cleaned and stowed. I found it interesting that a proportion of the catch was kept alive in a separate hold that seawater flowed in and out of. For example Aksel's uncle's boat could hold 15,000 pounds of cleaned fish and 5,000 pounds of live fish. When these boats were fully loaded it was hard to tell if they were afloat or ready to sink. When one considers all this, life on board one of these boats was bloody hard work and I imagine you learnt how to sleep well during the very short night.
After 18 months with a firm grounding of North Sea fishing behind him, Aksel decided to go to navigation school. The study was very regimented and the students had to recite answers word- by-word when answering oral exams. Next, Aksel had to do military service so it was off to the Danish Navy. He went right on to a converted fishing boat owned by the navy to do a range of duties around Esbjerg including running young woman placed on detention, to a nearby island.
His next boat was a 75 footer similar to the ML's we had here in New Zealand. He was first mate on this boat, trawling the coast of Denmark in a grid pattern dragging an 18 ton semi submerged magnet searching for rogue German mines. This was the most boring job he had encountered, however he was left to his own devices as skipper, as the lieutenant in charge did not have a lot of practical boat skills, and spent most of his time below decks doing paperwork. He would have liked to quit this job earlier, but because he held a skipper's ticket the navy would not let him go. All another learning curve.
After his navy time he thought he would go back to fishing and gain more deep sea experience on a larger boat. He joined the Ingas Riis E310, a boat very similar to the Olympia that the Misa brothers owned in Auckland (see Skipper issues 85 and 86). During this time they fished the North Sea, and did two trips to the White Sea north of Norway towards the Russian coast. They hit ice 30 miles off the coast and Aksel said it was as "cold as hell". On their return they discharged the small catch at Grimsby and by the time they got back home they had been away for six weeks. The fishing was very poor up North and they soon gave up on this idea and went back to the old fishing grounds. So back to the norm; fishing 70 to 80 miles off the Danish and Jutland coasts, working the banks further out and often discharging their catches at Hull or Grimsby as they got a far higher price for doing this. At this time the North Sea was suffering very badly from uncontrolled fishing and most of the fisherman where struggling. One day Aksel and his brother Svend were thinking of a way of putting all this behind them and started to search for an environment that offered a better future. They researched the fishing industries in South Africa and Australia, then thought New Zealand was worth a go, so they flipped a coin to see who would go first to do some fact-finding. Svend won, but then said he couldn't go as he would miss his girlfriend. So Aksel packed his bags and said good bye to his homeland.
A lot is expected of these Danish fishing boats.
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