the smaller does somebody look at seeing if
we can make it an MS? I know it's a
long road, but if it's here to stay, do we
become an early adopter in how the Australian fishermen deal
with it is totally different to how we deal with it.
Of what YouTube videos of it, they dispatch it. It's see,
they clear out the final brain or cord and they
they look after the octopus on the boats a lot
differently and it gets transported straight in and they're getting
a better price for that. So you know, you would
hope it might not might go back to normal, but
we don't know, but you've always got to be willing
to have a look at certain options that's going on.
Maybe if it comes back hard again this year, so
you know that's you know, so it's difficult, isn't it really?
If it's here to stay like it was last year
and do the industry adapt or do we try to
work around it somehow? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Turned on negative and positive?
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is difficult because there's losers and winners, isn't
there always always? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Where can our listeners follow you on lane?
Speaker 2: Indrian?
Speaker 1: And do you have us social media presence?
Speaker 2: Yes, my company's not Abing Marine Consultancies, not on social media.
I've got a personal Facebook page and I'm not really
on Instagram. I've only got them to follow other companies
if you see what I mean in comment or but
major I'm on LinkedIn, so if anybody wants to find me,
I'm just on LinkedIn. Is Adrian Bartlet and that's got
all the details of where you can contact me is
through LinkedIn. Is that I've found is the best platform,
is a very professional platform. So people can find me
more so on LinkedIn, or they can find me under
Adrian Bartlet at Facebook. But I don't really put much
on Facebook, Tim.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're not one of the bazillions that love
their laves on Facebook.
Speaker 2: No? No, I only set up Facebook page because your
commercial pages have run off your private page, isn't it so?
Obviously when me and Andy was Crabstop Boys, and then
we had our pop up restaurant, crab Stock and two
smoking lobsters. They were running off the back of that.
So yeah, but I don't really I've even lid about
me age on this, so I don't get birthday, which
is lovely. Yeah. You can read what you want into
Facebook and social media, can't you?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, Idrian, isn't it funny? We've got something in
common that we neither of us realized. Remember, maybe we've
got the little connection with the Fishing News Awards. I
got the Lifetime Achievement Award in twenty twenty four. You
got it in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I suppose we have, Jim, an't we? Yeah? An
accolade too. I'm looking at it now. Funny enough. I
don't polish it as much as I should do, though, Jim.
But yeah, no, we haven't we. Well, congratulations to you anyway.
Speaker 1: You as well, and let's feet it we've got enough
thought and passionate about the industry. I feel that it
was a great honor. No, it was.
Speaker 2: I was absolutely gobsmacked when when my name was getting
right out like yourself, and it was Sarah that said,
I think you better move off your seat now and
go and collect it. And you know, I didn't even
recognize it was me to be fair, but it is.
It is a massive honor and I don't take it
lightly by by achieving it, Jim for sure, Like, yeah.
Speaker 1: And we're entitled to feel that way. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Well it's been brought in catching up and hearing about
your Indrian You've had such a really interesting journey. No
already you to send us out with one of your poems.
Speaker 2: No thanks, Jim, Yeah, no, thanks for allowing me to
read one of the poems. This one I put together
for Sarah Coutard for the Insurance Small Scale Fisheries National
slops on which I read out up in Newcastle in February.
And I think it's quite fit into our conversation that
we had today, Jim and our chat. So it's called
a tide worth turning. Okay, along the coastline, tied to tide,
fishing boats wait for morning rise, not ocean roamas, but
coastwise true, just steady craft with seasoned eyes. These fishermen
know the sea by heart. It's hiddens turning truths, it's
changing moods, its tides they're fishing types, each honed as
art bring home the harvest of our coastal seas a lifeline.
Britain cannot ignore a bond of trust in local care.
In every catch, a story lives of code, hard mornings,
hopes and ropes held tight, of hands that give more
than the sea gives back, and still return to meet
the falling night. Fishing boats feed towns unseen, keeping harbours,
beating spirit strong. They hold the place in between where memory,
meaning and people belong. But this way life is fragile.
Now we feel it slipping, tied by tide, And if
we're honest deep inside, we fear a coast where boats
don't ride. For if no young hands learn to take
the helm, no laughter, learning ropes and lines, then empty
keys in broken realms will echo where the tide draws back.
And here's the truth that hurts to say. We're sleep
walking towards a silent harbor, where once filled harbors lose
their souls. In fishing lies return no more. Because when
a boat falls silent, it's never just a hull. Its knowledge, courage,
craft and pride. It's a family's purpose, a community's anchor,
a page of history. Torn from the tide. These families
fed this nation well, sustained us through both feast and fight.
To let them fade or break the thread that binds
our coast to what is right. So let us act
while we still can, to back the skippers and the
crews who stand the coast last line. A fleet that's
strong because it's many, because it's rooted, spread and tied together.
Support the boats that brave the blue, the families mourned
to tidal ground. For keeping them is keeping true to
feed Britain, coast and crown. And now we garner hearts aligned,
and now we stand by Britain's coast to face the truth,
to stand as one too. You're a future for fishermen
who still hold the tidle line.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Adrian. What a wonderful way to
end up. Very powerful. Thank you so much, Adrian.
Speaker 2: Now, thank you Jim. Always a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, and thank you again to our
listeners and just pleas subscribe or share it with family
and friends. If you enjoy the recording, thank you