Adapting to change
But work needed on the wording of the STS to make it world class
IMPROVED containment is built in to Gael Force’s new SeaQurePen, an integrated sea cage system designed for higher energy sites. The Inverness based company’s sales director, Jamie Young, said there had been much interest in the new pens, launched at Aqua Nor in August, and two Scottish customers had already snapped them up. To this end, Gael Force has installed 13 SeaQurePens at sites across the country.
The pens, which can be manufactured up to 200m circumference, are extremely tough and durable, designed to ensure containment in all weather conditions.
They are described by Gael Force as an evolutionary system that reduces pen furniture and related maintenance, and are a ‘stepping stone on the way towards a much greater level of integration of farm development,’ according to managing director Stewart Graham.
Young said: ‘With these pens now installed and winter just around the corner, the next few months will demonstrate just how robust SeaQurePen is.’
He was involved with the Containment Working Group, and while his Gael Force colleague Alexis Chatterton now sits on the committee, he said he is involved ‘on an almost daily basis’ with the Scottish Technical Standard.
‘As an industry, both from the supply and consumer side, there is definitely a desire and a willingness to adhere to the standard that’s in place,’ he said.
‘I think there is an appetite for continual identification of areas where we can improve and keep working on; such as, some of the terminology could be made clearer, so it’s upheld as a world class standard and not one that just replicates standards from other places.’
Young said the Scottish Technical Standard cannot be compared directly to the Norwegian standard, NS 9415, as the scope is not the same.
‘This is a containment standard, focused firmly on fish containment. With the Scottish Technical Standard, you must have the right moorings, the right pens and the right nets – and it’s right that we have a standard which is fully focused on that one area.’
He said that as the standard is put into practice it will allow the industry to review and clarify its progression. But he believes it is ‘very well understood by farmers and suppliers across the board’.
‘I’d say the farmers have bought into it and are working towards making sure they adhere to it and are taking the extra care to do so.
‘From a supplier’s perspective, it’s definitely more work, of course, for us, but we recognise the benefits in a standard which supports secure and resilient containment and the efficiencies in it.
‘What people are doing as new equipment comes through is making sure they are at standard. It’s been published and I’d say it’s been widely and generally used, from what I’ve experienced.’
Young said he doesn’t have any strong views on how the standard should be enforced but observed that ‘it looks to be widely adhered to already’.
‘We as a company are well placed to adapt and adjust to any changes that may come through and the fish farm companies are too,’ said Young. So, there is nothing in it that Gael Force can’t comply with?
‘No, we’re fully complying with the Scottish Technical Standard as it stands, within our pen production and our mooring production.’
Farmers seem to have bought into it and are making sure they adhere to it”