The Dutch beam trawl fleet is about to be cut dramatically, due to a combination of high fuel prices, loss of fishing grounds, resistance in Danish, Norwegian and UK waters, relatively poor catches and strict NOx measures in the future.
In January 2022 there were 72 large beamers under the Dutch flag. This figure had not changed much over the last five years, but insiders are fairly sure there will be only 35 left by next year – possibly even fewer than that.
A number of smaller shrimp trawlers and twin-riggers are also expected to be leaving the fleet as high fuel prices put pressure on family companies that had been operating on the margins of profitability. Since January 2022, a number of trawler owners decided to keep their vessels tied up, waiting for government compensation to become available.
While some other EU member states supported their fishermen, the Dutch government with its stance on fossil fuels refused to provide the support that had been approved by the EU. The Dutch government policy is to eliminate fossil fuels and it sees financial support as delaying a switch to alternative energy sources.
The industry is angry, as while the government is pushing for a switch to cleaner fuels, there is still no suitable propulsion in spite of the many clean engine projects in progress. A couple of lean years have left beam trawler owners with little flexibility to invest in engines that run on cleaner fuels.
The flag is flown at half-mast in many fishing villages or even upside-down, following the example of the protesting Dutch farmers. Urk, Stellendam, Goedereede, Den Helder, Den Oever and Oudeschild are set to feel the pain when decommissioning slices through their local fleets. The northern part of Holland in particular is seeing many decommissioning applications.
If applications are approved, there will soon be a fleet of only five Goedereede beamers. Reportedly, the owners of the GO-20 and recently the GO-44 have also registered for decommissioning. The GO-5, GO-22, GO-23, GO-26 and the GO-37 will remain in service for the time being.
That means the Goedereede fleet, of three of which land weekly in IJmuiden, is about to be halved. With the OD-6, this leaves the Stellendam fish auction with only three beamers as customers in 2023.