Looking Back: Smolts 'travel better by boat'
Fish Farmer January 1984
The growing scale of fish farming in Scotland created a demand for salmon smolts. But they had to be transported to the farms from hatcheries. In a report for Fish Farmer in 1984, Chris Aldridge and Jock Brotherston asked: how should they get there?
As they explained, out of more than 2.5 million Atlantic salmon smolts produced in Scotland, around two million were transported to their farms by road, in some cases over long distances.
An alternative, however, was to go by sea. Wellboat technology was already being developed and Fish Farmer’s report focused on the Peer Gynt, a wellboat serving Sea Farm (Polly Ltd), a fish farming company jointly owned by Norwegian firm Sea Farm AS and Polly Estates, a Scottish company.
As the authors put it: “The well-boat is now regarded by the company as an integral aspect of smolt deliveries, particularly being a key to the quality of smolts during transportation, and essential to the development of the salmon farming industry in the more remote but highly significant island communities.”
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