Speaker 1: Hello everyone, thanks for joining us again on See If
It Matters Today. I'm joined by Magnus Johnston from the
University of Hull and Duncan Bog from my Tough Ship Design.
We're hearing more and more about fuel costs, efficiency and decurbanization.
But for fishermen this isn't theory, it's survival. There's an
old saying in the industry. It all comes out the
cod end, no matter what happens ashore, the cost lands
with the man catching the fish. And when I hear
all these discussions about price and cost, it always takes
me back when I was a kid, and sometimes my
mother used to say, whenever there was news of a
fisherman or a boat lost at sea, should turn to
us and say, that's a price of fish. I think
that's something everybody should always be mindful of. So Hi
Duncan and welcome to Seafood Matters and hello again Magnus,
Welcome back. Would be great to see you both. Right
to start, Duncan, if I could ask, please tell us
your background and also what about McDuff Ship Design.
Speaker 2: So I'm a senior naval architect at at mcdoff Ship Design.
I've been here for fourteen years since I graduated from
Strathclyde UNI in naval architecture. I always liked boats, and
when I was trying to decide what to do for
a job, I fell into naval architecture as an idea
and I've really enjoyed my career arc since then. McDuff
ship Design are a design company based in McDuff. We
work closely with the shipyard here and have common owner,
but are also partly owned by the staff and work
independently of them, so also designing and working with other
shipyards to build across the rest of the UK and
the rest of the world.
Speaker 1: So you're not That shows my ignorance already then I
thought you were part of the mound of stip yard.
Speaker 2: No, No, we're run as a separate company. We do
a lot of the naval architecture work on the boats
built in the shipyard, but we also work with a
lot of other customers, whether that's owners or other yards,
both in fishing, but also wider doing work in aquaculture
and tugs and pilot boats and lots of other specialists
small craft.
Speaker 1: Okay, brilliant, it's a great and what our reputation They
have for the boats that they build. Fantastic magnus. Where
does your life take in nuisance or last recording?
Speaker 3: Well, I sort I was thinking about this earlier and
probably appropriate to say to think about where I've come
to where I am now from about the time and
I met Duncan. And I met Duncan when I was
going around the country talking to skippers about propulsion systems,
about electrification, potential for electrification, and I really enjoyed chatting
to Duncan because as you'll as we'll find out as
we go through, he's got a massive expertise in the
sort of this area of propulsion systems on ships and
lots of other things. And after I'd done that, I
got interested in trying to help fishermen find ways to
save money and to save fuel, and you know that
goes hand in hand with this idea of decarbonization, and
I think sometimes fishermen don't understand that they're part of
this decarbonization net zero drive. When they're trying to save money.
It's the same thing, it's absolutely the same. And then
so I started working on this thing that I call
my Boat's Data, and it's a I think that records
noises that from the engine and turns it into resuming
it and becomes a few use indicators, something we can
talk about more as we go through. So I've been
busy on that, and I've also set up a little
community interest company in Bridlington on the sorry, Jim brid
as you always insist, I call it so a little
community interest company on the end of the yeer in
brid which is set up to try and help the
fishing industry, help local fishermen and fishermen more broadly, doing research,
getting involved in social science research and just trying to
help where I can really And so I'm looking forward
next year to stepping down to three days a week
at university and getting more involved in the activities down
on the harbor, which is what I really enjoy.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, definitely. When you're sitting there, you try to help. Well,
I'm trying to help you, Magnus, because when I hear
us in bread, you sound like a local. So either
of view it there you think's appropriate. Are we looking
at a short term fuel cost squeeze or has economics
of the fishing fundamentally changed?
Speaker 3: Should I start dunking?
Speaker 2: And then? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I mean I think fuel prices are only
ever going to go one way in the in the
future and in the longer term there always is always
going to be the diesel in diesel and petrol is
going to get more expensive over over time, and the
industry kind of has to learn to deal with that somehow,
And there are lots of things that the fishing skippers
can do to help reduce the impact of increasing fuel prices.
But what we're seeing at the moment, it's the same
as last time around with the during COVID, you know,
and the Ukrainian the war was a Ukraine, you know.
It's a sudden spike that's very difficult for fishermen to
deal with this. They've had no warning and all of
a sudden, I think prices have gone back up to
where they were at their peak, I mean sort of
back up to over a pound alter from sixty p
at least that's what I think. Duncan, you might know
better than me.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not certain on exact pricing, but I think,
as you say, we're at this steep point of a
spike in the price and that will come down. But
I'd agree that the longer term, diesel is only going
to become more expensive and harder to come by as
we see the world's transition away from fossil fuel use,
and that might lead to some bets where there's there's
the opposite of now where there's there's oversupply as other
industries have moved off of fossil fuel quicker than expected.
But I think in general it's it's only going to
keep going in this direction.
Speaker 1: Duncan, when you're saying that or both, he I've done
a recent podcast with Jason Monroe from Ecomotives, and that
very question I asked them about for the bigger boats,
things like the electrification and all the different things that
there's been looked. Technology has been looked at, and I said,
is it realistic? I think that's possible, And he says
for now, absolutely not. He says it's diesel and for now,
well into the foreseeable future. Something you agree with.
Speaker 2: So I've done a number of studies with fisheries innovation
and sustainability into what a net zero fishing boat looks like.
And basically, the bigger the boat is, the more intense
its power use is, the more difficult that transition becomes.
There are options and we could build the boats to
suit those options. They would be more expensive to build
and they would be larger for the same fishing capacity.
But it's also something that's technically possible to do in
the next five or ten years with the way the
industry is developing. But what's lagging a long way behind
that is the shore side infrastructure and the petrochemical plants
to develop those fuel and any indication of what those
fuels will actually cost to the fishermen going to see
to make investment decisions in what they do. I was
listening to a recent webinar on future fuels, saying that
for shipping to go entirely net zero, renewing the entire
fleet of ships in the world is only twenty five
percent of the cost. The other seventy five is on
the energy generation and petrochemical work to make the fuel
and the delivery to the vessels and all of the
infrastructure that that requires. And that really shocked me how
small a part of changing the marine industry changing the
boat says.
Speaker 3: I think one of the things I've learned from talking
to Duncan over the time and from my own sort
of investigation. I mean, I was looking particularly electrification when
I was talking to skippers. But there isn't a silver
bullet here. There's no single solution. And so if you
look to Bridge for example, well these are all potters
and they ensure guys could transition to electric if the
infrastructure in the port was there. But it's not just
the port, it's upstream from the port as well. You know,
the infrastructure needs to be in place to support electrication
and bread. But if you go up to Fraserhead where
you're looking at, you know, big trolling fleets, and it's
a different solution. And I mean Duncan can talk more
to that than I can. But you know, different ports
are going to and different fleets are going to have
different solutions when it comes to their power.
Speaker 1: Probably fishermen face rising courts but don't get paid any
more for their cats, and really that sustainable in any industry.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean I would say here it's partly differn
by fishermen becoming more efficient and landing more so. I
spoke to a fishermen off the west coast of Ireland,
lived all his life on Aaron on the Irish Aaron
and a cannearly he's called, you know, and he was
talking about when he I mean he's about our age,
you know, not Duncan's age, our age gym, and he
he's he remembers people making a living of fifty pots,
you know, and they could make a living out of
fifty pots because I guess they got paid more and
they didn't have the same level of expenditure or expected
lifestyle expectations that people have have nowadays. And as the
fleets have become more efficient, they've landed more, and as
they've landed more, I think the price must have gone down,
you know, in relation to you know, so I guess lifestyles.
So some some prices. Last time I looked at this,
I was looking at paper, and some of the prices
for some fish have not gone up in twenty years,
you know, They've remained the same, partly because of this
increased efficiency of fishermen. I mean, you think about the
trollers that are working in the North Sea macro fleets
and all the big boats that are out there. I mean,
they're much more efficient than any of the older boats were.
And there are a lot of solutions that hopefully we'll
talk about tonight, but one of them might be and
I'm sure the industry is well aware of this and
we'll be trying to do this is fish smarter, you know,
try and catch things at the right time of year
when they're worth more money, you know, and try and
get the right size. I mean, I'm sure the industry
already does this, but where it's possibly be a bit
cleverer about what they what they land. Maybe there's less
maybe there's things they can do there. So there's no
easy I don't think it's an easy solution.
Speaker 1: When you're talking about ports Magnus, it always takes me
back when my father was fishing. I'm talking about the
fifties and the early sixties. There were a scene netter.
They were partly seen it certain times of the year,
and then there would be well we call them kreels,
you call them pots down there, and they made a
good living and the most now when you think of it,
I don't know about your area holderness, but up here
some of the bigger crabbers, their spots are in the thousands,
number one thousand, and they're single and two man boats
with seven eight hundred or up to a thousand. Now
that was a fifty four foot wooden boat, which I
thought was in my younger days, I thought she was
a battleship and or five of a crew. So at
five of a crew to get wages, the most creels
he ever had oubt was one hundred. Now you know
the man very well, hands uncle, he was fishing sixty five,
he's now fishing forty five. And I think that I
often wonder to myself looking back at my father's time,
thinking of hands and that, and partly what you're saying
as well about fishing clever in that magnus. But I
just wonder if there could be work done to get
the balance on the market. There'll be a point on
the market when the price will go up. So if
there were to not just fish clever, but sell clever
and just keep the market to a point where the
price is not coming down, so you could work less pots.
I'm going to bitter price. It's one one all the way.
Speaker 3: But don't you I mean, this is this is your
area of expertise. That's what you did as a career,
wasn't it. You're a fish merchant. So but how global
was the market when you were you know? You know,
And I wonder whether part of the problem is now
that you know you can't you can catch crabs in
Bridlington and they can be in China or Japan or
Vietnam forty eight hours later, you know. And so the
price isn't driven by local markets, is driven by geopolitics
as much as anything, you know, And I think that's
an issue that's that's part of the issue driven this
need fish. So fishermen need to be if you look
at a fast worker in brid and they're doing three,
four or five six hundred pots, in order to get
around their pots quickly, it needs to have a big engine.
It's virtually a speedboat, you know, some of these things.
And then that's not the fault of the fisherman. They've
kind of been forced into that by competition amongst themselves
and a global market where prices may not have risen
the way they should have done. Well, it's cost him
to rise, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, in a recent podcast with the guy Greg Mercer
and the Mareen States and they used to Kindada. He
goes on to say about how their biggest market used
to be America, it's now China. They're paying more. Yeah,
so it's probably relanes what you're saying. Yeah, if fuel
keeps rising and income stay flat, where does the adjustment happen.
Is it fewer boats, fewer trips, or people leaving the
industry altogether.
Speaker 2: I mean to an extent that's a little outside by
area of expertise, but certainly we need to find a
way to get that more level so as we have
a sustainable industry, and to some extent the sustainable industry,
maybe fewer boats or maybe fewer trips. Trying to find
a way to maximize the value of your catch against
what you've spent in fuel is going to be really
essential when there's spikes and fuel price.
Speaker 3: I think there may be changes.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 3: We are already seeing modifications to gear, you know, like
lighter trolls that don't require as much fuel in order
for you know, to maximize catch for less less cost.
And the stuff they're doing in Heriot what whether they're
looking at Paul Fernandez is trying to develop a troll
or has developed a troll it's more selective and only
takes out you know, it's selective in the water, you know.
I think it's using AI or something that you know
that these sorts of things may help. But I can
see as has already happened for other reasons. There's been
a dry towards more static gear around the coast of
the UK and off the coast of America, you know,
for a whole lot of reasons that are nothing to
do with fuel or to do with management policy and
all the rest of it. But I can see the
fishermen that are fishing with static gear that doesn't need
to be dragged through the water might be at an
advantage compared two trollers. And so we might see fishermen
readopting some of those static gear methods from days gone by,
you know, maybe fixed engines on the shore, maybe if
they can, you know, sort of static nets, more people
using nets where they can. Yeah, I mean, I think
there's a myriad of different things that all the things
you mentioned are impacting on fishermen. But there's a lot
of responses they can make in order to try and
do something about that. But there's no I wish there
was a kind of easy solution, but I don't think
there's anyone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you think God's anything to do with the
pressure from environmental groups where they're talking about impact on
the seabed.
Speaker 3: I guess there's some, you know, so they certainly have
a top hit list of types of fishing they don't like,
I mean, they don't like scallop dreaders, so they don't
like benthic trolls, and they just it feels that sometimes
it feels like they're just working their way down the
list and they'll get to pots and static nets eventually,
you know, and and start having having a go there,
you know. Yeah, And my view is that the best
thing that fishing can do is to have a broad
footstep and tread lightly, which by which I mean they
have a diversity of fishing methods by boat and by port,
and where possible, they're not constrained into fishing for using
one kind of gear the whole time, and and that
would let them take opportunities where they can and maybe
not have to travel so far in order to find
those opportunities. And that's that's something that the price of
fuel is going to impact on.
Speaker 1: And you think their fishermen are forced into possession where
they have to fish harder to even stand still.
Speaker 3: I think certainly if the price drops of what they're catching,
they have to fish harder in order to break even.
And then and I guess the other end of that
is if you get a good price your fish harder
in order to make the businessman. I mean, it's not
a charity, you know, these these guys they need to
make a living and that's something we need to respect
and remember.
Speaker 1: So definitely, I mean it appears all risks since with
the fishermen. While others in the supply chain have more
control over their margins, the fishermen of none.
Speaker 3: I was wondering about that because what about fish merchants, Jim,
there's no risk of being a fish.
Speaker 1: Merchant, Well, they have a more chance of increasing their
getting the price up, asking for more money, where whereas
fishermen are putting them on the auction and take what
they get they have to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe there's a need to change there. Maybe there's
a need for a higher diversity of ways for fishermen
to sell. So I mean, maybe we can learn from
COVID a bit where there was quite a few fishermen
went to the effort of selling direct to the public
and they were able to make a bit.
Speaker 2: More out of that.
Speaker 3: Although talking to Carl and Jenny Price in Britainton, you
know the paperwork involved in that for a small fishing
operation nowadays it's horrendous, you know, So it's a barrier
to that that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: I was involved in a contract with three dollars and
processor and a supermarket market and spent sours and that
was going back in to the eighties. So it's no,
it's no rocket science that hasn't been done before. The
fishermen liked it because it give them a bit of
stability as we're catching. They could they could work out
what their halls were worth. I think we could. We
should be looking more at the selling the door side.
I definitely feel that, and I don't. I feel there
should be more conversation between the different sectors. I even
feel when they're talking about we quote a negotiations or
any of that negotiations. I think shore base they should
be in the room, and anti scientists and the fisherman
I think they should all be in the room to
get there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wonder if that's been something that's been missing
in the past, and the shore base doesn't get the
attention that the ocean going part of the industry gets.
You know that we don't hear enough from there are
two separate worlds. You've got the processing sector and you've
got the catching sector, you know, and they maybe that, yes,
I think you're right. Maybe maybe it's a job of
seafish is to try and bring those guys together.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I have a situation I had last year,
I think, not that long ago. I got fish from
a friend and scrubs her. He says, help yourself. So
I took a few, but just but a few. Headache
in the bag, he says. He turned to me and
he says, don't take that rubbish. He says, there's better
fish on the market here. I said, is it. I'm
happy with this, leave it? So, oh my goes. I
fulleted them now, and I'm when i'm fileting them thinking,
I'm looking back and thinking to myself. I was involved
in retail because I had counters and some supermarkets fresh counters,
and we also had an actual fish shop. And in
the old weight and that four rounds billet was a
perfect size for the fishmonger. A housewife would come in
for their family, four filets would be the pound in weight,
and I was filleting this fish. And so that was
prime size for the retail trade, which was a good
market for fishermen to catch, you know, to get the
retail trade. So particularly kitchen scales out weighed them from
four and a half to five and a half oun
And here's me thinking to you back in the days,
that would have been prime size and quality obviously for
the retail trade. Do you know where that fish came from?
Guys bad books?
Speaker 2: Correct?
Speaker 1: And I've been I've been asking some of the merchants
and people, and all I hear from them is was
hearing from them is oh, what the market wants? The
market wants bigger fish. I would say, Oh, I see,
so the market the market wants to pay twenty five
pound akilo instead of fifteen? Is that it? And so
I think that needs a sedious look. And that's one
of the things Magnet's going back. That's one of the
things I feel if they're sitting together in the room,
that could be discussed and spoken about because they're catching
them now, so they could they could get a more
value for them. So I think they have a long
way to go.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for more collaboration, isn't it. But it's competitive, isn't it.
You know the merts in Brindlington, there's four merchants and
they're all trying to get the maximum catch for the
minimum price. That's because they're a business you know, and
the fishermen are trying to you know, they're trying to
make it. There's all sorts of complexities there.
Speaker 1: You know, that's a very short sighted we're looking at
it because any of that fish merchants, if they get
them too cheap for too long, they're not going to
get any more. There's not going to be left well.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 3: I think one of the things that's happened in the past,
and hopefully it's changing now, is the way the fishermen
would get home and you come home, come into port,
and they'd have a load of fish, and all fishermen
want to do is go home, and so they just
throw the catch ashore, you know, and they're not they weren't.
They wouldn't worry too much about what the quality was,
and then they just go home.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I think hopefully that's not the case anymore. But maybe
there's something to do with getting merchants to value good
quality product at the keyside rather than I don't know,
maybe they're they feel they've got to buy whatever's there
just then and pass it on, you know, rather than
encouraging their clients, I guess, to get their fishermen or
who they're buying from to bring the best quality. And
I mean, do you think in fish markets do you
see better prices for better quality crab and for better
quality net rops?
Speaker 2: And you.
Speaker 1: Don't see them in the market?
Speaker 3: All right, of course, but there you go, so nerops,
yeah go straight, yeah straight?
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, yeah, So there is you know, there's got
to be there is a modern society, we technology the
way that there must be a way from a policy
and science perspective. Is that understood well enough? Do you think?
Speaker 3: I think it's complicated. That's the problem is everything there's
a sort of at a local level. You know that
there should be a relation between relationship between what's coming
out of the code end, how much there is, what
quality is, and the price that you get for it.
But then there's all these other factors. Now, like we
were talking about earlier globalization and the fact that you
can sell your fish anywhere you know in the world,
that's impacting on as well. So there's all these other
factors that impact on price. It's not just supply and demand.
And I don't know how we get hold of that.
That's not not an area I feel confident to talk about.
Speaker 1: Duncan from a vessel design side, can you realistically ease
the pressure or does it always come back to the
catch value.
Speaker 2: So it's a balance of the two. There's a lot
of things that we can actively do and we do
actively do when we're designing new boats to try and
reduce the fuel burden on them, to make them better
in the sea, to both make them more comfortable, better
platforms to fish from, and also use less fuel. But
everything's always a compromise to suit what needs to go
on the boat and to meet regulations, and it's sort
of almost always going to be the biggest factor in
whether a boat makes profit or how much profit they
make is how much they get for the catch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when you look at the current fleet, much of
it is simply not suited for today's fuel costs.
Speaker 2: So the fleet that we have in the UK is
very diverse, as I've already talked about, lots of different
types of fishing operation and lots of areas. Some of
those boats are very efficient boats, operating really well to
their capacity within in the fuel. Some of them are
older boats with older equipment, older engines, and while the
operators can can do as much as they can with them,
they are going to struggle to remain competitive because they
simply won't catch the same volume of fish for the
amount of fuel they use.
Speaker 1: If a skipper came to you tomorrow struggling with fuel boats,
what practical changes can you recommend.
Speaker 2: I've got a nice big list of things here that
have organized for this and something earlier. Yeah, and I
think the key thing on this list is that they
all have positives, but they all have negatives. There's a
good chance a lot of skippers are already doing quite
a lot of the things on this list to try
and manage their their fuel belt and understanding the positive
and the negative and balancing them out to make the
right decision for their businesses for their fishing vessel is
the important thing. So categorized them into a couple of bits.
I've got some behavioral changes here. One thing that it
was a propeller manufacturer said to me is having a
fuel flow meter sitting within sight of the skipper while
they're driving the boat can be a huge driver and
reducing the amount of fuel you use. There can often
be just the slightest tweak on the throttle can leave
the boat going at best part of the same speed
towing the same gear, but can maybe knock one or
two percent out of your fuel use, and that accumulated
over the trip can can make a big difference when
we're in a very tight margin space.
Speaker 3: Can I interrupt Duncan before you carry on down your
list because it matches well with the my boat's data
thing that I've been trying to develop and talking to.
It was a Glass Region ship's architect whose names escapes
me right at this moment in time. But he had
done this this study on a barge on agriculture on
an operation, and they'd found that just the threat of
putting in a fuel meter and something that that monitored
the behavior of the boat saved fifteen percent of the
fuel built. And when I came away from that, and
Mallinson's was, I think, is that a Glasgow Ships arch enginet. Yeah. So,
and I came away from it, and I went and
did some digging and looked to other areas like truck
drivers and cars and all the rest of it. And
it's a fairly it seemsly a fairly standard figure between
ten and fifteen percent fuel savings just by having a
fuel monitor or a miles per gallon monitor in your
face so you've seen it all the time, you know,
and that's what that's what we're We're trying to develop
something that will work on any boat, so I can
and it's I don't think it's just about and I
think the behavioral stuff, Duncan. You you might have more
there that's worth talking about it, but to me that
we don't really know what behaviors will help improve fuel use.
We know that backing off the engine of it. I mean,
every skipper I spoke to you said about seventy was
an engine speed is kind of generally where it's most efficient.
But there'll be other things they could do, like choosing
the weather they work in, choosing how far they got,
all that kind of stuff. So sorry, don't let me
interrupt it just it fits well with the.
Speaker 1: Well, well, I'm I'm sorry, Duncan, but I'm going to
endure up now because Magnus, when you're saying that about
the media in front the it's reminded me of a
caps I saw today on social media. And there's two shorts,
one above the other and it's difference between COVID the
lockdown and now and there's here's this guy picture of
the scene he's standing ull in his truck and during
COVID he's got a face, a mask over his face.
He's now got a mask over his eyes. You don't
want to see.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can believe that.
Speaker 1: Carry out.
Speaker 2: That's fine. Yeah, I mean the fuel flow meter is
almost more a tool that you can use to see
if your behavioral changes make a difference. What I was
going to say is slowing down in speed management is
something that can make a huge difference in terms of
fuel use. As you say, having an engine about seventy
percent is typically considered to be very efficient for the engine,
but you've got to play that against maybe having the
engine slightly less efficient, but using a lot less fuel
to go slower could be could be advantageous. Vessel speed
has like a cubic relationship with your power consumption pretty much.
So you know, if you double your speed, you use
eight times as much fuel. So I don't think we're
talking about half in your speed. But there's there's a
very fine limit where you can still travel a good
speed to your grounds and doing your fishing, but a
small amount of knockoff and can have a big effect
on your fuel. But obviously you want to get your
product to the market quickly. You don't want people on
the boat for an unnecessary amount of times. So there
is a trade off in terms of doing that. I've
got here turning engines off when they're not in use.
I'm very prone to seeing boats outside in the harbor
here and they're tied up alongside and they've still got
the engine running well after when they're tied up, and
I'm thinking about is all that that money that they're
putting up the stack? And obviously you've got on for
some things, but.
Speaker 1: Jump in, Sorry duncan I just want to ask when
you're saying that that that's staggering that you double the
speed in your eight times more fuel. It's unbelievable. But
I'm just wondering. Obviously a power way pentland first, and
that notorious have have the fishermen got the choice because
when you think of the tides and weather conditions and
that that must have a factor. So that with the
always of the I don't know, you know better.
Speaker 2: I'm just asking you don't always have the choice. And
that's I mean, that's where this is a balanced view,
and it's where you can if you can slow down,
you'll use less fuel. Where you can't. Then your operation
is the most important thing. And I don't want to
be the person to tell a fisherman how to do
their job. They know their boat and they know their
operation better than me. All I'm trying to give them
is advice. If you're transiting slower, it is going to
save fuel. And it is one of the things that
I have on my list of behavioral possibilities is when
you're heading out into areas with weather and tides and
tidal flows, it's trying to time your operation so as
you're using those factors instead of them working against you.
If you're going through the Pentland Firth, you don't want
to be doing that against the tide. You want to
be having that nice flow to take you through it,
and that's going to save you feel significantly compared to
going against the tide. But again, do you know what's possible?
Speaker 3: So do you know the difference in fuel usages between
a flat candy and a and say punching into a decency?
Have you got any idea at all that?
Speaker 2: So that is the probably the hardest factor to determine
when we're designing a boat, because the boat design makes
a huge difference and very often what you'll find is
boats that are really driven towards being efficient on a
flat candy can be very poor for fuel and any
sort of weather. We see that with I was speaking
to someone who operates on one of these offshore crew
supply boats for the wind farm industry slightly dirty word
to talk about on a PA, and he was in
that these boats they'll cruise out at high speed perfectly
until you've got a foot of chop, and at a
foot of chop, the thing slams and they've got to
come basically back to a quarter of the speed they
go out otherwise otherwise you just can't drive the boat.
So it's very difficult to give a figure because for
them it's a very high But for a lot of
the trawlers that we've been working on recently, that's the
most important thing is that it has good propulsive efficiency
and a big sea that it doesn't get affected by that.
So maybe on a flat cam day there's a more
efficient boat than it, but in the environment that it's in,
it retains its best efficiency.
Speaker 3: Can you use the motion generated from if you're in
a big sea, Can you use that as ship in
hull design to become more efficient because there's a lot
of weight that's been moved up down by the by
the sea. Is that anybody tried that or is that
beyond the realms of fantasy.
Speaker 2: That's not something I've heard of. You better get a
patent on it.
Speaker 1: Man, don't don't by dunk and Magnus is not trying
to cut you. He's just trying to work you down
for his catamaran and the Humbury yesterday.
Speaker 3: So that was a really good example, Dunky, as Duncan
was saying, this is this is a boat designed really
well for the Humber, really shallow draft, twin haul, big
engines on the back. It's used mostly by anglers and
on a flat cam. Date it's the best boat in
the world. But we had a when coming from the
from the west yesterday. It was coming straight down the
Humber and it made a chop of about just over
a meter, you know, a meter and a half maybe,
and then it's a ten it's a ten meter catamaran
and it was doing exactly what you're saying, Duncan. When
you drove into when you got into the sea, it
was you'd feel it. When we hit a wave. It
almost stopped the boat, you know, and that cannot be efficient,
that must be and those I guess those are the
sort of things you need to think about. I mean,
I could tell if I'd been on a monohole. Actually,
I like the movement of a monohole going into the
see if it's not going too fast, you get that
there's a nice you know, it's comfortable. That wasn't comfortable yesterday.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I mean, that's one of the most interesting
bets about my job is trying to dig down into
what the skippers that were designing the boats for are
going to do with them, and how to optimize for
their operational profile to make sure they've got the right boat.
And the nature of that is if they say they
are going to be doing everything, you end up with
a with a jack of all trades. If it's someone
who's fishing out Shetland with going out all stage, you've
got something that's really designed for battling through heavy seas,
or if it's like you're talking about something on the Humber,
it's it's just not designed for any waves. And when
you get that, it's not optimum, but that's five percent
of its life rather than the ninety five and you
just got to take that as the compromise that's been
best for their operation.
Speaker 1: Goodness, what you're saying there is bringing something back into
my mind and would be interesting in your view, and
it and is it still relevant and still used?
Speaker 2: And I have.
Speaker 1: To say put my hand up and say I wasn't
aware of this, but during my career and being in
different places in Iceland, then there are a lot of
business in the Pharaohs. Now we were at a shipyard,
and then back here we're in the a. All this together,
it's over a period. The Fisheries Museum here in Wick,
it's a fantastic place and they had knowled it's called
a stroma yawl. Stroma be the island in the Pentland Firth,
and a yowl in a small boat. Now a stroma
yowl would maybe be just less than ten meters, well
much less than ten meters, but they were classic as
a five man and five men could sit beside each other.
You know, the beam be a beamier boat, but the
guys in the Fairah, we're talking about a much narrower boat.
And an Iceland was different and all the howls or
a different shape. I found I didn't know about it,
and I found it very interesting. But they were saying
that was because the different sea in that different areas
is that does that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. When
you've got potentially quite tall but short waves, something narrower
is good for that because it will sort of go
straight up and down, where something that's beami er if
it ends upside on, will roll in and out of
it more as it gets caught by the wave taking
it up. But obviously the beam gives you some level
of stability, so it's important. So the balance of those
two factors really dictates how you design your boat. And
I could see that there would be a big diversion
in different areas to suit what sort of waves they
encountered and how stable they like their boats to feel.
Speaker 1: That's fascinating. Yeah, and with that come into your work
now when you're talking about sort of efficiencies with the
shape of the hull, and that come into that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, the shape of the hull is one of
the most important things in general. We'll try and keep
boats as as fine a shape as possible and try
and keep their beam relatively narrow if we can. The
problem becomes with more and more effishing gear on board,
especially when it's positioned higher and higher on the boat.
You need the beam to give us more stability to
take that weight. And as the boats catch more and
they are limited in their length, the shape becomes less
fine and becomes fuller. So it's all a compromise. Compromises
the biggest word. Whenever we're designing a boat, you've got
to find the right balance to suit what the owner
once and what ticks most of the boxes that they need.
Speaker 3: I guess that's why potters have become like brick shapes,
because they need that deck space to hold all a
string of pots, you know, and strings of pots. Now
we're thirty forty big pots, you know. So that affects
the design as well, and they need to be able
to move the gear around.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure how they look under the water, whether
they are still quite streamlined and then quite boxy on top,
or whether they've they've got boxy the whole way through.
I haven't had a good look yet. Some of the
potters down in your direction. I'll need to next time
I'm in the area.
Speaker 3: They'll probably take offense if we call them boxy I'll
get told off next time I've been bred.
Speaker 1: And then you'll you wouldn't have thought about it, but
I know Magnus was watching me closely. I mentioned Iceland,
pharaoh Strom, all that island. I didn't mention Greenland. Are
we're talking about small efficiency gains or does the fleet
need just a complete rethink?
Speaker 2: So you know, there's there's a lot of small changes
that we can make that are relatively cheap or easy
to do, and then there's some larger changes we can
do that are more expensive. One of the things I
always think of when you're talking about small efficiency gains
is I don't know if if you've ever heard of
marginal gains, a sort of term coined by British cycling
as they tried to take over the Olympics and win
all the gold medals, which was that they looked at
every factor that they could, you know, the chains on
the bikes, the wheels, the handlebars, the beds, the people
were sleeping in, taking outside air conditioning, and they thought
all of those things would give them one to two percent.
But when you bring it all together, it gave Team
GB a huge competitive advantage and to an extent, I
think we need to be looking at that taking every
marginal gain that we can in terms of fuel efficiency
and take all the small gains, and that can make
a big difference. I do think in the longer term
and the transition away from fossil fuels, there is going
to be a big rethink about what type of vessels
and what balance of vessels we need. But at the
moment it's very difficult to see that as there's no
real clear path in terms of which fuels will be
available in the pricing for anyone to run a real
economical model of it. And just circling back on my
list of other practical changes that I can recommend, I'd
talked about behavioral stuff. There's also things that can be
done on the vessel, from as simple as keeping the
bottom clean, then the props clean, to looking at anti
fouling that can keep it clean for longer. Some of
them also talk about having better surface friction ratios. I'm
never certain about those claims and how well they stack up.
I know you were speaking recently to some people about
propeller coatings. I think did I listen to one with
David Stevens who's had that on the crystal c propeller
coating and that that makes a big difference. We've obviously
got the Ecomotus system that you can have to improve
your engine efficiency. There's a lot of warnings that go
alongside that in terms of the engine manufacturers don't like it,
and I have a certain degree of concern around having
hydrogen in the engine room. Obviously that the way that
it's installed is MCA certified and I'm sure as well considered,
but it's one of those things that just always makes
me nervous with that product. Otherwise, I think it's a
very good idea, and then you probably get into the
more expensive things that I'm thinking about here. There's the
potential that that new engines could make a big difference
to both, and that might be a new engine that's
smaller tou going at a slightly slower speed and keeping
it in its economical range. But it could also be
that the engine on board a boat is undersized and
it needs to be a bigger engine. Newer, more modern
engines are more fuel efficient than the previous generations, so
there is a big potential for that, but it's a
big ticket item that it costs a lot of money,
and also I know a lot of guys like sort
of old gardener engines because the quint bullet proof, and
they can do a lot of work on them themselves.
For as if you get a modern engine that's that's
got an electronic controller. If you have a problem, you're
you're calling in service agents a lot of the time
thinking about the propellers on the boat and the nozzles,
if that's something on it, whether there's a better way
of pitching the propellers to suit the operation better. I've
also seen energy recovery systems on the boat. So you've
got a lot of heat that goes up your exhaust.
There are people who develop systems and we've seen one
on a fishing boat we designed that uses that heat
to run a desalination plan, so that puts fresh water
on the boat that's then used for their ice making,
and you know, the fresh water is made straight out
of the heat that would otherwise be waste. I've seen
systems that do a similar principle, but they can turn
it into electricity. And then the sort of even further
in the cost bracket is looking at some hybrid systems
or even a full electric boat. A full electric boat
like hands that we talked about earlier. You become decoupled
from the the price of diesel to an extent, you're
still caught up in oil price because the electric grid
is still very fluctuating with oil price. But as we
move away from fossil fuels, that would become a much
more stable in terms of your fixed costs. Hybrid systems
for some boats could could make a huge difference in efficiency,
but for others make no difference. So it's very much
dependent on the vessel. And then there's other things we
could do that are changes to the boat, whether that's
length in it, or cutting out the bow and putting
a new more efficient bow on, or a stern, or
adding a nozzle if you're towing gear can make a
big difference. Or if you're not towing gear and your
boat has a nozzle, then taking the nozzle off could
be a big, big advantage. I realized that's quite a
long list of ideas for changes, and as I say,
not all will be applicable to every boat. But it's
something for people to think about as ways that you
could invest money to save money. And that's going to
be the difficult bit is understanding it. At what point
you've actually saved your money.
Speaker 3: That last point's really interesting, But I don't know what
does a nozzle do and why is it better on
a troller and not better on a potter for example.
Speaker 2: So the nozzle basically circles up the propeller and it
helps it to pull water through. So when you're traveling
at slow speeds, it allows you to produce more force
to push the boat forward. And that's really good when
you're towing gear because worried about how much force you
can produce to pull. When you're operating static gear, you're
not that worried about what you can pull behind you.
You're more worried about being efficient at sort of close
to the vessel's hull speed. And at that point the
nozzles really dragging in the water and creating more resistance
than the additional force that it provides for you.
Speaker 3: That's interesting. There's another thing, so something that was suggested
to me by a fisherman a couple of years ag
around about the time when we were seeing each other
regularly dunking for the FIST, and that was the idea
of carrying a small engine on the boat, especially for potters,
you know, for when you're just nudging the boat around
your gear, you know, And that came up against the
MCA who or maybe it was fishing regulations, because it
would be power that counted towards the power they would
you know, the way that boats are licenses about the
power of the engine, isn't it so I mean.
Speaker 2: Sense that would be some extra killer watts, wouldn't it
in the water, Not that they'd be using them at
the same time. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah,
you see it actually on a lot of sort of
small leisure fishing boats, especially in America. I'm thinking about
these bass boats. They've got a big outboard on the
back to blast about the lake at high speed, and
then they've got just a little engine to sort of
creep along the margins of the lock that they're fishing on.
And I could certainly see something like that just to
keep you moving forward along your your static gear as
you're picking it up, being really helpful because it would
let you be i mean, either out of gear with
the main engine in neutral which is still burning some
or turning it off entirely.
Speaker 1: Duncan you're you mentioned there, and yet you're right. I
have done recent podcasts I recorded with the company's ecomotives
and assured Marine ecomotis. As you said, they're got the hydrogen,
and you were saying you're not very comfortable with it.
I was telling a fisherman there recently when after that
recommending he wants to listen to it, and he was
a bit concerned. But the reason he was concerned, I
got the word wrong. I didn't say it was hydrogen.
I told him it was nitrogen that I mean they offer.
Speaker 2: Sorry, just just to come in on that when I
say I'm concerned. Hydrogen is a is a gas that
has a series explosion risk. But I understand that the
ecomotive system uses a very small amount of it. I
just I haven't seen it installed, and I don't know
what they do in terms of mitigating that explosion risk,
and I would want to before I could put my
full weight as a as a professional naval architect behind
saying and it's a it's a good idea if you
can install it on your boat, you need to understand
that that's a risk mitigation. To make sure it's risk
it's going to happen.
Speaker 1: They say that RENA approved. I'm not sure about RENA.
But also as you said that the Mcare of approved
it and some other body as well funding bodies, So
it seems to be I'm not pushing that, but it
certainly seems to have not concerned.
Speaker 2: And as I say that, you know, the chemistry behind
what they say it does makes really good sense. Effectively,
it's it's it's adding a small amount of hydrogen into
the fuel mix and it makes the diesel burn more efficiently,
and and that I totally believe. And at the moment
we can see engine manufacturers making dual fuel engines and
one of the big things that they say is when
you run a dual fuel, so that's diesel and another fuel,
when you run one of those as a diesel and hydrogen,
you don't need a lot of hydrogen in the mix
to really improve the diesel. So what they are saying
they can do is I would say very legitimate, and
certainly David on the on the Crystal c is very
positive about it. As I say, my area of concern
is just around how that highen's handled and how you
ensure the safety in the engine room. And then also
people need to understand if they've got an engine that's
under warranty, if they put that on it that the
engine manufacturer won't stand by the warranty because you put
something in that makes a bit inside the engine bang
just a little bit harder.
Speaker 1: The guys, both David and a guy Mike Bullinger, when
they're talking about the coding on the prop, they're saying,
it's unbelievable the difference that they reckon. There's less noise,
there's more maneuverability, they get a better towing speed. And
you'll know more about this than me and for sure,
But what the part that really surprised me was they
were saying, this was Mark and Simon from Assured Marine.
They reckoned it was more having that coating on the
prop than the hull. Now my head thinking when you
think of the surface area of the hull, but they
reckon that was more important than the prop and the whull.
And David Steven reckons twenty five meter board. He says
the last three years he's saved like two hundred and
thirty Well the figure he mentions two hundred and thirty
five thousand. That's serious money.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And knowing David just a little bit, that's it's
going to be a mixture of the things he's talked about,
but he's going to be very careful in the way
that he drives his boat. He's going to be doing
everything he can to make it fuel efficient. That's that's
what he's really set his mind to, and when he
sets his mind to something, he tends to do it
very well. So that's a sort of say that you
can make by making changes like this, But there's obviously
for both the ecomotis and the propeller coating, there will
be a cost to go along with it. The surface
friction on a propeller is very, very important to its efficiency,
and any drop off in propulsive efficiency of the propeller
is effectively just lost fuel. It's money wasted. So if
that boating does as they're saying and keeps that at
the right surface friction surface finish to get the maximum
efficiency out of the propeller, I can well believe that
it would make a good saving to the boat. The
propellers are turning, they're a really active part of the boat,
so although they've got a lot less surface area, they
have a big impact on what you're doing doing. One
of the other things in this playoff is because it's
got a relatively small surface area, the cost of putting
the special polymer coating on it is going to be
relatively smaller because you'll just need less coating, where if
you do the hull, it's it's going to be a
big expense comparatively, And the surface smoothness of a hull
does play a factor in resistance, but it's by no
means the biggest factor. The whole shape of the boat
pushing through the water is a lot more than the
specific surface friction in general.
Speaker 1: Yeah, from what you've seen obviously, do these sort of
solutions actually make a difference in practice for working fishermen?
Are they more long term incremental improvement?
Speaker 2: So a system like the ecymotus or the propeller coating
or some of the other things I talked about in
the list I had of changes you could make to
the vessel, there'll be a relatively instant change, you know,
it's the boat is different at that point. It will
burn less fuel from that point on for doing your operation.
The problem is we've got to pay for that upfront,
and it's going to take you time that the fuel
saving adds up to what that upfront cost is. I mean,
that's really how I think it's best to look at
these modifications is in terms of a payback time. If
I spend this much and it takes me a year
to say it back, that might be good. If it
takes ten years, it's maybe not worth it. If it
takes a week, it's a no brainer. You've just got
to do it. And that the ones that are the
shortest period of the time are the ones that are
best to invest your money in first. But I would
recommend caution and just listening to what the salesman of
a company say there product will will do for your
efficiency if you listen to Magnus is my boat state
is going to save you fifteen percent. But that's maybe
only if you're not operating your boat very efficiently at
the moment. And everything's different depending on how you operate
your boat. So what a salesman says is is always
to be taken with a pinch or or maybe a.
Speaker 1: Full of salt.
Speaker 3: I think that's a really important point.
Speaker 2: They're dunking that.
Speaker 3: It's about skippers being aware and having it in their
face the whole time. You can save money, and you
can save money by the actions that you're taking, and
those are like that list. I'm sure you've got a
longer listed in the way somewhere that's top secret for
McDuff Shipyard. You know, all those things you can do,
and it goes in all the way from simple behaviors
like switching your engine off when you're alongside, knocking back
on the revs a little bit, you know, making sure
you've got the bottom clean. All those things people can
do tomorrow, can't they you know, and they will make
every one of those will make a little bit of
a difference. But you've got to have I mean, I
would have a sign up in the wheelhouse saying, you know,
how can I save money today?
Speaker 2: You know? And how I behave I mean, I certainly
notice when I'm driving. Sometimes i can be in the
mood to drive really efficiently and I'll put the miles
for gallon on and I'll be really good. And then
sometimes I'm more interested in about where I'm going and
getting there, and there's a huge difference. And I think
trying to keep on task on. You know, the least
fuel you burn when you're out fishing, the more profit
you make from selling your fish, and the more that
that can be. What you're what you're thinking about what
dictates the decisions you make as you are driving and
making helming probably as the right word, and making the
decisions on board is really important.
Speaker 1: There's all of us talk of the next generation vessel buking,
but is that realistic for working fishermen just now?
Speaker 2: There's a lot to be said for what the next
generation of fishing boats will look like. Since I've started here,
we've had a relative change in terms of what we've designed.
Has been a lot of work and tac testing to
improve the boats, but largely they they're all very similar
and they're a small improvement on what was before. When
we start looking forward to the next generation, that's going
to be as fossil fuels phase out and the boats
are going to have to be quite different to suit that.
And for some vessels that is a massive opportunity. You know,
inshore vessels that have relatively low power demands, being able
to go to electric systems that really free them up
from that oil price could be a huge advantage to them.
All you have to do is listen to hands talk
about his boat and you're convinced it's a great idea.
But at the other side of the scale, for the
stuff that's very power intensive and fuel intensive. We're at
a real crossroads where when diesel stops working, what that
next generation looks like is it's difficult to think.
Speaker 1: Okay, if the policy makers fully understand that fishermen can't
just pass rising costs.
Speaker 3: On sometimes yes, I think one of the problems we
have is that this is a long term problem. You know,
this isn't something that's got a five year timescale around it.
It's a fifteen, twenty thirty year issue. And politicians come
and go. Policymakers come and go. You know, every time
you talk to different the person who you were talking
to last time has moved on and they're doing something
else because they're bright young things. You know, they're moving
on to another department and changing their career and that life.
The number of people who stay in fisheries at the
level where they're making decisions, I wonder how often they
stay for more than five years or ten years or
something like that, you know, And that's that's a I
think that's a that's a difficulty that we face with.
It's not just in fishing, other areas in policy as well.
You're saying wind farms, you're dealing with wind farm operators.
The liaison people that you're dealing with change regularly, and
you've got to educate them all over again. And you'll
hear fishermen or fishermen's representatives say exactly the same thing.
You know, every time there's a change in government or
a changing minister, or a change in the rep Defra.
They have to be re educated to understand the fishing
industry and understand that when they make a policy decision
that requires fishermen to change their gear or their engines
or something about their boat, or legislation or you know,
the MCA come in with lots of rules and regulations
about stability or all these other I mean, Duncan's an
expert in stability, by the way, you might want to
talk to him about that. But they, you know, every
time they come in with a new regulation, the health checks,
all that kind of stuff. It has a cost, you know,
And I don't think they always People always that make
decisions always recognize these things, or maybe the recognize them,
but don't recognize the severity of these things. And something
that means a five percent increasing costs for a fisherman
at the bottom end of the scale, you know, a
little boat who does the job because that's what he
or she wants to do, not because they're out to
make a million pounds. You know, they can be quite
strongly impacted by minor changes in the gear that they
they're allowed to use, or you know, all sorts of
things that can impact them. So yeah, we need to
keep educating people in power, you know that make the decisions.
That's for the NFFO and the SFF and Scott's Wife
Fish Fish Producers Association all come in as they're such
important organizations because they are trying to educate policymakers all
the time.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, well you've probably answered the next point.
Magnets with that or emissioned targets and environmental policy has
been set with a real grasp with hout especially actually
open it.
Speaker 3: Sometimes. I mean, so what Duncan's been talking about here
are exactly the sort of things that the industry can do.
They are minor amendments, minor changes. When last time, after
the spiking prices, the government came out with an engine
replacement scheme for fishermen and you know, great idea, it'd
be great if we could swap for boats where it's
appropriate where we could swap over to like hybrid system
or electric system or something, and there was money available.
But trouble as the fishermen had to pay out to
do it, and the cost I can't remember the cost
is for a brand new electric propulsion system, but it's
a significant amount of money to a small boat operator.
And it's also a problem when you know, when I
go into a room full of skippers, I'm a young man, Jim.
You know, there's sort of a lot of skippers are
in the late fifties, early sixties, and they're looking and
being told, you know what it'll cost you thirty thousand
pounds or forty thousand pounds for a new propulsion system,
and they think I'll go be out of this in
five years time, you know, yeah, you know, you know.
So what I would like to see from government is
in terms of policies, is to recognize that these small
wins are worthwhile and to help fund those small changes
that fishermen make, such as fuel motors and ecomotors and
prop paint and all the other minor changes that you
can that you can do. And so you know, that's
something that's in the wheelhouse, that's that's telling fisher and
how much fuel they're using per earth so or a
mile or whatever. So I think that's that I would
love to see that come from government and that that
would be a real step forward, duncan.
Speaker 2: If I just sort of come in on that a
little bit. There was that engine replacement scheme that you're
talking about, and it had an option for the sort
of hybrids or battery propulsion systems, and it was quite
a good offer, but I think the people that it
was targeted at didn't know about it, didn't understand how
to go about getting it, and didn't understand what would
be suitable for their vessel, and that was kind of
part of the challenge. And the hybrid bit was maybe
a little earily, but on the sort, very often for
government funding it seems to be very difficult to get.
We've done a couple of projects in Norway in aquaculture
and they had a very very simple way of promoting electrification,
which was for every killer what of battery you had
on board, you've got a certain amount of knockies back
from the government, and that amount was more than what
the batteries cost. So there was a big incentive to
guys when they were building boats to put on the
biggest battery possible because actually it helped to fund other
bits on board their boat. And that's meant that now
Norway has a huge hybrid fleet and that's a big
reduction in their their fuel use, especially in aquaculture, but
also I think some of their fishing vessels. And from
what we saw of that, that was like one form
sent to government, a couple of receipts and then they
just got got money. Where I know some people that
have done the engine replacement scheme in it it was
a lot of letters and application forms and it worked well.
They got they got their money, but it just seemed
hard work for.
Speaker 3: Them, very complex. The UK application systems a differ system is.
I mean, I work in a university and if I
mentioned defer to my I have a whole not me person,
but the universe had a whole office of people who
are involved in funding applications. When I mentioned differ, they
run away and hide, you know, because of the application
systems so difficult, But somebody else don't. I think it's
a conversation we've had previously dunking, but I think one
of the needs could be for fishermen to have access
to people like like dunking around the country, so when
they want to make a change in their propulsion system,
they can go and get some good advice, you know,
somebody that can say right for your boat in that
situation the thing that you're doing. These are the options
that you could think about and like a clinic, you know,
like a skipper could go to a clinic, a fuel
reduction clinic with somebody that knows what they're talking about
and just get some because it's it's every boat is
different in it you know, every skipper is different, every
use of the boat is different, and they need different
advice for different circumstances. And that would be one thing
that government could do which would be a massive step forward.
You know, that would be a really good thing.
Speaker 2: It's one of the things, especially with electrification and fitting batteries,
is you can't have the same level of spare capacity
that you do with diesel. You know, you can fit
a tack that does you a week two weeks on
some of these small boats, but you just can't fit
a battery that size. It's got to be more suited
to the exact operation you're going to do. So that
level of advice needs to be a little bit more
detailed than it does for a diesel boat.
Speaker 1: I have to say, guys that one of the things
that really hardens me is a recent recordings, as I said,
with the people from E Commotives and the people from
Assure Marine listening to Duncan today. I think it's brilliant, Magnus,
that there's that minds still around and industry has access
to them, clever, clever people, And I think it's so
refreshing to know that there is clever guys like that.
Speaker 3: So you're not including me there.
Speaker 2: Oh you're to say, what about magnets.
Speaker 1: Chat You're in a university, You're excluded. I mean hands
on people actually in the industry.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's a real talent there is, There
is talent around. We should be nurturing it, looking after it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, I think it's It's where I might push
back at you here, Jim, is a lot of the
smart people I meet are out there working on fishing boats.
Speaker 2: They're not academically smart necessarily like like Magnus, but they
are understanding and their intuition for for what their boat does,
what it needs, how it's moving is is incredible, and
you know, everyone brings something different to the table. It happens.
I understand how to how to draw boats and a
little bit of how the the resistance and stability works
dround that, but it's it's a collective from everyone in
the industry.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that I appreciated that, Duncan you trying
to get one over on me with Magnus when you
say that earlier, Magnus and well maybe dunking with an
answer that you just alluded on it. Are there particular
types of vessel where these technologies are more effective?
Speaker 2: So in terms of the list I had earlier things
you can change on the boat, they'll work for all
vessels to some extent, depending on where your baseline is.
A lot of the time, Actually, the bigger vessels with
more fuel consumption will see the benefit quicker in terms
of the cost is probably a smaller proportion of what
their fuel bill is, so that saving will be made
in a shorter timeframe. There their sort of return on investment.
But when you look forward to that sort of electrification
side of things, it really suits the the smaller vessels
with with a low power profile and short operation and
certainly it's it's a big investment to make that change,
and I do think that there probably will be pots
of money that people can tap into for that to
help with it, but that would make a big difference
to the the day to day cost of running a boat.
Speaker 1: Indeed, if a skipper invests in a system can genuinely
improve the economics of their trip, so I.
Speaker 2: Would say yes, And in a lot of cases, if
if you invest in in a lot of these systems
that that that make the boat more efficient, it's it's
going to make you use less fuel and that's gonna
going to save you money on a on a trip basis.
One of the things that I would maybe just gently
warn about, especially in that maybe looking slightly further ahead,
is there will be technologies that will get outdated quite
quickly or will be proved not to be the best choice.
So if you install a certain battery system, there's a
chance that the charging, powering, or voltage or something will
change in your area and then you'll be left with
struggling to figure out a good way around that. Or
A pretty good example from a sort of opposite industry
is the relatively recent news about Aberdeen's hydrogen bus fleet
that they invested in in twenty and twenty one. Effectively
they don't have a hydrogen supply for it, and the
buses have been sitting not working, so they they bought something,
but the supply to run it isn't there, and actually
that they're making a full pivot towards doing battery electric
for those buses, which I thought was quite interesting in
terms of you know, that risk is something that you
can survive as a as a bus company especially. I
think there's probably some backing from from council towards that.
But if you're an individual operator owner of a fishing boat,
if you invest in the wrong technology and it becomes outdated,
that's that's your full livelihood on the line, and that's
a real concern. So trying to find good mature solutions
that that maybe also there's a door to step back through.
You know, courting your propeller, there's there's a door to
step back through. You can you can scrape that off
if it didn't work and it made it worse. Obviously
that's not the case from what we've been hearing, and
the same with the ecomotive system. If it didn't work,
if it didn't make your engine more efficient. If it
actually made you burn more fuel, which I'm not in
any way suggesting that it does, you can take it off.
It's not such a high value item that that loss
would would necessarily put you a business. But if you
ripped out your engine and then put in a hydrogen
tank and a fuel cell and then there's no hydrogen supply,
that's very scary to your business.
Speaker 3: I think we're at the stage and we see this
in other areas, and you've seen this yourself, Jim, in
your long career. We're at that stage where it's early
adopters that are taking up technology and they're trying it out.
And these are the madmen like hands uncles, you know,
who's fearless in his approach. He's absolutely gone for it
and it's custom, you know, and he's you know, he's
really gone in for this electric boat. But not everyone
can do that, and not everyone wants to do that,
and it takes these people, these sort of people at
the cutting edge, really to have a go first and
then other people will follow along behind. And that's been
historic in fisheries, I think, you know, from going from
sale over the steam or using sounders or changing nets
or using you know, the development of the auto troll
and people have changed things over time, but those early
adopters are critical in the development of industry and with
this the carbonization drive, it's going to be the same.
It's the same thing. The early adopters are the people
leading the way, and what we need to do is
support them better, you know. So, I mean, I would
like to see people are willing to give something a go,
having an open hand from government saying okay, but we
know it's a risk. We're not one hundred percent sure
it's going to work, but you know we're going to
support you and let you have a go because we
recognize the fact that if this works, then we're going
to see So imagine, so say my wonderful idea of
my boat's data thing works and it saves even ten
percent of the fuel costs for an individual skipper, or
even five percent, And you do the sums and look
at how much fuel we're using per day around the UK,
just in the small boat sector. I did it myself
a while ago, and I'm not evening to tell you
the number because I couldn't believe it. I had to
go away and do the sums again, if we could
save five ten percent of fuel using ecomotives, propeller coatings,
driving more slowly changing behavior, not switching keeping it, switching
the engine off when you come aside all those things,
if we could save it's a massive, massive amount of
fuel and money the country or the industry as a
whole would be saving. And I would like to see
government finding me encouraging people to try things out and
adopt adopt things, you know, because there's partly because the
government has to be the people that do this, because
there is no single solution, you know, So we need
people to be trying out different things and for people
like Duncan and me and other skippers and skippers to
learn from that and so right in that situation this works.
In that situation, that doesn't work, but this might work,
you know, And so the industry needs support to develop
these myriad of different solutions there are to all the
different ways that we work. I mean, you can look
around the country just as an example, if you look
around the country and look at boat designs, you look
at cobbles in my part of the world, they're completely
different to a Shetland model, you know, And that's for
good reason. That's because fishermen have evolved a method that
works in that part and that, you know, for the
things they want to do and the things So it's
going to be the same with these adaptations to reducing
carbon cost. It's going to be that there are different
solutions for different ports, different methods, different boats, different sizes
of boats, different you know, and it's not a simple thing.
So that's why we need external support in order to
develop them.
Speaker 1: When you're saying that, Magnus, I feel you can correct
me dunking. But that's what I see in David Stephen.
He seems to be a kind of guy that's willing
to have a go, he's willing to invest, and he's
not frightened of the dreaded word change, and he's certainly
very positive that this is saving him a lot of money.
So it'd be interested to hear more from Duncan on
the long term success of that in the future. Definitely,
I agree. So technology can help Duncan, but it's only
one piece of the puzzle. The pressures of fishermen remain
very real, and the question becomes how the fleet adapt
to survive in today's conditions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I mean It's a very difficult question. There's
no specific answer to it because it's going to look
so different for for all the different boats. What the
best way for them to move forward and survive is.
But talking in general, as as we've sort of bashed
on about this this conversation, is the best ways to
save fuel, the most economic ways to save fuel on
board your vessel is going to be key in that.
And then the other thing is is unlocking the maximum
price you can get for your product. And that's how
we've got to move to adapt. And this is actually
where I've got got a suggestion for you is have
you ever spoken to anyone from the Icelandic Ocean Cluster
And they are one hundred percent fish initiative, So I'm
gonna butcher this and I would really recommend you get
someone from that on to talk about it. But they
looked at how to improve the value that they get
out of the fish, and that's down to lots of
different businesses working together to see what they could do
with what's that, you know, the byproduct of the fish,
and in doing that they greatly increase the value that
they get for every fish call. You know, there's some
of the fish skin is used in medicine or bandages.
There's companies using the fish bones to make toys for
kids and a huge variety of things. But all of
that adds up to give them an increased value for
the fish. And I think you would have a great
conversation with with someone from that and it would be
worthwhile hearing. I think I've seen something about there being
a Scottish ocean cluster that's trying to follow a similar idea,
but I haven't read enough about that to really have
any information, but that that is the two parts that
how do we get more money for fish and how
do we spend less money on fuel catching it.
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree with you more Duncan, and I definitely
I would definitely like to get in touch that people
I know have good friends in Iceland. Booked a lot.
But when you're saying that about you say that is
one of the things that was in my mind earlier
when I was suggesting that we get the shore side
in the room, because it's just shocking the percentage of
fish in this country that end up in the awful bin.
And an exactly when you say to look at what
the Icelanders are doing far as oil with the liver,
and there's so many things. But one of my favorite
cuts of fish is a belly the belly flap and
it's cut off and it goes into the bin. And
I try to do a lot of that. When I
had my own restaurant in Scrabster, one of the most
and it was very, very popular. Monkfish liver. Now it's
an absolute delicacy in Japan, worth the fortune hours. When
the fish is gutted, it goes back over the side.
So I couldn't agree with you more there, Duncan. We
have a long long way to go and get more
out the fish. And what I said earlier, keep more.
Don't put a small haddache in the bait box, get
get it on this slab, get it in the fishmonger's shop,
get it in the fish and chip shops. We're importing
ninety five percent of the fish that our fryers use.
This comes from Norway and Iceland, and we're putting perfect
fish for a fryer into the giving it to the
lobsters as bait. I couldn't agree with that more, Duncan.
And I would love to speak to that people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was it was a fisheries innovation and sustainability event.
I heard about it, so I think you've spoken to
Kara before, but she would be able to connect you.
Speaker 1: Excellent. Do you agree with that, Magnus absolutely.
Speaker 3: I think it's interesting because normally when we talk about
increasing the value of fish, we mean that people like
Chris Bean of Skipper on the South Coast, and he
used to have his own during the summer, so he's
in Cornwall. Devin's up the area, so there's quite a
big tourist areas in the summer. There's lots of people
around that want to buy fresh, locally caught fish and
they're in the mood to experiment. And that's normally what
we think about when we talk about increasing the value
of fish. It's having short supply chains, selling direct from
the skipper to the consumer. But what Duncan's talking about,
which is maximizing the use of you know, yes, we
need to get people to eat more than just cord
and haddock. You know, we need to get people eating
the whole diversity of fish. But the other solution is
just is to make more of the commercial species that
come in bulk. You know, pollock, cord had it place,
you know, I'll say all these things and get the
most out of them, And I think that's absolutely using
technology and research to get the use even things like netrops.
I know that we be seafoods have been looking a
lot at finding ways to use the shelves the exoskeletons
of nephrops for other things.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: And then the guys that are working doing the clawbinder research,
you know, they're looking at ways that can they use
things that are sourced biodegradable, things sourced from fish to
make the things they want to make in order to
bind clothes.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: So there's definitely technology and research got a big role
to play in trying to maximize the value that fishermen
get for their for their catch. But we need to
make sure it's passed on, you know, so that that
value has passed on to the fishermen. They're not just
getting paid for what gets consumed as a as a
prime fill it. I don't know how you do that.
Speaker 1: When I had the restaurant I was doing this monkfish Lovers.
We had Japanese people using the restaurant a lot. They
were really good customers. They were in a joint venture
up here in a battery factory with the company still
still going. An important employer and Caithness here and they
were good, good customers, and they asked me they were
coming a lot on oysters. Oh, they were this brilliant.
And they came to me then and they says, look,
we're loving this. We want you to do some sashimi
for us and sister them. Look, I says, I'll be perfect.
I'll be one hundred percent upfront with you. I says,
we're a small business, small family business. My wife and
I in a small staff. I says, I would love
to do sashimi. That says, but this is my problem.
What I feel is you guys access to the best
sushi and sashimi Central London, Tokyo, absolute best top restaurants.
I says, you're important customers of min. I don't want
to upset you and do it make a mistake or
do it wrong and maybe lose your business. And he
put the wee guy came up and he put his
hand on my shoulder and Jim and he's broken the Japanese.
He says to me, don't you forget He says, the
best sashimi is not how close you are to Tokyo,
Central Tokyo or London. He said, it's right here where
we can get the freshest fish. I just thought, wow,
you know what it was, and that was that was
cheek's cord and tongue, the tongues and the cheeks and
the cheeks of them bunk fish, just with Duncan said earlier,
just a bit using I was using the jaw. I
was cutting out the jaws of the monkfish and using them.
And when if somebody asked me about it, I would say, oh,
do you like a chicken wing? Yoh, yeah, like a
chicken wings as well? Their year chicken wing the sea excellent.
So yeah, definitely, I'm just all on that one. Are
smaller than short boats more at risk? Do you feel?
Speaker 3: I just I think we can both answer that in
slightly different ways. So I think I think I think
they They are in some ways I and that's because
they're not as efficient as these great big boats. There's
what people call industrial fishing, you know, but they're really
important to local communities. I mean locally their value to
the economies is phenomenal. The Bridlington is built on the
backs of fishermen and not many of the boats are
that much more than ten meters, you know, and they're vulnerable.
The boats in the Clyde, you know, these middle scale
trawlers that work in the cloud, they're vulnerable to especially
these kind of oil price shocks. They're all trolling boats
and if we lose them, we lose a massive part
of our culture as much as anything else. And you know,
I think I've heard it quoted on this show several times,
one fisherman at one local fisherman at sea employees between
seven and fifteen people ashore.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: So these little boats that work in small ports around
the we're in the coaster are really valuable, but yes
they're threatened. You know, they cannot be as efficient as
a big offshore boat. If you look at the carbon
efficiency of an offshore trawler or saying that, you know,
they're the carbon efficiencies ten times better than a small
inshore boat. But they don't offer the same value in
terms of how they support local communities. I mean, I
don't think.
Speaker 2: I think I'd have a lot agreement with Magnus there.
I think the one thing is on the smaller, especially
static gearboats, is as we look forward towards the sort
of move away from fossil fuels. They've got a relatively
certain direction that they're going to go, which is towards
electrification for most of them and having batteries on board,
and that's actually it's hard for them right now, but
I can quite easily see how they continue the same
sort of operation boats Magnus was talking about on the
Clydes of small mid size trawlers. They are very vulnerable
to this and also very vulnerable to what happens in
the future for that type of boat because they're not
They're not an easy problem to solve in an etsyer world,
and I think that's one of the challenges I think
as as someone who designs boats and wants fishermen to
be safe. My biggest concern whenever I hear about fuel
price spikes for small boats is that maybe a boat
that's normally two or three crew will decide to go
out shorthanded or single handed and greatly increase the risk
profile to the fishermen at sea, and that really worries me.
It's a difficult problem. But obviously, if your fuel cost
goes up, if you can reduce your crew cost, then
you keep your business running, but I'd really advise anyone
thinking about doing that to really consider the risks fully
and take that on board. I think also, as we
mentioned earlier small boats, the cost of some of the
changes that an ecomotive system isn't going to be really
any cheaper for an eight meter boat than it will
be for a twenty four meter boat, but the savings
of the twenty four meter ball mate will be much
more significant, and that sort of level of being able
to invest to reduce is much harder for small boats.
Speaker 3: I think. One of the interesting things with this increase
in fuel price for the small boat sectors. I was
talking to Sarah already a while back, who lives in
Brixham and and her they are fishing family. They got
I think it's called the two brothers the boat and
they She she had this expression that you won't know
if you don't go, you know, And so fishermen used that,
you know, if you want to find some new ground
to fish, or you've got to invest and go an
extra one hundred miles or fifty miles or something like that.
When the fuel price spikes like this, you can no
longer do that. And what that means is. And then
what that meant last time was that boats were all
fishing closer the home, so the local grounds were the
grounds that were being used used up more quickly because
the fishermen weren't couldn't afford to go out and travel
further in order to catch stuff, you know, And that's
something we need to be aware of.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: When Sally when the volume of fish and mentioned, my
mother used to always say, it is a man with
lost boat was lost at anything could see that. There's
the price of fish. That's the real or the true
price of fish. Are we valuing fish properly today?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: Well, oh so hard. Because my mother in law bought
me some sardines for Christmas and there were these beautiful
fish caught off the south coast. They are ten sardines
and I ate them and these are amazing. They were like,
it's very different to your sixty pence in the sardines
that you get from Tesco's. And I thought, I'll get
some more of these, and I looked them up and
they're ten pounded, you know, and that's the value that
that's what they're worth. Though, you know, these I mean,
they were they were amazing, beautiful fish to eat. Now
I can afford to. I wouldn't do it very often,
but I can afford to spend ten pounds for a
treat for myself. But I want fish to be available
to people that don't live I want I want people
at the other end of you know, that aren't on
a big salary to be able to afford to eat
fish that's caught locally as well. So those sixty pence
tens of sardines in Tesco's, or get the Cornish saradine
one pound twenty for ten of sardines and cornish decent
qualities Cornish sardines. So you know, it's to be value fish.
Saying that it's like to be value cars. You know,
at the one end of the spectrum, we've got the
sort of car that I drive, and at the other
end of the spectrum, we've got the sort of car
that you drive.
Speaker 2: Gym.
Speaker 3: You know some no doubt it's a Jaguar or something
like that. Mine's a cheap Mine's a cheap car. So
I mean, different fish should be valid. Different fish should
be valued in different ways. You know, a lobster's valued
Christmas value of lobsters valued at forty pounds of kilo,
you know, and and and and that's a market.
Speaker 2: I'll buy it. They have to be.
Speaker 3: Italians and French and Spanish. Where's a crab, which in
my book is better eat? Sometimes it doesn't attract the
same amount of money. So I don't know if there's
an easy answer to that question to tell you that.
Speaker 1: I think there's an easy answer to the point you
made about my card. Let me and I'm quite I can.
I can hear fishermen all over Scotland laughing when they
hear that, because my what I always say to anybody
you have to consider if you're driving a vehicle of mine,
there's one thing you can't afford to have an ego
ha I magnus.
Speaker 2: I have a.
Speaker 1: Seventeen plate van out of the door just now. That's
the vehicle I drive in. Have to be perfectly honest
about it and tell you why. Yes, back in the days,
I've had the beamers, the marks them all.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't. I don't see it with any pride, but
they smell the fish the same way as my mind.
What's the point.
Speaker 3: My wife would say, that's why I've got a cheap car,
because I can't keep them clean.
Speaker 1: So no, I've my my limit. My budget for changing
my vehicle was five contrue bound. So you got that
one wrong, my friend. So and go back to that.
Do we reduce it just another commodity, ignoring what it
actually takes to catch it, you know, with a value
of fish.
Speaker 3: Well, I think we. I mean, there's an education job
and it has been for years. We need to educate
people about what the industry is and about everything that's
but you can say it's for the whole food industry
by the way, you know, so people need to appreciate
all the effort that goes in by food producers to
make that thing that ends up in a packet in Tescos,
you know, or a tin Intescos or Sainsbury's or Mark suspenses.
You know, they need to appreciate that how much work
goes into that.
Speaker 2: And I don't.
Speaker 3: I think sometimes people don't, but lots of people do.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: It's people are in trusted in food, the sort of
people would go to your restaurants. You know, they appreciate
good food. Well, appreciate the effort. But it's up to
people like you and me and other people in the
food industry to keep telling people, educate people about the
value of you know, what it takes to get that
fill on your plate in front of you.
Speaker 1: You know when you're saying that, both of ye I
am a really close friend who was almost going to
come in business with We're going to have a joint
venture ourselves with fish at the time. Oh, I'm going
back to the eighties to mid nineties, and unfortunately he
passed away very young. Didn't actually happen, but I thought
he was so what foresight he had and he looking
the industry at large, he says, you know, you've got
it wrong. He says, you've got it wrong with the product.
Your product. He said, it shouldn't be stack them high
and sell them cheap in a supermarket. He says, this
should be sold in delicatessens.
Speaker 3: I agree, but you do want other people, but you
want people that can't afford to go to a delicatessen
to eat our fish as well.
Speaker 2: You know, it's one of the issues I have every
time I go shopping and in the local shops here.
So you know, BAMFI micked off, which is where there's
a lot of fishing going on. Is all the fishing
the supermarket says, is not from the UK's it's foreign.
I try to go to the local fishmonger whenever I can,
but if you end up in Tesco's, I don't have
a choice to to buy anything from the UK a
lot of the time, which is I think probably a
big problem when you start talking about the value and
getting into economics and supply and demand, is that there's
a lot of supply from elsewhere that's coming in in
flooding that market, and that lowers the price.
Speaker 1: And did you look over your cyoulder before you bought
the fish and discus it's to come back thinking is
it too much focus being put on new technology and
not enough on how boats are operated? Or do you
feel technology is the way the future?
Speaker 2: So how boats are operated is probably one of the
key things as to making an efficient industry, but lots
of those are all ready efficiently operated with people very
good and the only way to improve it further then
becomes technology. In discussions I've had previously with someone in
aquaculture who knows about a hybrid boat that went into service,
it was actually using more fuel than the equivalent diesel
vessel was before because the guys running the boat weren't
running it efficiently. So you can't out technology personnel problem.
But equally, we can't magically operate the boats more efficiently
than where their limits are.
Speaker 1: If it continues a where that is, are we simply
heading for a smaller fleet.
Speaker 3: Well, we're already hidden that way, already lost a lot
of the especially smaller boats around the coast, and that
it might unfortunately that might be partly again, it's not
just driven by just fuel prices, by the fact the
boats are more efficient, I can catch more now and
maybe and there's a sort of a sort of management
impositions as well. And one of the I really believe
that management has a real role to play here that
the fact that we kind of fishermen end up forcing
to be in this kind of fisherman that's either your
potter or your trawler or you're a netter or your
you know, and you cannot fish for what is there
at the time. So if you're in brid and there's
a pulse of mackerel comes through, or a pulse of
pilchers come through or something like that, and so or
sardines or bait fish or something, you can't go for
them because you don't have the quota or the ability
to use a particular set of gear. I think one
of the you had Bryce Stewart talking about octopus recently,
and I listened to somebody talking about that from the
Devin Ifka and she was she gave a really excellent presentation.
And then so that was a case where there was
there was a bloom of octopus and the fishermen could
go for it because it was there some of them,
not all of them could, but some of them could,
and that they were able to benefit from that. If
that had been bass, right, they wouldn't been able to
go for it, not because the bass weren't there, but
because they didn't have the right quota, and the management
would not have been able to move quickly enough to say, right,
there's a there's this abundance of a new species on
the ground here. Let's let's let fishermen go and fish
for it. So one of the things we need to
do is to loosen up management somehow find ways to
let fishermen fish for what's what's there, rather than sort
of forcing them to always fish for for one or
two species because that's what they've got the quota for,
or that's what got the gear for you know, and
hopefully technology in management will allow for fisheries managers to
improve the speed at which they can respond to those
changes that are coming. It's all links together, it's all
tied together.
Speaker 1: I would say, yes, I agree with you, Magnus. But
I thought, what a solution, what a great mind. And
you know the guy very well, and he it will
Michael Kaiser and talking to him one day in a
podcast sorry, and as he says, and I thought, gee,
AD's really clever. He says, the industry needs to take
control of the policing of the you know, quote a management,
the whole thing. The industry needs to take control. And
I thought, you know, how true is that? How far
sighted is it?
Speaker 2: I agree?
Speaker 3: And they need to be doing more research themselves, need
to be doing more of the science. Because I think
they're doing that, they become more responsible if they understand
what's going on on their own grounds with their own species.
That makes them more aware that they are responsible for
managing their own their own grounds.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah.
Speaker 2: It could.
Speaker 1: Would you say, could any practical change make a difference
to fishermen?
Speaker 2: Just now? Goodness?
Speaker 1: There anything that has advanced enough.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think a lot of the things that
we've discussed today can all make a practical change to fishermen.
And my real advice to to fishermen would be to
be proactive about doing things, Investigate their options, think about
what they can do, investor money wisely in things that
save them fuel or save them other costs. And to
make sure that they don't just say fuel price is
high and then bury their head in the sand, you know,
try really hard to challenge see where they can they
can improve, try and really push for that. Like Magnus
was saying, you know, when there's other species coming through,
if they had the ability to go and fish for them.
Knowing fishermen, they would be very quickly at that. They'd
come up with really innovative ways to swap their boats
around to suit that. I'd really challenge fishermen to try
and take that same mentality that they'd have for catching
more fish to saving more fuel.
Speaker 1: You could tell me if you think this is it's
just thinking back as you're you've been some of the
things you've been saying. I can remember a number of
years back, probably seventies and eighties, and that we used
to get a heap of boats come in and the scrabster.
I would be on board them down talking to them.
They were in the scribs there to wait for the
tide before they would go through the birth. Just say
there were east coast, mostly east coast boats fishing west
and they would be going through the firth either going
home or to get a refit, a paint that or that,
and they would commit to scrabs her for a few
hours wait for the As I said, wait for the tide.
I never see that now now. I always put it
down to there's less boats now, but they're much more powerful.
I'm talking maybe one hundred horsepower engines, one hundred and
fifty gardeners, that sort of thing. And I just thought
it was all was down to size of the engine,
and there's much They're much much more powerful now. And
so do you feel would adapt into things like that?
Do you think they would be saving fuel doing that
what they.
Speaker 2: Used to do? Yeah, hugely. I mean coming through the
Penland Firth is something like ten to twelve knots at
full flow. If you're going against that in a lot
of boats, you're at full revs and not really making
any progress. But if you're going the other way, you
can be almost knocked entirely off and going faster than
you've ever gone over the ground. So you know that
decision makes sense from a fuel perspective. The big question
is does it make sense from a crew perspective? And
at what point do those make it a bad idea
if you're if you're having to steam down and let
guys off the boat when you get back to Fraser Brudd,
just getting there four hours earlier save you a lot
in terms of your either cost for crew or also
gain you goodwill from the crew versus them hanging about
and scrabster waiting for the tide. You know, there's a
real balance in all of that between cost and maybe
non monetary cost if you understand.
Speaker 1: This is a pretty obvious point I was going to ask.
I think Magnus already mentioned that they came up with it.
As a fuel price stays the same or even goes higher.
What does the UK fishing fleet look like in ten
years time?
Speaker 2: I don't know, is the honest answer. I think it's
magnet probably smaller. But as I mentioned earlier, the fishermen
are some of the smartest guys I've ever seen. They
know their boats, they're resilient, they're resourceful, and they're very
good at sort of ingenuity, and I believe that lots
of them will find a solution to the problem that
will allow them to continue working as fishermen. I don't
think any of them do this as a job like
some other people. It's a career, it's a lifestyle. Nobody
leaves being a fisherman easily. I'd listen to your podcast
the other day, I'm trying to remember the name of
the skipper who'd left to have it is mt business
and garage for them. Yeah, And that's why I see
from fishermen all the time that they are fishermen, even
if they've had to leave the boat to go and
do a different job. That's that's still how they characterize themselves.
And I'm sure they'll find a way back if they've
got to leave, or they'll find a way to make
it through.
Speaker 3: Fishermen told me, I mean, do you know how to
make a million pounds in fishing gym? You start with
two million. Yeah, there's a lot of I think there's
a lot of guys do because it's a passion, it's
a way of life. But I think there are quite
a few at the moment, certainly in Briddlington to speak
to people, and the key there that they'd happily if
there's a decommissioning scheme tomorrow they take it. Yeah, they'd
go because it's it's just so hard. It was hard
before this fuel spikes, and I worry about if this
lasts too long, about what they're going to do.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that's that's maybe touching on something
you said earlier as well, is that you know, the
age of skippers is is always increasing and a lot
of them are at that retirement age. But if fuel
price is high and fishing isn't attractive, they won't get
money back out of their boat when they try to sell,
and that's potentially a really difficult situation for a lot
of people. Unfortunately, I don't really have a solution, but
if there was some sort of decommissioning scheme, I could see.
I could see that being attractive for a lot of
people before they're they're left with a stranded asset and
struggling to make ends meet.
Speaker 1: Indeed, indeed, tell me we're and our listeners follow you
online of your social media presence.
Speaker 2: I personally don't have much of a social media presence
at all. I've got got a LinkedIn page, but I'm
not very active on it. The company, however, has both
a LinkedIn and Facebook, and we put stuff up there
quite quite regularly. And if you want to speak to
me about anything that's been in the podcast today, I'm
really happy for people to message me on LinkedIn or
or message the company and that will come through to
me as.
Speaker 1: Well, excellently same here.
Speaker 3: So I'm on LinkedIn and blue Sky, so I can
be found there or through the University of Hall. Very happy, too,
very happy to I steal ideas from fishermen and so
as I'm a bit of a magpie for wiz words
of wisdom from skippers that I can then turn into
research or ideas or to try and help the industry.
Obviously excellent. I think we may be hold up.
Speaker 1: It's clear from this conversation that the challenge in facing
the fishing industry aren't just technical. They're economical, structural and
very real for the people living it every day. But
if one thing stands out, it's this, no matter what
changes are talked about, it all still comes out of
the cod end. And maybe we should all think a
bit harder about that what the true price of fish
really is. Magnuson Duncan, thank you for your time.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Thanks Jim, it's been a pleasure as always,
it's been more.
Speaker 2: Way to talk to you about Thanks.
Speaker 1: Thank you very Mutch