5.2 Pair Trawls

             Pair trawling is only being operated by a local company in a joint venture with a Chinese company. The steel-hulled vessels have a length of 30 m. and are of 180.74 GT. They are powered by three (3) Cummins 400 Hp diesels, and are equipped with echo sounders, radar, gyrocompass, single side band, GPS, LORAN, Weather Fax and other navigational and fishing equipment.
           The trawling operation requires two boats of equal horsepower and size. The net is towed with equal lengths of the towing warps at depths of 70 to 82 m and speeds of 4 to 4.2 knots. The spread of the net is dependent on the correct distance between the boats. As no boards are used, the towing warps are connected directly to the sweeplines, or bridles, of each wing.
            The net is hand-woven, part by part and joined to form the wings, upper and lower bellies and cod-end of the trawl. The headrope is made of 12.7 mm dia. plastic covered steel cable and polyethylene twine and serves as the hanging line where the floats are attached. There are twenty-six (26) red plastic floats with a 2.5 cm hole dia. The center of the floatline has a blue plastic float of the same diameter as a marker. The footrope is made of steel cable also covered with plastic and 12.7 mm dia polyethylene twine. There are 280 lead sinkers weighing 1.5 kg. each.
          The net can be shot from either one of the vessels. The other towing warp is taken by the boat which set the net. The warps from both vessels are then payed-out until the desired length has been reached. Trawling operation lasts from 2 to 4 hours. During hauling, the whole body and wings remain overboard while the hauling-in rope is heaved. The cod-end is brought on deck and the fish catch is released. The zipper of the cod-end is again closed for the next setting operations.
           For bottom pair trawling, the most dominant species in Northern Palawan are hairtail, red-eyed fish, lizardfish, sharks and goatfish. However, long term operations would not be viable as the maintenance and operating expenses will be doubled compared to a single-boat bottom trawl.