Big fish join Nova Scotia startup's quest for no-contact trawling

A small startup company in Yarmouth, N.S. hopes to take the "ground" out of groundfish trawling with a more efficient and environmentally friendly trawl system it says will eliminate ocean bottom contact and use uncrewed surface drones to find fish.

"This project is aimed to reduce sea time for the fish harvesters, which is better for the harvesters and the industry, but also good for the environment," said Marc d'Entremont, CEO of Katchi Technology. "It's sustainable and we're not disturbing bottom habitat."

The company aims to replace the heavy steel plates, known as trawl doors, released from the back of a fishing boat that drag along the ocean floor to spread the net.

Instead, specially shaped hydrodynamic blocks attached to the top and bottom of the net will open as water hits them.

Sensors on the nets and vessel will direct winches to reel in and pay out cable to control the depth of the net, allowing trawling anywhere in the water column.

"What we're trying to do is remove the trawl doors of the existing trawl equipment and flying that net above the seabed and avoiding obstacles as you pull it through the water," d'Entremont said.

Uncrewed surface vessels, or USVs, with fish finders would be deployed and retrieved from a fishing boat or sent in advance to fishing grounds.

Eventually a fleet of drones could be dispatched to an area, streaming back data in real time.

About half of the money for the $3.3 million "Precision Fish Project" is coming from the federal Ocean Supercluster innovation fund. The rest is coming from private sector partners.

The project is set to run 18 months.

Katchi will test the first net prototype on board the Scotia Harvest trawler Lery Charles in September.

Scotia Harvest — a Mersey Seafoods company — is one of the partners, which also includes Canadian shellfish giant Clearwater and Dartmouth-based Rimot, which makes remote monitoring devices.

Engineering and fabrication company ABCO Industries will design, test and build the USV. The first is expected in the water in about a year.

"What we're looking at doing is integrating the types of sensors that will allow you to differentiate between the different species on board the USV," said Colin Ross, ABCO's director of research and development.