Trials carried out with the crew of Danish pelagic vessel Themis S-144 from Skagen in the week before Christmas, confirm that the latest trawl doors from Thyborøn look highly promising. These are Type 32 Bluestream doors, and these can be controlled from the wheelhouse.

The control system for the doors was tested, with excellent results. This uses new wireless technology, allowing the door spread and the towing depth to be controlled.

A lock function, setting the doors to maintain a preset depth and spread without requiring a steady wireless link to the wheelhouse, was also tried out. This arrangement worked well in tight turns, ensuring that the outer door stayed in position instead of rising to the surface and the inner door stayed in place instead dropping down to the seabed.

The control system has yet to be tested on board an Icelandic vessel, although these doors have already been in use on board pelagic vessel Víkingur since the autumn. Skipper Albert Sveinsson reports that the doors have been used through the herring and capelin seasons, and so far the settings are the same both sides of the backstrops.

‘I’m very satisfied with these doors. They are steady during a tow, hold their squaring power in a turn and shoot away cleanly. It’s a big advantage to have doors that come straight up to the stern when we haul, and it’s much easier to get them square in the gallows to unclip so we can haul the sweeplines and the trawl onto the drum,’ Albert Sveinsson said.

For further information visit Thyboron Trawldoor´s Facebook page  https://www.facebook.com/groups/trawldoors/