Maiden tour

...aboard a fishing craft:

Dharma Sri Abeyratne

It seemed like the rough tide tried to capsize the boat which we were on board. The tide comes and hits the keel of the boat but in a flash the tide shattered. In the

other hand it is something like the rough tide that tried to capsize the boat.

However the huge boat doesn’t mind these rough sea waves much, except give a sudden jerk in some occasions. No doubt, it may be a joyful experience if one gets a chance to sail in deep sea.

A few days ago, when I’m at office, a friend of mine contacted me over the phone and requested me to participate in the maiden sail of a multi-day fishing boat which has been totally designed and manufactured in Sri Lanka. Without giving a second thought I agreed to take part in the first day sail since it is a joyful experience and a pride of the Sri Lankan boat manufacturing industry as well.

Fitness test

Finally we from Daily News could be an eye witness to the maiden sail of the 52 feet long multi-day fishing boat which successfully completed the first day sail and the fitness test recently at Negombo sea under the supervision of a marine engineer and a team of experts in the marine industry.

The fishing boat has been designed and manufactured by ‘North-West Marine Pvt. Ltd’, a totally local owned multi-day fishing boats manufacturing plant in Negombo aiming to harvest fish in the deep seas.

The boot will be used to catch Yellow Pins tuna and Big Eye tuna for the export market especially for the Japanese.

These two kinds of tuna are said to have a good demand at foreign markets. A kilogram of tuna fish is sold at around Rs.6,000 at the Japanese market that will assist us to bring a considerable foreign exchange to the country.

The boat is equipped with modern techniques such as fish finders, global position systems, path finders, radar and high-tech communication equipments which are used normally by foreign manufactured fishing boats.

“These equipments are novel techniques for local fishing industry since most multi-day fishing boats still use traditional methods. In addition, when the boat was designed special attention has been drawn to hygienic factors and safety. So the boat comes with cold room facilities, toilets, kitchen, beds and much more.

“Moreover I’m proud to mention that the boat is a 100 percent Sri Lankan product,” Managing Director of North-West Marine Jagath Udaya Kumara said. Unlike traditional boats this boat uses hook system to catch tunas while the traditional system uses fishing nets.

This will be an advantage as there is a probability to get the harvest spoil when the fish is caught with nets, Jagath added. There is a long rope which is operated mechanically and is used to attach hooks. “The rope is approximately 60 kilometres long at which thousands of hooks are attached. An imported cuttlefish is used for every hook as bait.”

One cuttlefish costs around Rs.30 as fish has been processed specially for using as bait.

Therefore the cuttlefish is coated with a chemical layer which glitters when in water so that tuna fish can easily see the bait.

Having examined the areas where tuna is abundant the boat lays the hooks line in the deep sea. The fish finder and other modern equipments which have been attached to the boat are used especially for finding out the area where tuna is abundant.

Naval crafts

The boat is powered by a huge diesel-driven engine imported from Korea. Normally the importer faces much difficulty when importing in-boat engines.

Unlike the out-boat engine the in-boat engine is used only for comparatively large naval crafts such as multi-day fishing boats. Sorry to say some custom officers didn’t know the difference between out-boat or in-boat engines.

However, as the final result the importer has to wait for long until receiving the custom’s approval.

“Since the LTTE uses huge engines for their sea Tiger boats there is a delay for the custom’s approval. However it is better to have a good relationship between the customs and the Ministry of Defence or with the Navy when granting the approval for importing in-boat engines.

“The Navy can observe and make sure whether the particular engine is used only for the fishing boat that is mentioned in the custom documents.

“It is important to have such a mechanism or else the difficulty probably be a discourage for local boat manufacturing industry,” a custom source said.

High speed

“When designing a naval craft the designers draw much attention on the ‘shape of the hull’ since the stability of the craft mainly depends on the shape of the hull.” The shape of the hull of this boat has been well designed.

Therefore the stability of the boat is unique when sailing at high speed. It is a must that a Multi-day fishing boat can be speeded up than a normal fishing boat, since the foreign buyers definitely consider the period between the moment of catching of the fish and storing for export.

Therefore multi-day fishing boat used for catching fish for export market has to be able to get good speed.

Then only the harvest is suitable for exporting. When it comes to this, this boat can easily be speeded more than 10 nautical miles per hour which can be considered as a better speed for a multi-day fishing boat,” Marine Engineering Assistant Bandula Perera told the Daily News.

Foreign exchange

Considering the fish-hold capacity and other facilities this boat is more like the Japanese manufactured fishing boat.

Multi-day fishing boat has to have a better fish-hold capacity and cold room facilities so as to keep the large amount of fish in good condition.

“In this boat there is no problem whatsoever when the designer has drawn special attention on this issue,” Bandula Perera said.

Moreover if a boat in this category is imported from a foreign manufacturer, Sri Lanka has to spend much foreign exchange.

Normally this expense can’t be afforded by an average fishing boat operator.

“Our factory is ready to build a boat in accordance with the customer’s desire. However we have already designed and manufactured several moulds considering key function, safety and modern techniques of the fishing boat industry.

Our aim is to offer a boat which has the same facilities of imported boats for an affordable price as we realised this is a national task,” the Managing Director Jagath Udaya Kumara said.