Professional Skipper Magazine from VIP Publications

COASTAL CHARACTERS THE DANISH, DANISH SEINERS PART 1 BY BADEN PASCOE A bout 1920 most of the migrant Dalmatians had given up the hard yakka of gum digging in Northland and moved to the Auckland region to either establish fish retailing businesses or start vineyards in North Auckland. Practically all of these fish shops were family run, and as a way of obtaining better quality wet fish at better prices, these families purchased a boat or boats and it also created employment within the family group. Hand lining and gill netting for flounder were the first methods used, but sometime in the twenties someone decided to experiment with the Danish seining method as a way to catch larger quantities of good quality snapper. It is questionable who this person was, some say it may have been Peter Bronlund who owned the Eileen Belle, or Mr Bucked in his 1894 converted C and W Bailey yacht Viola, later Cooee. This is something I will have to play detective with at some time. The Dallies were the largest group on a very multicultural Auckland waterfront where English was almost the minority language. They were eager to adopt any improvements in their fishing methods they could find, and Danish seining was one of them. This is the story of how Aksel Larsen arrived on the scene in 1950. Although only 23 years old, he had been Danish seining since he was 15 years old. To add to this, he came from Denmark's largest fishing port, Esbjerg, the home of Danish seining. Aksel was once told that Auckland was quite a large port with about 50 fishing boats, wow! (Esbjerg had more than 500…) It was not easy for Aksel when he first arrived here, his English was poor and the locals did not have a clue where he had come from. He was just a bloody alien to some people, and obviously the Marine Department thought this as well, as in their view his skippers ticket was almost worthless. His ticket by the way was equivalent to a coastal masters ticket, with good celestial navigation skills. His first lodgings were the YMCA, and from day one he roamed the Auckland waterfront in search of a job. One of the first people who made him welcome was Tom Mesa, who at that time was running the little seiner Comet, but he already had a crew. Aksel eventually got a job as casual labour helping the watersiders until a job on a fishing boat came up. DIESEL AND COFFEE I will now go back in time, to 1944, when Aksel started his career as a fisherman. Aksel's first job was with his uncle, Jens Kristian Heide in Denmark, who owned and operated one of the smaller Danish seiners about 48-50 feet in length. She was powered by a Tuxham 75hp single cylinder semi-diesel, coupled to a variable pitch prop. Understanding one of these machines and making coffee was the first thing "the boy" had to learn on one of these boats. So, the first job in the morning was to light the kerosene blowlamp and place it in its holder so that the blue flame was roaring against the top of the cylinder head. Next, a few engine checks were done, oilers topped up, grease cups turned and then off to the galley to make the thick black coffee. By this time the cylinder head was nearing starting temperature. The way to test this was to open the snifter valve that also acted as a decompressor, to enable him to bar the huge flywheel over it and if smoke came out it was time to fire things up. But first, the TDC (top dead centre) mark had to be just on the down side of the stroke, then a shot of compressed air would be shot into the cylinder. With a little luck the big banger fired up. "You got this act down to a fine art and if you messed it up you were in deep trouble with the skipper," Aksel firmly informed me! The sound of the engine woke up every living thing on the boat. Fishing began about 4am and the first shot went out soon after. Often they fished through till nine or ten pm in the evening and the thick black coffee made that morning was an essential part of staying with their tasks during the day. The North Sea is full of shoals, the Dogger Banks being the largest set, so they anchored at night sometimes in only ten fathoms of water. Sunday was the only day off, and as Jens was quite a Christian this was his religious day. He ran a strict ship, no bad language or sloppy behaviour! The main catch was plaise, a fish that is similar to our flounder. The other bounty was cod. Aksel explained to me that seining methods were quite different to how we do it in New Zealand today. The first difference is that all the gear was worked over one side of the boat, and the hauling gear was run through blocks to the necessary side. The second difference is that before hauling started, the boat was anchored, as these boats did not have a lot of power. The same anchor that was laid to hold the beginning of the coil was also picked up and made fast to haul on. Almost always at the end of the day the boat moored on this as well, and if the wind was in the right direction, they tried to cover new ground, either side of the ground last worked. However, when working a muddy bottom for plaise they often tried to do a semi trawl to try and cover more ground to increase their chances of a good catch. Cre. Nuff and crew. This photo was taken from Ingas Riis during the voyage to the White Sea 26 Professional Skipper September/October 2012 The smaller boats did not even have coiling gear, "I'm talking about the old time coilers, not the huge drums that all the modern boats have now" says Aksel. Most of the fish were gutted and A typical Danish seiner

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