Presentation of Conoship’s report by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management on the safety of beam trawlers
On Friday, March 22nd various stakeholders involved in beam trawlers came together for the presentation of Mr. Robert Hekkenberg of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management regarding the developments on improving the safety of beam trawlers. At the event, hosted by the Dutch Fishermen’s Union at Urk, fishermen, representatives of Naval office Herman Jansen, Gaastmeer Design, Padmos, Dutch Fishermen’s Union, MARIN, SARC, ILT, and Conoship International were present. Mr. Hekkenberg presented the results of Conoship’s research and the foreseen actions for improving the safety of beam trawlers.
ILT has already taken various actions to improve the safety of beam trawlers. Conoship has made a proposal for stability criteria for beam trawlers during fishing operations, based on a reference condition, the Basic Fishing Condition. Also, a proposal for the Fishing Module was developed, in which the heeling moments resulting from the pulling forces in both fishing lines are calculated. During the project the concept of a warning system was developed, which is based on threshold values calculated in the Fishing Module. The idea is that this warning system can be installed in addition to existing navigation equipment as a safety feature.
An addition to the work already done, Mr. Hekkenberg announced model tests at MARIN to further investigate the beam trawlers’ dynamic behavior. The tests at MARIN will also be used to validate the stability criteria. After that, the practical application of the criteria will be checked again with the designers of beam trawlers, to ensure that the new criteria will be both more safe and usable during the design of new beam trawlers.
During the meeting, there were interesting in-depth discussions with the assembled experts, which all showed the importance of the subject of improvement of the safety of beam trawlers.
Conoship is glad to have been allowed to contribute to improving the safety of beam trawlers and thanks everyone for sharing their experiences and insights that helped us do it. We are looking forward to using our knowledge and experience for future developments in the safety of beam trawlers and other fishing vessels.
