Emulate chooses to head north
EMULATE II chose to land its catch in North Shields last Friday after learning that there was no demand in Whitby for locally-caught fish.
Now the vessel’s skipper is saying that if Whitby residents want to save their fleet, local businesses need to support their local fishermen by insisting on locally-caught produce.
Howard Locker, who has been fishing out of the port for 40 years, said the future is looking bleak for Whitby’s industry as there isn’t the demand to match the amount the fisherman are able to supply.
He said: “Whitby as a fishing port is collapsing.
“There used to be 20 boats out of Whitby, but it’s a good job now that there isn’t a fleet of that size as they wouldn’t be able to handle it.
“If you had five boats landing daily we wouldn’t get a good price because the infrastructure is slowly vanishing.
“There isn’t the merchants there on a morning, there’s three or four lads stood around hundreds of boxes of fish.”
However, Mr Locker said that as a businessman he does not blame local establishments who choose to order produce in from other ports, such as North Shields, Peterhead or Grimsby, as they also have businesses to run and therefore need a steady supply, which Whitby can not guarantee.
With no merchants at the Whitby market, the fishermen are therefore choosing to land their catch elsewhere, where competitive bidding means they can receive a higher price for their catch.
It was for this reason that Mr Locker chose to steam to North Shields last Friday.
He added: “In Whitby last Tuesday we landed top quality fish, you can’t get any better, but we got a very poor market due to what they said was a lot of fish in Scotland and a lot of imports.
“There was no demand, so the market collapsed.
“But we went back to sea on Tuesday and we were on the good fishing so I made enquiries about landing in Whitby again and there was very little interest, so I decided to go to Shields.
“It took us eight hours to steam there and five hours to get home, because of the weather conditions, but it was a brilliant market.
“We got a lot better prices and so we still made a profit, which we wouldn’t have done if we landed in Whitby.”
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Friday 25 May 2012
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There are 5 comments to this article
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darkstairs
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 09:21 AM"EMULATE II chose to land its catch in North Shields last Friday after learning that there was no demand in Whitby for locally-caught fish".......The same scenario at Scarboro market too. Last week several of the smaller vessels that are too small to steam to North Shields, sent their catches by truck to North Shields.... I understand that even after transport expenses were deducted they ended up with a better price for their catch.
Commencal
Monday, February 6, 2012 at 11:06 AMThe best restaurants in Whitby advertise which local trawlers they buy fish from, those that don't probably use frozen. As much as I enjoy Fish and Chips, anything deep fried in batter is going to taste similar from frozen or not. Whitby needs to keep as much local business going as possible, especially with the advent of the new Sainsbury’s supermarket- At least there fish counters are dire!
Cuvin
Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 11:41 PMThere are well known restaurants in Whitby who use frozen fish delivered from a frozen foods company in Hull, both I and other people have witnessed delivery lorries off loading Icelandic block frozen cod into the premises of places renowned for good fish and chips.
Sue Donim
Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 03:27 PMIn May 2006 SBC held a fisheries summit in Robin Hoods Bay. One of the reccomendations from that meeting with fishermen processors was an electronic auction. Nothing ever happened as usual. Mr Locker amongst many others was present at that meeting as I understand it.
darkstairs
Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 02:58 PMElectronic auction pays dividends for Shetland Seafood ......... Thursday, 22 December 2011 11:01 ............ SHETLAND Seafood Auctions reported 258,286 boxes of white fish were landed at the market in 2011, a figure significantly higher than in 2010............. “Since the electronic auction was first introduced in 2003, both the volume and value of white fish landed has increased considerably, which clearly demonstrates the significant progress that the auction has made.” .........Instead of the harbour board spending 30,000 pounds to resuface the marina car park, for which the yachtsmen are charged the princely sum 50 pounds per year (Yep, one pound per week!) for a parking permit, they should consider the benefits of elctronic auctions instead of letting usual suspects rip us off.
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