Types of Fishing Vessels

NOVEMBER 13, 2012 BY SHARDA

Fishing vessels are indispensable to maritime operations. They fulfil a vital need of
reconciling demand with supply in the fisheries sector so much so that in their absence,
a very simple yet equally essential activity would come to a standstill.

As is in any domain, even in the aspect of fishing boats, various evolutionary

methodologies have come to be adopted over the course of time. Presently there are
numerous types of fishing vessels that are in operation in the maritime industry, each
with a purposeful quality unique to its own. Some of these variances of fishing vessels
can be elaborated as follows:

Seiners: Used mainly in the oceanic areas, seiners are so named because of their
utilisation of seine fishing nets. These fishing nets are singular in shape and are mainly
utilised to haul fishes that are found near the waters surfaces.
At the first glance the seine fishing nets resemble a huge floating device, but after once
the fishes enter into the net, the lower portion of the net closes down, thus essentially
trapping the fishes.

These fishing boats are aided with state-of-the-art technological gadgetries to enable
high returns of catch.

Longliners: Longliners form yet another variance to the troller kind of fishing vessels.
However the major difference between the longliners and the trollers is that while the
latter employ numerous fishing cords, the longliner vessels essentially employ just one
really long fishing cord containing around 1,000 lures.

The fishing cord is deployed from the vessels tail-end and automated systems help the
vessel stay in place and spool the fishes to be consequentially stored.
Gillnetters: The varieties of fishing boats that employ the gill net system of fishing are
referred to as gillnetters. Gillnetters can be both manually operated or technologically
aided for better fishing results.

Generally speaking, comparatively minor level fishing operations employ the former
technique while bigger fisheries operations employ modern gadgets enabled gillnetting
technique.

Crabbers: Fishing boats that are mainly and extensively utilised to fish for crabs are
known as crabbers. These vessels are also alternatively referred to as the fish trap
boats as they come equipped with specific entrapping aids to catch crustaceans.
In order to haul these trapping aids with the catch, these vessels have automated
windlasses equipped.

Trawlers: Trawlers are one of the common forms of fishing vessels employed. As their
name suggests, these vessels have trawler nets that are suspended by aiding
equipment and trailed under the surface of the water at the required deepness to haul
and trap the fishes.
Trawler vessels are employed to catch a wide array of fishes and in almost every
country across the world.

Drifters: Drifters refer to those fishing boats that make use to the special drift fishing
nets to haul and trap the fishes.
The nets when thrown into the water fell like drapes and were mainly employed to
capture herring fishes.

Factory Ship: This ship is like a floating fishing, processing, and preserving factory at
the sea.

The factory ship does all those functions that are carried out once the fishes are brought
to the shore.Know more about the factory ship.

Most of the above listed fishing vessels not only have numerous sub-classifications
under their broader head but are also used for fishing certain specific fish varieties.
However the most commonality between all of the above types of fishing vessels is that
these fishing boats are extensively employed to suit the needs of the mercantile-based
fisheries domain and not just a micro-level operational need.

References