Timaru home port for new super-trawlers

Press, 1 May 1978, Page 2

Timaru home port for new super-trawlers

PA Timaru A multi-million-dollar fishing venture will be set up at the Port of Timaru this year by the Canterbury Farmers’ Co-operative Association and the Kenton Trawling Company. The venture will include the purchase of three new 160-tonne super trawlers from the Netherlands, and the extension of shore facilities to cater for the much larger vessels, at a total price of $2.5M. Each vessel is expected to cost $750,000.

Extensions to Feron Seafoods, Ltd, a subsidiary of the C.F.C.A., will include the installation of an ice-maker from the United States, at a cost of $lBO,OOO. The three new trawlers will increase the annual catch landed at Timaru by 150 per cent, from the present 2800 tonnes by 30 small boats, to 6400 tonnes. The venture is somew-hat dependent on the co-oper-ation of the Government. The two companies, want help in importing the vessels Ito the country duty-free, as

well as . finance from the Rural Bank. Two of the large trawlers will be bought for Feron’s and one is bound for Kenton’s. Both companies expect the delivery of one vessel each at the end of this year from the Darman shipyards in the Netherlands. Mr Kenton said there was a definite place for larger trawlers in New Zealand. The advent of the 200-mile economic fishing zone and tighter restrictions on foreign trawlers had already resulted in improved catches by local trawlers. The new vessels will be a basic stern-trawl type, but capable of handling squid fishing and deep-sea lining. They will be 24m length, seven metres in beam, and each powered by a 600 hp diesel motor.

Each will have a hold capacity for 62 tonnes of cased fish, and will be able to remain at sea for up to two weeks if necessary. Each boat will require a crew of six to seven men and will contain the latest fishfinding and navigational aids.