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Can fishermen do more than catch sole or plaice? Last week I attended a meeting of the Fisheries Innovation Platform together with a group of fishermen. Niko Wijnolst, an outstanding marine expert, enthused to the seven fishermen about the huge profits to be made in the offshore industry: there is a growing market for seismological research, cable laying work and guard ships in the North Sea. Fishermen are excellent sailors, he says, they are bold and dauntless and, not unimportantly, they have a ship ready at hand to do the work. Companies like FUGRO and Vroon offshore services can no longer meet the demand and are crying out for capacity. They pay good money for these services, he says: as much as € 9,000 a day at sea.
You see the incredulous fishermen sizing Niko up with a wary eye. It’s as if they’re seeing water burning: how can you earn that kind of money simply by sailing around in a boat? I see their minds ticking over: this can’t be true. Niko adds that you do need to design and build a special type of boat for these purposes. You need a ship with a large flat rear deck offering enough room for a couple of containers with FUGRO equipment. But once you’ve got yourself a multi-purpose ship like that, you can spend part of the year catching sole and plaice and the rest of the year you can hire out your services and your ship to an offshore company. The discussion is an eye-opener for me. It’s fascinating to see two totally different worlds in dialogue. The fishermen are wondering who is going to finance such a brand-new ship and whether Brussels, the Water Management Inspectorate and the Fisheries Directorate will allow it. And if you hire yourself out, are you still a fisherman? Surely, that’s the beginning of the end of your fishing business? And there’s another objection: fishermen like to spend Sundays at home.
What I learn here is that new and unconventional ideas meet with a lot of suspicion and scepticism. It is very difficult to see the opportunities in a market that is so different, yet so close. After all, fishing and offshore work are both carried out on the same North Sea.
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