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February 4, 2003

Quality Control In Australian Fishery

In this era of finite fishery resources, progressive companies are looking to demonstrated quality control as the most practical route to increased profits. Wood Fisheries of Mooloolaba, Queensland, Australia have taken on not only quality at sea, but in their total operations through ISO 9002 certification. Founded in 1978 by Mr A.K. (Sandy) Wood-Meredith, the company built its reputation on prawns and trawl fish.

More recently the company has moved into tuna fishing. Delivering to the equally progressive De Brett Seafoods, in which Wood-Meredith is a share-holder. Wood Fisheries is building a state-of-the art longline fleet for tuna and swordfish. The first five vessels have been delivered from the FESE shipyard in Fujian China and an order for an additional five vessels has been placed.

All ten longliners are sister ships, 24.46-metres long with a 7-metre beam and depth of 3.25 metres. Main engines on all ten vessels are keel cooled Cummins QSK19M rated for 660 HP at 1800 RPM. The electronic, in-line six-cylinder engines turn into Twin Disc MG5170 marine gears with a 6:1 ratio. The 65-inch Rice propeller is mounted in a Rice Speed nozzle. Electrical power for each boat is provided by two Cummins 6BT5.9 powered generators. The boats are equipped with Keypower bowthrusters mounted just aft of their bulbous bows. Tankage is provided for 15000 litres of water and 45000 litres of fuel. The boats cruise at 12 knots.

The boats have 31-cubic metre fish holds and 15-cubic metre frozen-bait holds. A series of six live-bait holds provide another 25 cubic metres of slush ice hold capacity after the live bait is used. The boats are built to China Classification Society class standards involving considerable redundancy of equipment. They also meet all Australian requirements. When the owners set out to design these vessels they worked with a wide range of individual designers for various components and then brought the whole together with the shipyard designers to achieve a handsome vessel design with good economics and excellent fish catching and keeping qualities.

The first five vessels are were delivered into the latter part of 2002. The new boats will deliver in mid 2003. Wood Fisheries are showing that on board quality is possible on mid-sized vessels and in so doing, they are setting the bar a notch higher for fishing fleets not only in Australia, but around the world.

For further information contact:

Mr A.K. (Sandy)Wood-Meredith
Managing Director.
P.O. Box 185 Mooloolaba, Queensland, 4557 AUSTRALIA
Telephone: +61 7 5445 6999
Fax: +61 7 5445 6977
E-mail: woodfisheries@bigpond.com
http://www.sea_ex.com/woodfisheries/index.htm

Fred Chen
Marketing Manager, Southern China Marine
Cummins China
2/F.,Unison Ind.,Center
27-31 Au Pui Wan St., Fo Tan, N.T.H.K.
Hong Kong
Phone: 011 852 2601 7120
HK Mobile: 852 6190 5136
China Mobile: 86 1333 285 3313
E-Mail: fred.chen@cummins.com

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