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 vessel’s 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: ehow, fishingboatheritage