Polar Fishing Gear has launched their new Pluto fishing door that are both effective and eco friendly.
The Pluto fishing doors, made from recycled plastic has proven its performance as an efficient door that are towed with little or no direct impact to the seabed. Towed in as low Angle-of-Attack as 20 degrees, reduced resistance has been measured as less than 20% against conventional steel doors.
The manufacturing process, rotational moulded, gives an endless opportunity in fine-tuned design addressing the optimisation between spreading force and drag to an efficiency rarely seen.
“We have tested the Pluto’s 1.1m² doors on number of fishing boats in England, Ireland, Scotland and Spain with very positive results” says Atli Már Jósafatsson from MarEco in Iceland.
The first clients outside Iceland to test the Pluto doors, skipper Darren Passmore on the trawler Resolute from Brixham and skipper Luke Noakes on the trawler Valentine from Folkestone are very pleased with the door’s performance.
Both skipper Luke and Darren reported a big factor in reduction in fuel consumption as much as 30% difference to their previous doors of 1.4 m².
During second part of last year, BIM performed trial of Pluto 1.1 m² doors on trawler Karen Mary against two conventional models of steel doors. Trial 1 against Standard A doors of the size of 1.6 m² for Nephrops fishery and Trial 2 against Standard B doors of the size of 2.1 m178 for whitefish fishery both with a single rigged 23 ftm trawl.
The Pluto’s 1.1 m² gave more spread with 11% less load than the 1.6 m² Standard A doors and also more spread with 23% less load then the 2.1 m² Standard B doors.
The overall results is,
- Reduced load which is linked to fuel and carbon use
- Reduced swept are which is linked to gear performance
- Optimising door size in relation to vessel and gear size might improve gear performance
- Good potential to reduce seabed impacts
More sea trial will be done with BIM with next size up, a Pluto 1.4 m²
The positive results have pushed us to bring in more sizes which will be available after the first months of 2025, a range of original Pluto’s bottom and semi-doors with the height vs width aspect ratio of 1:1.2r in the range of 0,8 m², 1.1 m², 1.4 m², 1.8 m² and 2.2 m².
The first mould for Pluto pelagic in aspect ratio 1:2.4 is being completed and will be available in end of March.
Polar Fishing Gear will be exhibiting at next years Irish skipper Expo- Visit them at stand E12
