SIMRAD ES70 gathers momentum

ATL have been busy installing a number of complete SIMRAD ES70 Fish Finders, as well as upgrading some existing ES60 systems to ES70. First up was the FV Tommy Maru 87, which upgraded from ES60 to ES70, and participated in the first Scientific Survey for Southern Blue Whiting using an ES70 in NZ. NIWA Scientists were on board to calibrate the ES70 and commented how easy and quick this process has now become with the ES70.

Milan Barbarich from Antons Trawling was also keen to upgrade his ES60 to ES70 on board the FV Seamount Explorer, to fish for Orange Roughy, as there are a number of new features found in the ES70 that benefit bottom trawlers including a new bottom detector, better signal processing that improves bottom detection performance and fish detection close to the bottom plus the ability to carry out fishery stock assessment when required

Sanford Limited have also recently installed a complete ES70 on board the FV San Rakaia to improve the vessels inshore and Orange Roughy catch ability. With the San Rakaia having also recently installed the SIMRAD PI44 Catch Control system to provide very accurate door spread distance and skew, as well as PI Catch sensors for Volumes of fish in the Cod end. With this state of the art SIMRAD tactical Electronics package now on board the benefits of maximizing catch, and also coupled with the ability to carry out fish stock surveys, using the SIMRAD ES70 to help achieve the companys goal – Sustainable seafood.

ATL have also been working with Sanford Limited to introduce the ES70 to the company’s Pacific Purse Seine vessels. Recent trends in the Spanish and Indian Ocean tuna fleets have seen upwards of six ES70 transducers installed in transducer pods on the port & Starboard side of tuna vessels, to provide a horizontal 180 degree spread. This enables Captains to carefully analyse tuna schools, for size, volume and species and to also distinguish baitfish for tuna schools. The ability to significantly increase the amount of information available to the Captains, has resulted in significantly better catches, and quality of catch.

Further installations of ES70 have been completed on board the Tuna Super Seiners FV Franche Terre and FV Manapany which operate in the Indian Ocean Tuna fishery. These vessels are owned by Sapmer Fishing company.

Australian fishing vessels are also installing ES70, with Australia Bay Seafoods recently purchasing multiple ES70 systems from ATL for their vessels fishing out of Darwin & Weipa. The FV Territory Leader & FV Ocean Harvest, now catch their quotas of tropical snapper using the SIMRAD ES70 systems in the deep tropical waters of the Northern Territory.

Contact ATL for more info on the ES70 today