CHAPTER 11

Processing at and Factory

MOGENS JUL

Danish Meat Products Laboratory, Copenhagen, Denmark and Danish Meat Research Institute, Roskilde, Denmark

I. Introduction 437 A. Perishability of 437 B. Triple Purpose of Craft 439 II. Preserving and Processing the Catch on Board 440 III. Technical Considerations 441 A. Working Space 441 B. Carrying Capacity 441 C. Fishing Factory Ships 443 D. Capacity of the Processing Equipment 443 E. Water Supply 444 F. Ice Supply 444 G. Operating in a Rough Sea 444 H. Transfer of Catch on the High Sea 445 I. Unloading 447 J. Maintenance 447 K. Quality of Product 447 L. Speed 449 IV. Some Economic and Social Considerations 449 A. Wages and Accommodations 449 B. Working Conditions 450 C. Future Operations 450 D. Factory Ships or Shore Bases 451 V. Experience in Preservation and Processing at Sea 451 A. Salting Aboard 451 B. Floating Canneries 453 C. Freezing at Sea 456 D. Utilization of Waste Fish and By-products Aboard 466 VI. Summary 467 References 470

I. Introduction

A. PERISHABILITY OF SEAFOODS As was pointed out by A. W. Anderson at the first Interna­ tional Fishing Gear Congress (Kristjonsson, 1959), fish and other sea­ foods are among the most perishable of all foodstuffs. This is a matter of minor concern to the fishermen in inshore , when the fish is

437 438 MOGENS JUL kept aboard for only a few hours or, at the utmost, for a few days and where the catch may be preserved in ice until the craft has returned to port. Efforts to improve this means of preservation, by the use of chilled sea water, nitrite, antibiotics, etc., have not succeeded in bringing about any substantial extension of the keeping time of fresh fish aboard ships, and there are today several types of where this system of preserva­ tion aboard is insufficient. Some are listed below.

1. No Shore Facilities In many parts of the world, e.g., the Antarctic, Greenland, and the North Pacific, fishing may be carried out close to shores where no process­ ing facilities exist. Even where they exist, they may be far away from population centers and the processed product must be carried long distances to consuming centers.

2. Short Seasons Many types of fishery, e.g., the Alaskan salmon industry and fishing in the North Atlantic, are so highly seasonal that it is difficult to make a shore installation profitable because of the short period of each year in which it can be kept in operation.

3. Operations on the High A fishery may often be conducted far from any shore and therefore necessitate transport over considerable distances. This is the case, for instance, in the traditional British distant-water industry. Here trips may be up to 2400 miles to and from the fishing grounds and the trawlers spend about 9 days running back and forth and only 9 days fishing. 4. Depleted Stocks, etc. Fishing communities in England, New England, and Japan experience difficulties because stocks in nearby waters have become depleted, so fishing can be extended only by exploiting grounds far from the home ports. Some countries, such as Greece, Italy, Japan, Spain, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States, have a need for fish that greatly exceeds even the maximum supply from nearby waters. Fish, then, must be obtained by imports or by fishing operations far from the home ports. In all these instances, there is considerable interest in means of pre­ serving the catch in a nonperishable form aboard. One other solution exists, of course, in that the fish may be kept aboard alive. In most fisheries, this is not possible because the fish are 11. PROCESSING AT SEA AND FACTORY SHIPS 439

dead when taken aboard or have been fished at such depths that they cannot survive the change in pressure. Besides, live tank storage is space- consuming and may affect the stability of the craft. Yet France in 1960 had a total of 83 boats with live tanks (FAO, 1961). In recent years, further interest in processing aboard has existed be­ cause an increasing share of the world's catch is being processed anyway. FAO (1963) indicates that direct consumption of fresh fish increased from 12.2 million tons in 1955 to 16.0 million tons in 1962. In the same period, the amount of fresh fish used for preservation or other processing increased from 14.1 million tons to 28.7 million tons. If the fish is to be processed anyway, this might as well, in many instances, take place on the fishing grounds.

B. TRIPLE PURPOSE OF FISHING CRAFT In traditional fishing operations, the fishing craft serves three pur­ poses, (1) catching fish, (2) carrying the crew and the catching equip­ ment to and from the fishing grounds, and (3) transporting the catch to port. This means that the craft must have substantial fish-carrying capacity and, even though ice is generally used for preserving the catch, must be fast in order to bring the fish back to port in a reasonably fresh condition. This implies that the design of the craft is a compromise between these functions, which often results in considerable adjustments. The need for a quick return to port with the catch has greatly influenced the design of craft, especially trawlers; for example, some of the latter are equipped with double the power needed to handle the trawl. Even then, a return to port may often be necessary before the holds are full in order that the catch may be delivered while still in good condition. There is, therefore, in some fisheries a considerable interest in separat­ ing these functions, i.e., making fishing craft that will be efficient catch­ ing craft and fish-transport vessels to carry the catch and supplies be­ tween the fishing grounds and the port. Another solution lies in preserving the catch at sea in order that fishing may continue until the holds are full. The former solution was employed when, many years ago, use was made in England of a fish-transport service to and from trawlers operat­ ing in the North Sea. The vessel transported supplies to the trawlers and fish from them. This method, referred to as "fleeting," was standard use for trawlers fishing out of Hull, England, up to about 1930. (See also Volume II, Chapter 1, pp. 21-22.) Similarly, the Japanese sometimes use three vessels in operations. They are rotated in such a fashion that two are constantly fishing while the third is on its way to and from port. 440 MOGENS JUL

Complete separation of functions occurs in Antarctic expedi­ tions where the are catching ships exclusively, while a mother- , i.e., the whale , supplies the whalers and does all the processing and most of the transporting of the catch. Besides, commercial freighters carry fuel and other supplies to the factory ship and whale oil and meal back to port, while the factory ship remains on the whaling grounds for the full season.

II. Preserving and Processing the Catch on Board

The above indicates that in many fisheries there exists a great need for preserving or processing the catch aboard. Traditionally, this has been done for centuries in the North Atlantic ground fishing and the Icelandic herring fisheries. Ships from France, Portugal, and Spain have salted the catch of -like species obtained off Newfoundland and Greenland

FIG. 1. Diagram of the various arrangements for fishing and . 1: Fishing vessels. 2: Long-distance trawlers equipped for freezing the catch. 3: Motherships operating under their own power on the high seas. 4: Motherships installed on scows, etc., not able to navigate on the high seas. 5: Transport vessels equipped for serving a by taking the iced catch to a not too distant harbor. 6: Transport vessel for taking a processed catch from a mothership to a port. 7: Ordinary transport vessel. 8: Shore bases. 9: Fishing ports. 10: Rail cars (may be refrigerated). 11: Trucks. (After Pavlov, 1956.) 11. PROCESSING AT SEA AND FACTORY SHIPS 441 aboard. Today, further development has taken place in this field and large-scale long-distance fishing may soon rely entirely on processing the catch aboard. Several approaches to the problem have been outlined by Pavlov (1956). The various arrangements for fishing and handling are illustrated in Fig. 1. All of the above mentioned solutions are used. It appears that the main possibilities lie in the fields of self-contained fish-processing ships and in motherships operating with a fleet of fishing boats, both at times supported by transport vessels. Over the years, much interest has been shown in schemes for process­ ing the catch at sea. Yet, until recently, few fisheries were based on processing at sea. This is due to the fact that such processes generally are difficult to operate, especially when they require a large processing crew and expensive processing installations. Therefore, much experi­ mentation and experience are needed before such an operation can become efficient. In the years following World War II, much progress has been made in some of these fields, and referred to at the Second World Fishing Gear Congress, London, 1963. Considerable information on the subject is also given in Volume II, Chapter 19, Section VI. Problems in factory ship operations have been discussed by Anderson (1951), Birkhoff (1956), Hardy (1947), Jul (1954), Kuprianoff (1956), Nickum (1955), Pavlov (1956), Ranken (1961), and Traung (1955, 1960). Considerable information on the subject has been assembled by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and pre­ sented at the First and Second International Fishing Boat Congresses, Paris and Miami, 1953, and Rome, 1959.

III. Technical Considerations

A. WORKING SPACE A difficulty in designing a floating is that of getting sufficient space. Space is required for processing machinery, insulation of refrigerated holds, quarters for factory personnel, etc., as well as for storage of fish and materials before and during processing. In the earliest Soviet freezer motherships (Fig. 2) much space was set apart for inci­ dental storage during processing, one of the factors often overlooked.

B. CARRYING CAPACITY In processing at sea the fish may be dressed or filleted aboard, thus saving storage space. Many years ago attempts were made in New England to increase the catching capacity of trawlers by filleting and 2 Ο Ο Μ 2

el

FIG. 2. "Neveljsk," one of the earlier-type Soviet fish-freezing motherships. 9: Air-blast freezer tunnel with tracks for freezer trucks. 10: Air circulation fan. 11: Freezer coils. 12 and 15: Fish dressing and filleting sections. (After Pavlov, 1956.) Only call- outs that involve fish processing have been identified. Length of the ship is scaled in meters. 11. PROCESSING AT SEA AND FACTORY SHIPS 443 icing the catch aboard. The system proved impracticable because the ship would have to stay at sea so long that the early part of the catch would not keep. To use the extra space, the catch must, therefore, be preserved. Processing facilities, insulation, etc., may, however, take up so much space that storage capacity is little increased. When a large New England trawler, the "Cormorant," was converted into the freezer trawler "Ocean- life" it was found that the vessel which previously would carry about 250 tons of iced fish would carry only about 90 tons of frozen fillets, cor­ responding to about 270 tons of fresh fish, after conversion (Traung, 1955). Today, the improved processing machinery and the increasing use of ships originally designed for factory ship operations have helped to solve this problem. It should also be kept in mind that wet-fish ships often may not utilize their full carrying capacity because of the need for a quick return to port.

C. FISHING FACTORY SHIPS When a ship is to be used for fish-processing purposes, it is generally necessary to have more covered space in the upper parts of the ship than on ordinary fishing craft. This is difficult without reducing its value as a fishing ship. In one attempt to overcome this, the German trawler "Hans Pickenpack" was built with a half shelter deck on the port side. This leaves enough space for handling the trawl. With a full shelter deck, handling the trawl was previously considered difficult, but experi­ ence with the German research vessel "Anton Dohrn" indicates that it is by no means impossible. Good results on French trawlers equipped with an almost full shelter deck are reported by Gueroult (Traung, 1960). Since a fishing craft is generally very efficiently adjusted to the use to which it is put, any shift of its functions, e.g., from effective catcher and fast transport to fishing and freezing, is likely to require radical changes in design, as with the stern-fishing freezer trawlers of the "Fairtry" type described below. An exception is, of course, the case where the processing is extremely simple and little or no extra space is required for it. This is the case in the clipper and purse seiner operations described below.

D. CAPACITY OF THE PROCESSING EQUIPMENT British trawler operations have been much studied in connection with schemes for processing fish at sea. A British trawler catches up to 6 tons of fish per drag. On an ordinary trawler, it would be practically im- 444 MOGENS JUL possible to provide for processing machinery and a processing crew that would be able to handle the maximum average catch. Unless entirely new designs are employed, it is therefore necessary to have buffer storage facilities for fish packed in ice for 1-3 days' catch. Then processing capacity need be only 0.5 ton of fish per hour. Thus, it is not always possible to process the fish immediately after it is taken aboard. Accord­ ing to the White Fish Authority (1957) and Eddie (1959), this extra storage involves little extra handling and the freezer hands generally have time left for this work. Most stern-fishing freezer trawlers of Western Germany are equipped for freezing only part of the catch, the remainder being iced in refrigerated holds.

E. WATER SUPPLY Water supply used to be an important problem for processing-at-sea operations. Canning, in particular, requires large amounts of fresh water. The first freezing aboard operations were used in Russia in 1880 when freezing equipment was installed in barges on the Volga. They probably used river water for processing. Some United States floating canneries obtain fresh water from the coast on special barges and are thus in­ capable of operating on the high seas. Today, most factory ships rely on equipment for distilling sea water. Thus, a .Soviet fish-canning ship, the "Andrei Zakharov" described by Vershinin (1961), carries two vacuum condensers with an output of 9 tons per hour when working in series and 12 tons per hour when working in parallel. Even then, the ship relies on air cooling of the heat-processed cans. This is not always desirable since it may result in slow cooling and overcooking of the product. The "Vitus Bering" referred to below has equipment for producing 20 tons of fresh water a day from sea water.

F. ICE SUPPLY Ranken (1961) feels that factory ships must carry their own ice- making plant. Today, various kinds of scale ice machines are used for this purpose. They are well suited for making almost salt-free ice from sea water: the ice crystals are collected on the ice making cylinder and the salty nonfrozen water is discharged continuously. The "Vitus Bering" can produce 10 tons of ice a day from sea water on such equipment.

G. OPERATING IN A ROUGH SEA Many machines are difficult to use in a rough sea. This is true of scales, many installations for the manufacture of ice, etc. Similarly, much refrigeration equipment, e.g., direct-expansion contact plate freezers, does not operate well in a rolling sea. On the other hand, much experience is 11. PROCESSING AT SEA AND FACTORY SHIPS 445 available today and even such complicated machinery as fish-filleting machines is now operated successfully up to wind of Beaufort number 8. Often fear of the motion of the sea has been exaggerated. In the above mentioned "Oceanlife," extensive precautions like steel-mesh gloves were introduced to enable the workers to fillet in a rolling sea and to avoid cutting their hands. No special problem appeared, however, when the ship began operating. This might have been anticipated when it is considered that all the fish salted on ships in the North Atlantic are beheaded, split, etc., in all of the weather conditions encountered there.

H. TRANSFER OF CATCH ON THE HIGH SEA Wherever motherships are considered, the problem of transfer at sea appears. It is likely that motherships found extensive use in whaling operations because the transfer of the catch in this case is an easy matter. The whale is simply towed to the factory ship and hauled up through a slipway in the stern. The German mothership "Hamburg," which was designed to serve a number of trawlers, experienced such difficulties in the transfer at sea that she had to stay inside sheltered parts of the Norwegian coast and could not operate at all on the high seas as anticipated. Nickum (1955) gives many valuable suggestions with regard to this question. Floating salmon canneries use the ships' normal gear for such operations, but generally operate inside sheltered waters off Alaska. It was then proposed that one make use of the experience of the whaling factories and that the trawler's catch be cleaned, gutted, and placed in a large net bag to be picked up later by the mothership. Birkhoff (1957, 1958, 1959) suggested instead the use of special de­ tachable net bags (the cod end and lower part of the trawl) for deposit­ ing the catch in the high seas. The net bag was to be detached after each haul and left in the sea with large rubber floats easy to locate on the mothership's radar. A small automatic radio transmitter may also be used. This method is similar to a principle used for many years by the Japanese, except that they generally tow the net bags to motherships inside sheltered waters. According to Birkhoff (Kristjonsson, 1959), the system has been tested in the North Atlantic by the German research vessel "Anton Dohm" and is being used nowadays by British, German, and Soviet ships. Birkhoff (Traung, 1960) states that even after 6 hours of drifting, the fish was in good condition. Extensive experiments by the Torry Research Station proved the method to be entirely practicable, and such transfer "sausages" are now in frequent use. Motherships such as the "Vitus Bering" even have a stern slip for taking the net bags aboard. The bags are fitted with radar deflectors to aid in their location. 446 MOGENS JUL

Problems of transfer at sea seem to have been solved by Japan and the Soviet Union.

TABLE I USE OF MOTHERSHIPS AND PROCESSING AT SEA IN JAPANESE FISHERIES, 1961« Type of ship and operation No. of ships No. of catchers Motherships Salmon freezing and canning 12 410 Tuna freezing (small) 22 Tuna freezing (large) 4 Crab freezing 5 Crab freezing and canning 7 Trawling and longlining 30 250 Whaling 9 89 Freezing trawlers 80 Fishing tuna freezers 290 (estim.) « After Sh. Takayama (1962).

Table I indicates the very extensive use in the Japanese fisheries of mothership and catcher boats, all processing being based on transfer of the catch on the high seas. A Japanese mothership is shown in Fig. 3.

FIG. 3. "Miyazima Maru," a Japanese freezer and canning mothership. 1: Salt stowage. 2: . 3: Freezer stowage. 4: Freezing rooms. 5: Canning deck. For layout of canning section, see Fig. 5. (After Sato, 1960.)

In the spring and summer, Japanese motherships operate with the salmon fleet in the North Pacific. Here about 30 catcher boats of about 50 gross tons serve each mothership. They move in pairs into the leeway and are moored to the mothership. The catch is then transferred in large baskets. The rest of the year some of these ships engage in similar operations with the tuna fleet, while others are in use as refrigerated transport vessels. 11. PROCESSING AT SEA AND FACTORY SHIPS 447

One other case where the difficulties involved in the transfer of the catch at sea have been solved is the fishing operations described below. Mothership schemes have many advantages. One need not design a vessel for both catching and processing and the vessel can rely on several catchers for the supply of fish, thus having a better chance of always operating near full capacity. Nevertheless their use implies transfer of the catch at sea. Harper Gow (Fishing News, 1959) indicates that at least Chr. Salvesen & Co. did not consider mothership operations an economic proposition for the United Kingdom. Yet the "Fairtry IF (see Fig. 4) has operated with the conventional British trawler "Ross Hunter" transferring the catch at sea. This was accomplished by detachable cod ends.

I. UNLOADING Minnee (1962) has called attention to the need for provisions for mechanical unloading of factory ships. Systems for this have been in­ corporated into two recently built stern trawlers, the Dutch "Egmont" and the British "Lord Nelson."

J. MAINTENANCE Upkeep is a special problem on a factory ship since sea water and the high salt content of the air cause considerable corrosion. This is particularly true for ships operating in the tropics.

K. QUALITY OF PRODUCT It is generally assumed that fish processed at sea is superior in quality to that processed ashore. However, a shore factory has available the total fish landings in the vicinity and may purchase exactly that part of it which is most suitable for processing. The floating factory, on the other hand, must use whatever has been caught and has little choice with regard to the type of fish to be processed. Japanese fish-freezing ships, however, may occasionally transfer the cheaper fish in the catch to reduction ships accompanying the fleet. Japanese ships operating off West Africa also dispose of most of their catch locally, while shipping frozen sea bream to Japan where this fish commands high prices. Many types of fishing factory ships use buffer storage in ice. This may be advantageous up to 12 hours for white fish. Some filleting machines have difficulties in working with pre-rigor fish. Pre-rigor freezing gives a fish of at least as good quality as post-rigor freezing except that where it is used for reprocessing ashore the defrosted flesh may have a slightly pinkish color to which the trade must first become accustomed (Harper 44 8 MOGEN S JU L

FIG. 4. "Fairtry II," a British stern-fishing freezer trawler. 1 and 3: Freezer stowage. 5 and 8: Fish filleting, packaging, and plate freezing installations. 6: Net stowage. 7: plant. 9: Fish meal stowage. 10: Stern chute for trawl. 11. PROCESSING AT SEA AND FACTORY SHIPS 449

Gow, 1959). It disappears in cooking. Eddie (1959) and Siavin (Traung, 1960) agree that pre-rigor frozen fish is fully as acceptable as other fish. However, Eddie (1959) is not convinced that pre-rigor frozen fish is suitable for direct retail sale. On the other hand, such fish has been frozen and exported from Denmark as high-quality items for many years. (See further Chapter 9, this volume.) Freezing fish aboard in bulk originally caused some trade resistance. Both Fred Parkes and Heinsohn (Traung, 1960) reported lower prices for such fish. On the other hand, such fish is preferred over the wet-fish in Greece and the Soviet Union and consumer packaged fish enjoys general popularity in most countries today when distribution systems are adequate. Thus Chr. Salvesen & Co. originally filleted about 30% of the catch on the "Fairtry" series, but later switched to filleting almost the whole catch (Traung, 1960). In fact, problems of quality may very well necessitate processing at sea for many fisheries in the future. It is likely that consumers will prefer sea-processed fish in the long run, even at an increased cost, over fish that has been on ice for several days or even weeks prior to processing or cooking. Reports from Japanese fish meal operations in the North Pacific stated that completely fresh herring gave a fluffy meal difficult to store. This was remedied by letting the fish remain on deck 24 hours prior to processing.

L. SPEED Eddie (Kristjonsson, 1959) discussed the possibility of decreasing the speed of factory trawlers where a quick return to port is no longer required. The saving in engine room could be used for additional processing and freezing installations. This problem is also discussed by Bogucki and Swiecicki (1961). They find that for Poland, at least, high speed is a great satisfaction for the crew and enables the vessel to reach profitable fishing grounds ahead of other vessels, factors to which much importance must be attached.

IV. Some Economic and Social Considerations

A. WAGES AND ACCOMMODATIONS Processing aboard a ship may involve considerable extra expense. The processing crew must be paid from the time the craft leaves port until it returns, regardless of whether there is fish to process or not. In addition, quarters and meals must be provided for the crew, also a high expense in comparison with shore operations. This means that factory ships have to rely very heavily either on fish-processing methods that are simple 450 MOGENS JUL

and do not require much hand labor, or on machines. This applies especially in areas with high labor costs. The remarkable development in recent years of fish-filleting machines, etc., some of which are described by Schenck (1958) and Kaufmann and Thierne (1958), may contribute much to improving the outlook for factory ship operations. Experience with having a large crew at sea for longer periods is reported from the operations of the "Fairtry" series. These ships make trips of up to 100 days' duration as opposed to 18 for the ordinary British distant-water trawler. Some fishermen reacted unfavorably to this com­ paratively long stay at sea, although most soon became accustomed to it and preferred the superior quarters and higher earning possibilities offered on the "Fairtry" (Fishing News, 1959). Even here, their stay away from home port is much shorter than on many merchant ships. Fridman (1959) states that, out of consideration for the crew, it is the opinion in the Soviet Union that a single fishing trip should not exceed 90 days. Today many factory ship schemes exist whereby fishermen stay at sea for extended periods.

B. WORKING CONDITIONS

In long established fishing or processing-at-sea operations the crew may accept, out of habit and tradition, working conditions that may not otherwise seem acceptable. A case in point is dory fishing, especially where one-man are used as described below. Villiers (1951) concludes, "If fishing by dory were a new industry there would be no dory men."

C. FUTURE OPERATIONS

It is not unlikely, therefore, that the very considerations described above may, in the future, tend to encourage the use of processing at sea and factory ships. A fishery as described by Villiers (1951) seems so hazardous and hard that it cannot go on much longer. Similarly, even on a modern trawler the crew may be exposed to rough climate and some­ times hazards during their work. It is likely that such ventures as the "Fairtry," "Heinrich Meins," "Pushkin," and others described below will provide better working conditions. On these, for instance, fishermen may set and haul the trawl with comparatively little hand labor. Once the catch is aboard, it is led down to the deck below. From then on, all operations take place under shelter. The accommodations for the crew are as good as on modern commercial ships. On the "Vitus Bering," one of a series of Soviet fish-freezing motherships recently built in Denmark, the crew accommodations are in every respect comparable to those on any modern commercial vessel. 11. PROCESSING AT SEA AND FACTORY SHIPS 451

A similar trend is seen, of course, in the development of ordinary fishing vessels, e.g., the latest trawlers and tuna purse seiners.

D. FACTORY SHIPS OR SHORE BASES

From what has been indicated above, it appears that shore processing is more economic than sea processing when nearby resources that are not too seasonal can be used. Many fishing nations, therefore, endeavor to establish shore bases, e.g., Japan near British Borneo and many other places in the Pacific, in the Indian Ocean, on Tierra del Fuego in the South Atlantic, in the Caribbean, in the Canary Islands (see Volume II, Chapter 19, Section V), the Soviet Union in the Kuril Islands, Poland by renting a pier of the Cuxhaven fishing port, etc. Other countries have done similarly by establishing shore bases in Alaska, Greenland, and Spitzbergen.

V. Experience in Preservation and Processing at Sea

Some fisheries lend themselves to processing at sea, such as salting cod at sea or tuna fishing; in others, sea processing has been adopted after many years of trial and error.

A. SALTING ABOARD

The practice of salting aboard has been followed for many years. Villiers (1951) believes that the Portuguese salting-at-sea operations have been carried out since before the discovery of America. It is known that the Portuguese schooner owners formed a guild in 1502. About 45 ships with 3000 fishermen aboard start out from Lisbon around the beginning of April for fishing grounds on the Grand Banks and off Greenland. Most of the ships are sailing schooners with auxiliary engines. The ships proceed first to Newfoundland, where they take on herring and other bait. Fishing is carried out from dories—flat-bottomed one-man boats that can be stacked six high on the decks of the schooners; a schooner normally carries about 60 such dories. The entire operation is extremely arduous as well as hazardous. As recently as the 1958 season no less than five of the Portuguese motherships were lost in the Newfound­ land operations. Weather permitting, the dories are launched at dawn. Each man fishes all day from the dory. Late in the afternoon they return to the schooner where the catch and the dories are taken aboard and the fishermen begin processing the fish. The splitting and washing of the fish are carried out on the deck 452 MOGENS JUL where permanent tables are set up for that purpose, and small truck cars are used for transporting the fish to the salting barrels. Each Portuguese schooner returns with 600-1100 tons of salted cod, according to the size of the ship. Operations similar to the Portuguese are carried out by Spanish ships; there are also Canadian and French dory operations, but they generally rely on two-man dories. Villiers (1951) indicates that in 1950 there were 13 motor ships from Newfoundland fishing with two-man dories on the Grand Banks. In general, however, the trend seems to be to build salting trawlers as has been done already by many countries, including Portugal. There is some doubt as to whether salting aboard will continue to the extent to which it has existed to the present. Many modern trawlers therefore are built so that conversion into wet-fish landing or even freezing is possible. As an indication of the present stage, it may be mentioned (FAO, 1961) that in 1960 France had 31 salting trawlers, 1461 wet-fish trawlers, and 2 freezer trawlers. Recent French freezer trawlers such as the "Colonel Pleven Π" are equipped for freezing one-third and salting two-thirds of the catch. The "Marcelina de Cirizia," a 297-ft. stern trawler, is equipped mainly for salting. Another matter is the salting of herring and herring-like species aboard. They are highly perishable fishes and cannot be iced for sub­ sequent salting ashore where the trip back to port lasts more than about 1 day. Freezing herring is not desirable, and salting aboard will probably continue to be important. Today it is carried out especially by the Netherlands and Sweden. These countries rely mainly on salting aboard the . Minnee (1961) has described studies on Dutch trawlers. The working procedure is somewhat time-consuming but space limitations on the deck hardly permit much improvement. The solution may be the adoption of a stern trawler of which a prototype is now being built in the Netherlands. It is to be equipped with a conveyor belt for transporting and sorting the catch. Fishing expeditions from the Soviet Union, in particular, rely mainly on motherships for herring-salting operations. It is reported that in a recent year the Soviet Union had a thousand vessels engaged in herring operations on the banks off southwestern Norway. Among them were a number of motherships of which one, the "Iokhannes Vares," is reported to have operated there for 3 months, processing 1700 metric tons of herring and servicing 100 fishing vessels. It seems that the Soviet Union may switch to freezing part of this herring catch. (Borgstrom, 1961). In the beginning of 1962, 14 freezer trawlers from the Soviet Union were catching herring on Georges Bank in the North Atlantic. Two salting motherships, the "Kaszuby" and the "Pulaski," both reconverted cargo 11. PROCESSING AT SEA AND FACTORY SHIPS 453 ships, were in 1962 operating with the Polish fishing fleet in the North Sea. Staszewski (1959) describes the "Sveyrodvinsk," which had just been completed in Poland for the Soviet Union. She is said to be the world's first ship built as a mothership to service a fleet of herring-fishing craft. She has a crew of 260 persons and a total storage capacity of 10,000 cu. m. of refrigerated holds. Terent'eva (1958) describes a series of motherships for herring fishing under construction in the Soviet Union. They are referred to in Volume II, Chapter 19, Section VI,E. In addition, the Soviet Union is said to have ordered in Poland a herring mothership with a stern ramp for bringing aboard catches in detachable cod ends.

B. FLOATING CANNERIES Floating canneries are known mainly from the northern Pacific. Most of the new Japanese motherships referred to above are equipped with salmon-canning lines (Fig. 5) very similar to those in use in shore plants, e.g., in Alaska. In recent years Japan is reported to have a total of 12 salmon-canning motherships operating in the area around the Aleutian Islands (see also Table I). The Soviet Union has a substantial number of floating canneries, many of which are engaged in canning salmon and shrimp in the northern Pacific. All operate as motherships (see further Borgstrom, 1959, 1961a, b). Three fish-canning ships were built in Leningrad in 1960-1962 as the first of a new series of floating canneries. The first, the "Andrei Zakharov," is described by Vershinin (1961). It is equipped for staying at sea for 2.5 months and has a displacement of over 15,000 metric tons. For pre­ serving the catch prior to canning, it has a scale ice plant with a capacity of 1 ton per hour and a refrigerating capacity for chilling 1.5 tons of sea water and 4.5 tons of brisling per hour. The fish is taken aboard by conventional derricks. It is said to be able to carry 10 catcher boats on board to be launched on the fishing grounds. Further data are given in Volume II, Chapter 19, Section VI,F. The United States has a few salmon-canning factory ships operating off Alaska and, in addition, some canning barges that depend on shore facilities. Canning at sea places heavy requirements on specialized machinery and demands a large crew. Besides, as was mentioned, water supply is particularly difficult in canning operations; this may be why several countries, especially Japan, the Soviet Union, and the United States, rely more on freezing the raw material at sea for subsequent canning ashore. 45 4 MOGEN S

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FIG. 5. Canning arrangements on a Japanese freezer and canning mothership. 456 MOGENS JUL

C. FREEZING AT SEA The most spectacular development in recent years in factory ship operations has been in the field of freezing aboard ships. Freezing may be used for bulk products to be defrosted and sold in the fresh state or used for processing such as canning, smoking, or freezing on land. Insofar as white fish is concerned, the trend seems to be in the direction of freezing and packing the product in consumer size packages on board. Contributing to this has been the fact that fish handling, filleting, skinning, and freezing equipment has developed very rapidly and has become very reliable even when operated in rough seas. A measure of the development may be seen in the fact that the Soviet Union had, according to Rutov (1959), a total of over 300 freezer ships in 1958 and her capacity for freezing at sea considerably exceeded that for freezing on land. Since then, many freezer ships have been added to the Soviet fleet (for further information see Borgstrom 1959, 1961a, b; Hardy, 1961; and Kassell, 1961). Japan reports having 80 freezer trawlers in 1961 (Taka- yama, 1962). (For more recent developments, see also Borgstrom, 1964a, b.) Much thought has been given to the various methods of freezing at sea. Zimmerman (1960) and Ranken (1961) have compared the three methods of freezing fish at sea. Apart from tuna, which is discussed in detail below, it is the general impression that brine freezing may result in fish of somewhat inferior quality. Contact plate freezers of the vertical kind, as developed in the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, seem to be more efficient for large gutted fish, while horizontal plate freezers are most readily adaptable to standard processing lines for filleting and packaging in consumer size packages. Air blast freezers are flexible but somewhat more space-consuming. They are used extensively on Soviet motherships. Ranken stresses the importance of providing for efficient defrosting and special precautions such as precooling the fish, air-conditioning processing decks, etc., to prevent excessive frost formation. He finds that even if freezing filleted fish requires less freezer hold capacity, much of the space gained is taken up by the filleting equipment. Since the block-frozen fish produced on some of the British factory ships is intended for processing ashore, the dielectric defrosting units introduced in several British fish-processing companies have been a great improvement. In these units it is possible to thaw the fish quickly and without raising its temperature more than a few degrees above the freezing point. In addition, the water logging that results from defrosting in water is eliminated. Lately, efficient air defrosting machines have also been built. 11. PROCESSING AT SEA AND FACTORY SHIPS 457

1. Conversion of Conventional Trawlers Since both the United Kingdom and the United States have a substantial number of large trawlers, considerable thought has been given to means of converting them into freezer trawlers. Many of the solutions proposed have been based on the assumption that wet-fish of reasonably high quality is preferred over frozen fish. Therefore some of the schemes have been based on freezing only the earlier part of the catch. Oldershaw and Siavin (Traung, 1955, 1960) describe the U.S. experi­ ment of converting the New England trawler "Delaware" into a freezer trawler. A system of wire-mesh baskets on a vertical chain that bring the fish into a refrigerated brine was adopted. Tests showed that the fish was of good quality when defrosted, filleted, and refrozen ashore, yet it is assumed that the brine freezing at times may have given some off-taste since tests were carried out with freezing in glucose and similar solutions. The United States has not yet adopted the system. An economic study of its possibilities was carried out by Rosen (1958). Large-scale experiments were carried out by the White Fish Authority and the Torry Research Station in the United Kingdom. Some of these have been described by the White Fish Authority (1957) and Eddie (Traung, 1960). For this purpose a special vertical plate freezer, the so-called Torry-Hall freezer, was designed. After beheading, gutting, and washing, the fish is placed between the plates and freezing begins. After about 4 hours, the refrigeration cycle is reversed until the surface of the fish is just defrosted. Then the blocks fall down and can be placed in the holds of the ship. Since it would be too space-consuming to freeze the whole catch immediately after it is taken out of the water, a refrigerated hold is provided for storing the catch until processing and for storage of the last part of the catch. Ships of this kind will be able to stay 50% longer at sea than ordinary trawlers of the same type. It was found that reprocessing the fish ashore by either filleting or smoking was comparable in quality to products prepared from very fresh fish. The findings from this experiment were incorporated into the British stern trawler "Lord Nelson." Shipping World (1961) indicates that she was originally con­ ceived as a conventional stern trawler, but the plans were changed to provide for 16 Torry-Hall plate freezers, each of which produces 6 blocks, 4 inches thick and weighing 36 kg., every 4 hours. Only part of the catch is frozen; the rest is to be landed as wet-fish. On later British stern trawlers, i.e., the "Junella" and the "Ross Valiant," all fish are frozen in vertical plate freezers, and the "Ross Fighter," a side trawler, was converted for block freezing of the whole catch. Several of these recent ships, e.g., "Junella," have much improved handling gear for very quick setting and hauling of the trawl. 458 MOGENS JUL

Most of the stern trawlers constructed in Germany have adopted somewhat similar systems. Such ships as the "Bürgermeister Smidt," "Hessen," "Sirius," "Kiel," "Holstein," "Schleswig," and "Lübeck" all have about 650 cu. m. of hold capacity of which 85-260 cu. m. are for freezer storage. These ships are equipped with conventional air blast freezers. Some of the recent German ships, e.g., the "Heinrich Meins," the "Sagita," and the "Heinrich Kern," carry filleting equipment. Heinsohn (Traung, 1960) describes a number of these ships. Later ships such as the "Wilhelm Ladiges" freeze three-quarters of the catch. It is likely that Western Germany too shall soon convert to all-freezer trawlers.

2. Tuna Clippers and Purse Seiners The development of the American tuna clipper, as described by Petrich (Traung, 1955), is an interesting aspect of processing fish at sea. Around 1903, plants in California began to can tuna caught off the California coast. The product became popular and boats soon had to go farther and farther away to obtain the fish. To begin with, the fish was packed in ice in the holds of the boat. Soon the fishermen started to equip their boats with mechanical refrigeration and cooling coils under the deck and along the sides of the boat to offset the heat from the surroundings. Generally the boats also had tanks with circulating sea water in which live bait was stored. It was quite natural for fishermen to use the bait tanks for storing iced tuna also. Since they were already equipped for circulating sea water, the next step was to chill the sea water to cool the fish. This was very satisfactory and the boats soon had watertight holds where the fish was refrigerated by chilled sea water. These boats became popular because it is extremely easy for the fisher­ man to throw the fish in the holds after a day's work and just turn the chilled water on them. He need not go down in the holds and place the fish in ice. The next step was adding salt to the sea water and reducing the temperature so that the fish were actually frozen. Nowadays, the fish are generally chilled in refrigerated sea water; then a refrigerated brine is pumped over to freeze them completely. When this is accomplished, the brine is drained off the tanks and holds which are then used as dry holds until the ship is about to arrive in port. Ordinary sea water is then circulated through the holds, thus defrosting the fish so that they are ready for canning before port is reached. Generally some salt is added during defrosting to prevent freezing of the sea water. Today, the use of nylon nets and power-operated blocks has made the use of purse seiners more efficient than live-bait fishing, and most tuna clippers have been converted to that system. The system for preserving the catch is, however, unaltered. 11. PROCESSING AT SEA AND FACTORY SHIPS 459

One important aspect of these tuna operations is that it is a type of processing at sea, where the work involved is actually less than that previously required when the fish was not processed at all. Experience in equipping large ships with similar freezing installations is of interest. The ships were equipped to serve as motherships, especially for the large American tuna purse seiners operating off Central America. They were first fitted with holds similar to the tuna clippers, but one great difficulty was soon found to be that such a ship must remain in port until all the fish were defrosted and used by the canning plant. The special freezing process caused the fish to freeze together so that they could not be separated in the frozen state. If all were defrosted at the same time, the capacity of the canneries was exceeded. These attempts have now been given up, but provide good examples of the difficulties in adapting factory ship operations. The system used in American tuna clippers and purse seiners has not spread greatly to other countries. Japan has a large fleet of tuna-fishing vessels all equipped with air blast freezers. In recent years Japan has operated a total of about 90 such vessels in the Atlantic Ocean. They land the frozen fish in neighboring countries where fish- and meat-canning plants have benefited from this new supply of raw material.

3. Self-Contained Freezer Trawlers As early as 1928 a French schooner, "Zazpiakbat," was equipped with machinery to freeze part of the catch (Hardy, 1947). The ship was other­ wise equipped for conventional salting of the catch aboard. Soon after an Italian trawler was similarly equipped. They both carried a brine freezer in which the fish was submerged by a rotating drum. In all of these instances, however, only small parts of the catch were frozen as is the case with many modern trawlers. A revolutionary development was made in Scotland about 1950 with a converted mine sweeper, the "Fair- free." It was realized that since a factory ship requires considerable extra work space, it must have a higher freeboard than is possible under normal trawling operations. In addition, whaling experience showed that a more efficient way of handling the trawl might be devised than that tradi­ tionally used in the Atlantic trawling operations. Therefore the "Fairfree" was equipped for setting and hauling the trawl over the stern, a method previously used mainly on smaller Mediterranean and Pacific craft. The results, discussed by Lochridge (1950), were so favorable that in 1953 the Chr. Salvesen & Co., Leith, launched a new ship, the "Fairtry," which is completely designed for this operation. The trawl is hauled in over the stern chute, and the fish is released onto the deck and from there goes down into insulated pounds where it is covered with scale ice until it 460 MOGENS JUL

goes to processing. Maximum holding time here is about 8 hours. Then the fish goes to filleting, mainly by machines, and then to packaging lines and freezers. Freezing is either in contact plate freezers or in air blast tunnels. The duration of each trip of the "Fairtry" is about 80-90 days, the ship remaining about 60-75 days on the fishing grounds. It carries about 600 tons of frozen fish and can process 30 tons of fillets a day. The quality of the fish has been good, and the company now operates two additional ships of the same type. The new ships are estimated at approximately $2.7 million (U.S.) each. A detailed description of the "Fairtry" is given by Hardy (1953). World Fishing (1958, 1959) describes "Fairtry II" and "III." Along with the design of the ships themselves went much effort in improving the trawling operations and the gear. It is estimated roughly, that the catch per year of such a ship is equal to the production of two large trawlers. The capital cost is about 4 times that of a trawler and the crew numbers 4 times as many persons. In this latter figure it should be remembered that the product is fully processed and consumer packed. One advantage of large stern-fishing freezer trawlers of this type is that they may be able to fish in higher waves than conventional trawlers can. Thus, the dories in the North Atlantic have to give up fishing long before the trawlers. Big trawlers may continue in weather that causes small trawlers to discontinue their operations, and the even bigger trawlers of the "Fairtry" type further extend the number of days of active fishing operations. Progress in this field, however, is not limited to factory ships. It is estimated that a modern side- may fish in weather up to force 7 on the Beaufort scale, while Heinsohn (Traung, 1960) feels that the German stern trawlers may fish in weather up to force 9. Others feel the stern chute may make the ship less seaworthy. L. D. Romyn (Fishing News, 1959), who was captain on the "Fairtry," does not believe there is much difference in the severity of weather in which a stern trawler will work as compared to a large conventional trawler. In addition, operating the factory becomes difficult in heavy seas. Fishing Gazette (1961) describes the plans for a large modern freezer trawler to be built in the United States to operate in the Bering Sea. The vessel was projected to have 2000 cu. m. of freezer storage space and 555 cu. m. of storage space for fish meal. The catch will be preserved in chilled sea water prior to processing. The ship is to be equipped for machine filleting, except for halibut which will be cleaned, chilled, frozen, and glazed on lines specially designed for this purpose. As yet these plans have not been carried out. 11. PROCESSING AT SEA AND FACTORY SHIPS 461

Much use has been made of the experience from the "Fairtry" in the Soviet Union. The first ships of this kind to be operated there were the "Pushkin" and the "Gogol." Boie (1956) gives a summary of the results of their first fishing trips. Improved gear handling is said to permit the "Gogol" to set and haul the trawl in 38 minutes. Special large strong nets have been designed for these ships. Pomukhin (1957) summarizes the general results of more than 2 years of testing the first Soviet freezer trawlers of the "Pushkin" type by stating that the annual total fishing period is 11% longer than that of a salting vessel, and that the cost per kilogram of ready-for-sale fish is 19% less. The production of fish per crew member is 145 tons of round fish on a salting trawler but 190 tons on a freezer trawler of the "Pushkin" type. In comparison, the "Fairtry" is expected to land fillets from approximately 80 tons of round fish per crew member annually. After these favorable results, the Soviet Union had a considerable number of these ships built in Western Germany and (1962) an additional number on order. Later the Soviet Union designed an improved and somewhat larger trawler of this kind, the so-called "Mayakovski" class. They were built in the Soviet Union at Black Sea ports. Recently the Soviet Union has also obtained a number of similar freezer stern trawlers from Poland of the so-called B-15 or "Leskov" class described by Piltz (1960). The Polish fishing fleet had, 1964, eight factory trawlers of the B-15 type, e.g., the "Feniks" and the "Kastor." More ships of this type were under construction. An interesting feature is that these trawlers are also used in the herring fisheries. Since they are equipped with air blast freezers and often freeze whole fish, they may fill up considerably quicker than the "Fairtry" type that processes mainly filleted fish. In such cases they may transfer the catch at sea to transport vessels and return to port only after a second full load has been obtained. As described by Swiecicki (Traung, 1960), Poland is building a large number of stern factory trawlers similar to the "Fairtry." While some have been delivered to the Soviet Union, some are in operation in Poland and it is expected that Poland will operate about 50 such ships in 1975. Several other countries have recently built stern freezer trawlers of similar kind and size, such as the Japanese "Kaimon Maru" and some Spanish trawlers. Yet, there seems to be a trend toward the somewhat smaller trawlers, e.g., the Norwegian "Ronstad" with a crew of 23, and "Longva" with a crew of 50, and the Spanish "Mar Austral" with a crew of 34. Spain has about 6 trawlers in this class, and 2 of the "Fairtry" class. In Japan there is a simultaneous trend both towards larger—in excess of 3,000 and even 3,500 tons—as well as towards smaller units (100-200 gross tons) (Borgstrom, 1964a). 462 MOGENS JUL

As referred to above, Western Germany has built several ships of similar design, also considerably smaller, which return with part of the catch in the iced state. Western Germany has constructed a special air blast freezer to be used on board such ships for freezing the fish at sea. According to Commercial Fisheries Review (1961), the freezer consists of compartments formed by aluminum plates pulled by two continuous chains. From the end the compartments are shaped as a square-cornered U. The compartments retain their shape after being filled until the fish is frozen: they open up when the chain runs over a round cogwheel, which causes the walls of the compartment to spread. Here the frozen fish fall out over a discharge. The compartments pass through a freezing tunnel 12 meters long and 1.5 meters high. For herring freezing the compartments may be divided into two sections each to contain about 5 kg. of herring. It is expected particularly that factory ships with this kind of equipment will be able to freeze herring on a large scale. Freezing equipment somewhat similar to this has been constructed in the Soviet Union, as described by Pavlov (1956). Here the plates are attached to a shaft. The space between them is filled when they are in the top position. After freezing, a warm liquid is sent through the plates when they are in the lowest position, and the frozen blocks slide out. Other countries to follow this general trend are Italy and Greece. A description of some of the freezer trawlers operated from there is given by Gianisi, Osti, and Costa (Traung, 1960). Most are conventional trawlers, but the Greek "Evangelistria IV" is a specially designed stern trawler with a freezing capacity of 1 ton per hour and a freezer hold capacity of 600 tons, i.e., similar to the size and capacity of the "Fairtry" series. Eastern Germany has converted a banana carrier into a large factory ship (crew 140 men), the "Martin Andersen Nex0." This vessel has since become part of the distant fishing fleet, operating in the Northwest At­ lantic, off West Greenland and Newfoundland. In this connection it might be mentioned that a remarkable develop­ ment has taken place in the Atlantic fisheries along the Canary Islands and west of Mauritania. It is estimated that 11 Greek, 18 Japanese, and 15 Italian ships were catching and freezing fish in that area in 1961. In the same period, Spain is reported to have had six freezer trawlers fishing hake off the shelf of West Africa. It is generally considered to be easier to preserve fish from warm waters, the reason being that the bacterial flora in the slime of the fish and in the intestines is less psycrophilic than that of fish from cold waters. While this may have some merit in the wet-fish trade, it is, however, a 11. PROCESSING AT SEA AND FACTORY SHIPS 463 matter of less concern for freezer ships, except where very high catching rates are encountered. It appears that the Soviet Union has a special program for operating freezer trawlers in tropical waters. Thus, the Soviet Union operates a considerable fleet of fish-processing vessels off West Africa. Some of the catch is sold locally while the most desirable fish is taken back to the Soviet Union. It is estimated that in 1961-1962 about 20 stern freezer trawlers of the 2000-3000-ton class were engaged in this activity. Zorzhova (1960) describes the freezer trawler "Zukowskf which has been designed for catching and processing sardines in tropical waters. The catch is either processed directly or stored in refrigerated sea water. The trawler is equipped with air blast freezers which have a total capacity of 6-7 tons of raw fish. The trawler has also a fish meal plant and small installations for canning fish. The Soviet Union has built the first of another series of factory ships for such purposes—the 80-m. long "Tropik" class. The "Tropik I" is designed for fishing with both bottom and midwater trawls for sardines, herring, and flatfish, and is equipped for tuna fishing with either live bait or long lines. It has a fish pump for sardine fishing and two powered skiffs for purse seining. Soviet plans call for 60 freezer stern trawlers for fishing in the tropics to be built during the years 1961-1965. Most of the sea-frozen fish is used in the Soviet Union for reprocessing ashore for either canning, smoking, or ready-made dishes (Borgstrom, 1961b).

4. Freezer Motherships

The extensive use of salmon-freezing motherships by the Japanese in the Northwest Pacific is described above. According to Sato (Traung, 1960), these ships use contact plate freezers with horizontal shelves. Both salmon, which is a fairly flat fish, and whale meat adapt very well to this type of freezing. In 1961 Japan is said to have had 12 motherships with 410 catchers fishing for salmon in the North Pacific. The same ships are used later for freezing flat fish in the same area. Japan also reports a total of 17 portable-vessel-carrying tuna-freezing motherships used in various areas of the Pacific. They are supported by a large number of catching vessels (see Table I). Even in these factory ship operations on the high seas, a danger of is present. Certain agreements exist between Japan and the Soviet Union restricting mothership operations. Japan restricts the number of portable tuna-fishing vessels per mothership to a few and the size of each to 20 tons. In addition, the motherships cannot employ catcher vessels of over 200 tons. 464 MOGENS JUL

The Soviet Union has a very large number of freezer motherships. Pavlov (1956) describes some of them. A few are traditional fish-freezing factories put on barges and apparently to be operated as motherships in sheltered waters. Others are ships of the "Refrigerator" series equipped to operate on the high sea. One such ship is the "Neveljsk" (see Fig. 2). The first ship of this series was built in 1933. They fish mainly in the Pacific Ocean (Hardy, 1947). The "Pervomaisk" series, which the Soviet Union had built in Den­ mark, is equipped with air blast freezers in which the freezing pans are moved mechanically from station to station on the racks in the freezer tunnel. They have a carrying capacity of 2500 tons. So far, four ships of this series have been built. In 1962 this series was followed by another, highly mechanized, version such as the "Vitus Bering," adapted for taking the catch aboard either over the side or, in detachable cod ends, over a stern slip. Other large motherships have been purchased in Poland, e.g., the "Pionersk." It is reported that one Soviet fleet operating in Bristol Bay in 1961 consisted of six freezer motherships, two freezer trawlers of the "Pushkin" type, and 76 medium trawlers. The freezer ships are supported by freezer transport vessels. Piskarev and Kaminarskaya (1961) describe the system of freezing used on Soviet factory ships. The catch is generally placed on metal trays and air-blast frozen. Much work has gone into making the arrangement automatic, to steady trolleys and trays in heavy seas, and to prevent frost formation on doors, hatches, etc. The United States uses a small number of freezer ships in the salmon industry in Alaska. This industry has a short season and must have most of its workers flown up from the other Pacific States. Freezer ships may move along the coast and thus be used over a longer period and serve to extend the period of operation for shore canning plants. In the beginning, it seemed logical to adopt a freezing system similar to that used on tuna clippers. It turned out, however, that the salmon, as a smaller and flatter fish, tended to prevent an even brine circulation in the freezing tanks. In addition, since the salmon is packed raw in the cans with the skin on, any salt penetration from the brine may tend to give the fish an off-taste. These operations have therefore never become very popular in the U.S. industry. Nowadays, the trend is toward preserving the catch aboard in refrigerated sea water and processing in shore plants or mobile canning factories. Spain has recently launched a mothership operation; the " I" is a factory ship of 16,000 tons to be followed by 10 combined trawl, 11. PROCESSING AT SEA AND FACTORY SHIPS 465 seine, and long-line boats (Paz-Andrade, 1963). It will fish mainly in the South Atlantic. Pakistan has converted a commercial ship into the "Mihia," a mother- ship that operates with 7 trawlers.

5. Freezing Crustaceans at Sea Factory ship operations have been used with varying degrees of success in freezing crabs, shrimp, and crawfish. Crustaceans are very perishable, and it is therefore difficult to fish them in offshore waters unless they are processed aboard. Besides, the value of the flesh is very high and may better bear the added expense involved in processing at sea. As mentioned above, one American freezer ship, the "Deep Sea," has long been catching and freezing crabs in the North Pacific (Tench, 1961). It has recently been supplemented with a mothership. Several shrimp freezers operate in the Gulf of Mexico and some possibly also on the Pacific coast of Central America (Steinbeck, 1958) and in the Caribbean area. Some are American owned while some are Japanese or locally owned. Many of them operate because it may be difficult for foreign firms, due to legal or trade restrictions, to establish shore plants in countries in this part of the world. Japan was expected to begin mothership freezing operations of shrimp in the eastern Bering Sea in 1962. The mothership was to service ten trawlers working in pairs. Several French freezer ships exploit the spiny lobster resources of the islands south of Madagascar and the Mauritanian coast. Peche maritime (1960) mentions that two ships were fitted for vacuum packing and freezing lobster tails. In 1960 France had a total of 31 craft freezing crustaceans (FAO, 1961).

6. Other Freezer Ships The field of freezing aboard is today being extended into new fields. Thus the Norwegian "Juvel" has been fishing and freezing porbeagle, and the French purse seiner "Christiad" is equipped for brine freezing of its sardine catch. In Volume II, Chapter 19, p. 657, some information is given on the "Autumn Sun," a British ship used mainly as a mobile plant for freezing herring. Reference may be made here to operations in the Caspian Sea. Kask (1962) describes fishing for kilka, an anchovy-type fish. Pumping boats engaged in this operation catch over 170,000 tons of fish annually. The kilka are attracted by light and are sucked up from a depth of about 60 m. 466 MOGENS JUL

through an 8-inch wire-reinforced rubber hose. Fishing may easily exceed 1 ton per hour. The fish is immediately placed on 22-kg. freezing pans and frozen aboard. Twenty-five ships of this kind are in operation there.

D. UTILIZATION OF WASTE FISH AND BY-PRODUCTS ABOARD Cod liver oil has been produced on most of the ships salting cod in the North Atlantic. The manufacture of cod liver oil has, however, decreased in importance with the advent of synthetic vitamins. Soviet ships often preserve the livers aboard in large cans or metal drums, presumably for reprocessing ashore where the oil is extracted and the residue used for liver paste. On most modern trawlers small fish-meal plants for offal and waste fish have become almost standard. Especially with the recent decrease in fish meal prices, the profitability of these plants is somewhat questionable; it will be noted that the recent British freezer trawler, the "Lord Nelson," is not equipped with fish meal machinery. Since, fish meal prices have improved and most modern factory ships carry reduction equipment. Several large ships are equipped for manufacturing fish meal on the high seas. A fleet of such ships was operated off the California coast in the 1930's. The reason for this was that California conservation laws limited the number of sardines to be used for fish meal purposes. Later the law was changed and the operation was discontinued. The late Norwegian shipowner, Bartz Johannesen, equipped a suc­ cessful fish-meal plant, the "Clupea," and later a second one, the "Brasen." These ships, however, operate mainly as mobile factories. They frequently anchor in sheltered waters where the transfer of fish is easy. The advan­ tage of such a plant is that it is easy to use in pelagic fisheries, which generally are highly seasonable, and fishing may, as in the case of the Norwegian herring fisheries, move up along a coast. The floating factory can move with the fish and always anchor in sheltered waters. A very interesting venture is the Norwegian herring trawler "Hav- kvaern." She is a fishing meal and oil factory operating in the North Sea and apparently economically successful.2 Japan has quite a few fish-meal factory ships of 12,000-16,000 gross tons, some equipped for stickwater concentration. A Japanese fish-reduc­ tion ship of 14,000 gross tons has recently been operating off Angola. The fish was obtained from Angolan fishermen and the catch was as high as 500-600 metric tons a day. Part of the fish meal was turned over to Angola. The fish was transferred from the catcher vessel to the factory

2 Note added in proof: Recently, operations of both "Clupea" and "Havkvaern" have been discontinued. Inadequate working space resulted in failure to meet eco­ nomic expectations. 11. PROCESSING AT SEA AND FACTORY SHIPS 467 ship by means of four fish pumps. Further details are given in Volume II, Chapter 19, Section VI, H. The Soviet Union is reported to have several floating fish-meal factories (Kan and Pavlov, 1960), some of which are said to have a capacity of 120 tons of herring per day. One of the Soviet Union s most recent whale factory ships can be converted for fish meal production and is used for such operations outside the whaling season. In 1963, the Soviet Union built the "Dalniy Vostok" and the "Vladivostok"; each can process 500 tons of fish a day. Processing includes freezing and canning, but the largest part of the catch is converted into meal and oil (see also Volume II, Chapter 19, p. 661). The most spectacular operations of meal and oil manufacture aboard are, of course, the whale factory ship operations in the Antarctic Ocean. They are mentioned above and are so well known they need not be described here. Whales are used mainly for oil extraction and a certain amount of the meat is converted into meal. It is regrettable that, so far, whale meat has not found wide use as human food; thus a large food resource is partially going to waste. One difficulty is that it is not easy to chill so large an animal as a whale. Decomposition may therefore set in before the whale is aboard the factory ship. In addition, the oil content of the meat is very high and the amount of unsaturated fatty acids in it is high. This means that the meat turns rancid very quickly. The bulk of the whale is therefore acceptable mainly to populations who do not object strongly to slightly rancid food. Large groups of populations have no objections to such food, however, and by proper selection of the cuts, cutting and chilling the meat shortly after capture, etc., a very acceptable product can be obtained. As mentioned above, freezer ships follow the Japanese whale factories. They receive the meat in large cuts that are cleaned and chilled by being hosed down with sea water. Then they are cut into 3/8-inch thick pieces and frozen on large contact plate freezers (Traung, 1960). Several attempts have been made to utilize whale meat in operations of other countries. Some is frozen aboard the whale factories and several freezer ships have been equipped to follow the whaling fleet. Acceptance of the product has not been too encouraging. Some use is made of whale meat extracts, manufactured aboard, and used for soups.

VI. Summary In spite of the high capital costs of factory ships and of their operations, it appears that they may be economic as compared with traditional fisheries. This is due to the fact that, at all times of the year and on a global basis, factory ships may be dispatched to areas where 468 MOGENS JUL

the fishing yield is high, thus securing efficient utilization of fishing and processing equipment. In order to engage in such operations, however, resources are necessary to experiment with ships that cost about $1-3 million (U.S.) each, and several ships must be built before an efficient design is developed. Similarly, resources are needed to send these ships on extended trips on an experimental basis to various areas of the oceans to gain experience as to where and how they may eventually be used. It becomes clear that such experimentation is possible only for organi­ zations with economic resources far beyond those of the individual fishermen or even of most of the largest fishing companies. Apparently fisheries in most countries are not presently so organized as to be able to meet this challenge. Yet it is likely that an increasingly larger share of the world's yield in will fall into the hands of organizations equipped to engage in large-scale factory ship and mothership operations. It will be seen from the above that the fisheries of some countries have already taken the full consequences of these facts. Others, however, may be facing the problem of obsolescence unless the full implication of this development is realized. Inshore fisheries may be protected by the more economic nature of efficient short-distance fisheries and by national fishing rights, but fishing on the high seas may undergo far-reaching changes. Because of high cost, processing aboard and factory ship operations seem unsuitable for coastal or nearby fisheries, i.e., where travel from the fishing grounds to the home port involves less than 2 days. Exceptions are, perhaps, the use of so-called mobile factories where establishing shore plants is impractical. The additional cost of a mobile factory over a shore plant may be offset by the possibility of a long operational season or enable the use of an unexpected fish resource which could otherwise not be utilized. One special advantage of processing at sea and factory ship operations is that they may provide an efficient use of resources on the high seas. With modern consumers definitely objecting to fish more than 3-4 days on ice, processing at sea is the only possible solution in distant-water fisheries. One well-known example is the salting aboard operations in the western parts of the North Atlantic. This operation is particularly suited for that fishery and provides a very efficient utilization of a resource that would not otherwise be available to the countries now using it. Another efficient operation is that of the tuna clippers and purse seiners that freeze tuna aboard and make tuna from a very wide area of open sea available for canning. 11. PROCESSING AT SEA AND FACTORY SHIPS 469

A third operation in extensive use is the whale factories, again an operation where no shore plant can be established. The fourth, and now most spectacular, development is the stern- fishing freezer trawler. This development has drastically changed the nature of high-sea trawling operations. A fifth development has been the use of fishing fleets operating with a mothership and often with fish transports, in extensive use by Japan and the Soviet Union and in limited use by Spain. Experience in all of these instances reveals that it is necessary to design special processes and ships to operate under the specific conditions in each case. Many attempts to convert traditional ships or even to build new ones without careful planning have failed. This is not surprising, since even ordinary fishing is profitable only when the craft, gear, and methods have been adapted to the specific purpose they serve. One need only consider the great difference in design of fishing craft for different purposes. Governments are now giving increasing support to food production. This may facilitate the use of factory ships, since they may use a food resource that could not otherwise be exploited. Certain changes in fish consumption patterns may also cause a more extensive use of factory ship operations. The steady population increase of the world creates a growing need for additional food, and probably also additional means of producing food. Nearby waters are already being overfished in several countries; therefore the resources of the high seas will have to be utilized. Factory ship schemes may be helped by the present preference for increased use of frozen fish. If the fish has to be frozen, it seems practical to freeze it at sea when long fishing trips are made. There is a definite and increasing interest in fish meal and fish oils. Additional raw materials for these may be available only by factory ship operations. Lastly, large well-equipped factory ships may provide working conditions much superior to those on the dory, the drift netter, or even the modern trawler. It is not unlikely that this will be one important factor for future development, but progress in this field is, of course, foreseeable in most kinds of fishing craft. Today, scientists in Leningrad are said to be experimenting with computer-controlled gear, engine, and processing equipment, all to be used on large factory trawlers. Underwater location devices, including underwater television, will help to find the fish and operate the net. While this is still in the planning stage, there is little doubt that much progress is to be expected in the field of processing fish at sea. 470 MOGENS JUL

Be this as it may. Most of the many factory ships named above indicate a development which was not even anticipated when the first volume of this book was written. Many have incorporated radically new ideas in design and construction. There is every reason to believe that man's spirit of enterprise will continue to produce new ventures and new progress in this rapidly developing field. When it comes to high sea fisheries, the factory ship has proven to be the means of industrializing fisheries and, thereby, of hinging the advantages of mass production into providing more food from the oceans.

Authors note. Review of the literature related to this chapter was concluded in June 1962. For more recent developments, readers are referred to the periodic literature, e.g. "World Fisheries Abstracts," published by FAO, Rome.

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