Alaskan Skipper Sees Great Benefits from Notus
 

Notus Electronics Ltd. (Notus) of Canada is a supplier of advanced trawl monitoring solutions. With over 400 trawl monitoring systems delivered worldwide, Notus is a well known solution in many of the world’s fisheries. In December 2008, Notus installed a Trawlmaster system on the FV Chellissa which fishes out of Alaska.
 

The Chellissa installed a Notus Trawlmaster to monitor doorspread, measure the trawl wires and provide depth of each door. After some time fishing with the system in Kodiak, AK; skipper Joe Hamm reports “I am very satisfied with the Notus system.”

The Chellissa has been using bottom and midwater trawls for cod, flats and pollock. The bottom gear has a footrope length of 140 ft and the midwater net has an opening of 20 fa x 90 fa. Typical doorspreads on the bottom gear are around 85 fa and spreads on the mid water gear are in the 90 fa range.

Skipper Joe Hamm reports “The Notus system lets you know immediately when there is something wrong. I know when we catch a crab pot, if a door falls over and when I’m mudding up.” In many of these situations, the skipper sees a reduction in spread and can quickly readjust the gear back to optimal fishing.

Notus is well known for accurately measuring the trawl wires (the distance from the transducer to the port and starboard doors). The FV Chellissa is discovering exactly how useful this feature is. Joe Hamm says “The wire lengths are really accurate. Also the adjustment in heavy current has been useful as Notus has indicated up to a 5 fa adjustment on one side to align the doors.”
The FV Chellissa also monitors depth of each door. This is very important when positioning the trawl during midwater trawling. A typical Trawlmaster display appears to the left.

Joe Hamm also reports “batteries last 7 - 10 days on a single charge with the gear on bottom for about 17 hours a day.”
There is a lot of excitement among the west coast fleet regarding Notus. Additional orders have already been taken.