The Mechanical Discharge of Wet Fish Trawlers at Tidal Ports

Summary

This report describes trials held between 1973 and 1975 of a new method of discharging wet fish trawlers at a tidal port, in this case Aberdeen. The principle was that of a vertical lift from a high speed winch discharging on a boom conveyor cantilevered from the quay with the whole unit being independent of the vessel. This technique was unaffected by tidal variations during the landing period. The prototype equipment functioned well and was easily operated by the fish porters and could increase productivity by around 20%. Because of the recession in landings at Aberdeen the system was not subsequently adopted. However, as the equipment is versatile in its ability to discharge wet fish vessels from 20m upwards at all quaysides with sufficient headroom whether tidal or gated and with vessels moored bow in or alongside, recommendations for future commercial development was given. This report has been produced from a scanned original and may therefore contain some formatting and other inaccuracies. In cases where this affects the technical content, a paper copy of the original report can still be obtained from Seafish.

Author

• J. Moore

Publication Reference No.

SR135

Publication date

01 June 1976