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"Magellan" in Sweden. An incurable maritime museum scholar, "Magellan," supported by a Fulbright Grant and a Malmberg Scholarship to study at Stockholm's legendary Vasa Museum.
Labels: boilers, Sankt Erik, steamship
Trawling--fishing by towing a net--took off around 1900 when steam engines started being installed in fishing vessels. With an engine, a fishing vessel could now actually give chase, not just 'wait for the fish to bite'. Thus trawling was really the first, large-scale, active fishing industry (as opposed to earlier passive fishing methods).
In addition to the 'codend' where the fish pile up in the end of the net, bottom trawl nets have a number of key distinguishing features most of which are designed to hold the net open: 'floats' that lift the top edge of the net opening, 'weights' that hold down the lower edge of the net opening, and 'otter boards' or 'doors' (wood or steel planes that 'surf' out to the sides when towed) to hold the net open horizontally. These pieces of 'gear' open the net wide to scoop up as many fish as possible.
One of the big problems of trawling, however, is that it is a non-selective method, that is it catches anything that gets in front of the net. The undesired species that are caught when trawling are called by-catch. In some bottom trawling fisheries, as much as 80% of what comes up in the net is by-catch. Crews dump the net contents on the deck and sift through it, picking out the shrimp, cod, or whatever they are after. Then, after an hour or more, the rest is shoveled overboard--usually dead.
The biggest problem with bottom trawling, however, is the weights on the lower edge. These are designed to keep the net open and to comb the seafloor, ensuring that bottom feeders like cod (that instinctually dive from danger) won't escape under the net.
However, these weights (often called 'rock hoppers' because they include circular bits of old car tires to allow them to roll or 'hop' over rocks and other potential snags) do enormous damage to the seafloor, the rather fragile food source for the entire ecosystem.
This before and after photo of a bottom trawling area illustrates the damage these nets do. They sweep the seafloor clean, thoroughly destroying the habitat that supports the fish that their industry is based on. It is really quite self-defeating if you stop and think about it.
Many fisheries scientists equate this oldest form of motorized fisheries to "fishing with a bulldozer."
However, being in the dark depths below the waves, this destruction has long remained 'out of sight, out of mind.' Only the fishermen who spent long hours heaving by-catch, coral, and other unintended catches overboard ever had an inkling of an idea of what was happening on the bottom.
There are two major kinds of overfishing: a.) taking too many fish until the stock collapses, or b.) destroying the habitat until the fish stock collapses. Of the two, it was primarily the latter--carried out by bottom trawl nets-- that destroyed the Grand Banks cod fishery and brought a devastating recession and economic crisis to the eastern seaboard of North America in the 1980s. Although essentially all cod fishing has been banned on the Grand Banks since 1994, it is still questionable whether it can ever recover.
So, take a minute to reflect on this issue currently before the UN and take a look at some of the fisheries website links on the right.
Labels: bottom trawling, fisheries, UN
Speed is King; Nothing else is so important in this race. Any failure to diligently squeeze every fraction of a knot out of the boat can really add up on 6,000 mile leg of the race and put a boat far behind. Thus crew comforts and even structural integrity of the vessel are often mere footnotes in decision making. At peak performance, these boats can hit 38-40 knots!
And generally, the worse the weather, the faster they go. It is undoubtedly among the longest and wildest rides you can find; 8 seconds on a bucking bronco, 8 months on a VOR 70'.
To make use of the cheap weekend rental deals, we took off early on Saturday morning...too early...and rocketed through the six-hour drive across Sweden to the west coast. When we got to Göteborg in the early afternoon, the first finishers had already been picked up by an enthusiastic welcome fleet in the Danish Straits.
We ditched the car and hurried for the harbor. The waterfront was jammed with people awaiting the racers. Huge television screens had been set up all along the harborfront showing live footage of the boats coming in.
The race officials would later release figures citing some 3,000 yachts that went out to greet the VOR 70s as they came sailing in. It was amazing. I watched the big, white ferry pictured above as it was delayed almost an hour by the swarm of yachts that followed the racers in, clogging the harbor. The ferry's captain, anxious to get underway for Denmark, blew the 'five shorts' danger signal on the ship's air horns almost continuously for the full hour--to no effect.
Along Göteborg's waterfront, more than 300,000 spectators had gathered for the big finish. It was spectacular to be in a city and a country that got so excited about sailing. You would never see this in the US. Ships and their vital role in the world are just not recognized in America. Sweden, however, has a long history and firmly based identity as a maritime nation, an identity that lends so much richness to the culture and a publicly-oriented future to maritime activity.
Maritiman also has a beautiful old coastal freighter--a huge undertaking for a small museum. It is a lot of tonnage and paint to maintain for a limited amount of visitor appreciation. I mean, the average visitor usually just isn't all that interested by an empty box of a cargo ship. It does not matter if the ship was a vital pillar of the region's maritime history, it has to to have general appeal in order to 'reach' the visitor and thereby accomplish the museum's ultimate aim of preserving knowledge of maritime heritage for/within the public. General appeal is important--and probably part of why Maritiman acquired a destroyer and flock or torpedo and mine-laying boats.
Yet I admire Maritiman for tackling this challenge--the challenge of caring for a vessel of high historical importance and high maintenance costs, but relatively low visitor appeal. How do they present the ship and her history so as to justify her preservation withthe general public? That is a challenge that requires a skilled exhibitons and programming staff that can 'make her interesting' (you have no idea how grating it is for me to write that. I find her infinitely interesting... but I know I am unusual. After all, I was studying steam boiler design until 3am this morning--for fun) Ships like this are the same problem maritime museums face with fishing boats--how do you get people interested?
Unfortunately, the old wisdom that it takes 'either a tall ship or a warship' to build a maritime museum generally holds true. Tall masts or big guns draw people's curiosity--not tall tales of fishing or big cargo holds, at least, not at first. Again, I find it comes down to the skill of exhibit designers and their presentation of the material. With the right mix of exhibit formats and content, it is possible to hook people's interest in just about anything.
The next morning, Cameron and I were back in the city and decided to go for a tourist dive on the highly-recommended Paddan boat tours. The Paddan boats were essentially big steel motorbarges with plastic seats and a pair of undersized outboard motors.
They take you through the city's old canals...
...weaving and winding thorough the historic district and slipping under some 21 bridges.
The lowest of them was known as the cheese-slicer...
...and crouching down to clear it, it certainly gave that impression.
Most of the tourguide's information was fairly dull--anecdotes about famous personages that lived within three blocks of the canal--but we did pass the old Swedish East India Company building (you can see the name written in the frieze).
It was the Ostindiskkompaniet (East India Comapany) that built and sailed the East Indiamen to the East Indies (does this sound repetitive or what?).
In fact, the Götheborg III (old spelling with an 'h') that was just built in Göteborg and has recently arrived in Shanghai, China after a 10 month voyage, is a copy of an East Indiaman built and operated by Ostindiskakompaniet that sank outside Göteborg harbor in the 1700s.
Under one more 'cheese slicer' and popped out of the canals onto the open harbor.
Instantly I was much happier--big water and big ships. We chugged up the waterfront right past the Maritiman maritime center...
.... affording me a good look at the old freighter--floating very high in the water...
...and demonstrating that the museum's painting maintenance is done in a piece-meal manner.
Then we came abeam of the destroyer Småland, bristling like a veritable Bofors showroom.
...and a former royal yacht recently added to the collection.
It was also good just to see the colleciton as a whole from the waterside--good for wrapping it up for contemplation.
Then my contented reflection was shattered by a hideous barge converted into a floating parking garage...but it was a good idea for the overcrowded downtown area.
Moored alongside the opera house was a beautiful wooden ketch...
...and just a little further along, we puttered past the impressive Viking again.
There were interesting craft all over the place...
...a lovely Colin Archer yawl plowing past...
...and a coastal freighter coming up the channel.
She was probably heading for the Göte River and then on up the Göta Kanal for a cargo of grain, iron ore, lumber, or some other bulk cargo.
Her crew was out on the rail (with cameras no less) enjoyin gthe summer weather and the scenic passage through Göteborg and on inland.
The mast had already been folded back in preparation for all the bridges, some of which were barely wide enough for her to fit through.
Crossing her stern to the other side ofthe channel, the little Paddan tourboat took us back down stream along the dockyards, some of the last big shipyards still going in Göteborg.
These few were the lsat survivors, but they were proud of it and showed every indication of intending to remain in the fight to stay in business.
These docks under the massive shipyard cranes were empty today, but as you may recall from the "Passage to Denmark" posting, these docks were handling repairs for some of the biggest ships in Swedish waters--at that time it was the Wallenius Line automobile carrier Madame Butterfly.
Then we bore down on the floating drydocks again, chock-full of mid-size oil tankers.
Here, a 'local gal' has been hauled out for some maintenance. She displays the modern 'bobsled' lifeboat launching system, but the now frowned-upon single screw and rudder that if disabled, have no back-up as we saw on the Stena Primorsk. These dockyards sure know how to make you feel insignificant, towering over us in those little frying pan Paddan motorbarges.
But it is wonderful to find such thriving maritime activity right on the central waterfront of one of the world's major cities.
This is no small ship.
We also passed the merchant seamans' emergency training facility, a high platform cluttered with examples of just about every lifeboat and liferaft launching system in use. A precious facility for sailors that might find themselves in one of the all too often unpublicized maritime disasters.
Back ashore, Cameron and I wandered up the shore, passing a few more lovely hulls, and then headed for the car. It was time to get back on the road.
We hit the World Cultures Museum on the way out of town. It was well done, but it had this one exhibit that looked like an incarnation of a National Geographic article.
We also paused along the outer coast so we could have a look at the open water...
...and the Kungälv fortress.
Then, 6 hours and several hundred kilometers later, we arrived back in Stockholm. The long sub-artic day was drawing to a close as we blew through town in the late evening, rushing into heavy traffic in our hurry to return the car before we had to pay for another day.
By the time we had made it to the airport, returned the car, and then made our way back, the lone hour of true night Stockholm experiences in June had arrived. Unfortunately, at that hour on a Sunday night-Monday morning, all the ferries and busses are shut down.
Rats!
So, another classic Magellan journey began, walking miles and mile sin the dark, searching for my way home. It was just like the time I got left behind and eventually hopelessly lost in Wisconsin's huge Kettle Morraine Park or the time I found myself trudging my way across Nantucket in the dead of night searching for a phantom field station.... Yet, it was a nice night and although I spent wo hours hiking home, it was enjoyable under the stars and moon...
...and it was not long at all before the mid summer sky began to lighten. It was actually a great walk....until I was attacked by a group of seagulls defending a nest....
...but somehow, that was the perfect end to a whirlwind roadtrip to Göteborg to see the end of the Volvo Ocean Race and look at another maritime museum.
Labels: Bro Anton, Göteborg, Kungälv, Maritiman, Volvo Ocean Race, Windstar