The Catch - A 'who's who?' guide

20 August 2015

In this new series Channel 4 have taken the fixed-rig camera to one of the most extreme destinations yet. Deep-sea fishing is the one of the most dangerous jobs in Britain, by some margin, and The Catch gives us unprecedented insight into the reality of life at sea.

Find out more about the vessels and the crewson board with our who's who below.

The Catch starts on Monday 31 August at 9pm on Channel 4.

 

THE FISHING BOATS

THE GOVENEK of LADRAM – NETTER – Carries two types of Nets that it shoots out the back of the boat

Skipper and owner: Phil Mitchell

Length of ownership: 18 years

Size: 21.3m X 6.98m

Location: Newlyn, Cornwall, England's oldest fishing port

Crew: 4-6 men

Nets: Carries 40 miles of trammel nets and gill nets on board. Trammel nets sit on the ocean floor for up to 3 days at a time, gill nets are like tennis nets that sit at the bottom of the sea for up to 24 hours at a time, waiting for fish to swim into them. The crew can be hauling miles of nets in for 18 hours a day.

What it catches: Mostly monkfish, ray, hake, haddock, cod and turbot. Turbot is one of their best priced fish and there is no quota on them. £10-15 a kilo. The season for Turbot is mid-April to end of July and an average box is worth £200.

Cost: The total cost of the nets on board is £140,000. An 8 day trip costs £3000 in fuel and food costs plus engineering costs.

Wages: Like most fishermen, the Govenek (and Van Dijck) crews don’t earn a set wage – they earn a percentage of the trip’s profits, with wages ranging from thousands of pounds to zero.

 

 

THE VAN DIJCK – SCALLOP TRAWLER

Skipper and owner: Drew McLeod

Length of ownership: 25 years

Size: 30m X 10m

Location: Brixham, Devon, England's busiest fishing port

Crew: 4-6 men

 

Scallop trawler: Scallop gear is pulled across the sea bed combing for scallops. Unlike the Govenek, the Van Dijck works around the clock, with crew working in shifts (usually 6 hours on, 6 hours off).

What it catches: Scallops which are sold from around £0.30 a scallop. Rather than having quotas, scallop boats are restricted in the number of days they are allowed to spend at sea (from 10 days per month).

Cost: The cost of Scallop dredges are around £20,000. The total expenses for a 7-day trip is £10,000- £13,000 including fuel, food and gear replacement.

 

BOAT 1: THE GOVENEK

 

SKIPPER: PHIL MITCHELL

Age: 45

Phil is one of the most respected skippers in the South, and prides himself on the quality of fish he catches. He has a wife and three daughters at home but has spent much of the last few years at sea. With his extensive knowledge of the sea, his crew usually earn well. Son of a Cornish fisherman, Phil had his first trip to sea at age seven, and started fishing as a career when he was 17 and sat his skipper exams when he was 27 after a back injury made working on deck difficult. In 1997 he became a skipper and joint-owned his first boat ‘The Govenek of Ladram’. “Govenek” means “hope” in Cornish. He likes his crew to work hard and is notoriously hot-headed when the crew get it wrong. Despite his temper he nurtures his crew members like a father figure and is keen to see them do well.

 

DECKHAND: GARETH AKA ‘STANLEY’

Age: 30

Stanley is a local ‘Jack the lad’, a modern day pirate with a big heart. He is the first in his family to be a fisherman and had his first trip to sea with friends of his father when he was 15. He takes pride in his work, is ambitious and on-board is the master of the fish room, where the catch is stored and frozen.

He has two sons at home and is about to marry his long-term partner Sharon. He has a very close ‘father-son’ relationship with Phil. Phil is the godfather of his Stanley’s two sons. After working on Deck for 12 years, he now feels ready to step up and is on a skipper-training course to follow in Phil’s footsteps.

He hates cucumbers and rattling noises, so the crew tend to hide loose screws on deck to get him riled up.

 

DECKHAND & SHIPS COOK: SIMON

Age: 42

Simon is a proud Mancunian who moved down to Newquay with his family when he was 16. He fell into fishing by chance, answering an advertisement in a job centre about working as a deckhand, and has never looked back.

Simon feels he’s getting a bit old for fishing and is looking for ways out of the industry. He enjoys the family atmosphere on the boat but is easily wound up, especially by Stanley.

Simon is known for being a great cook, proud of maintaining a high standard. Unlike most ‘ship’s cooks’, Simon can equally pull his weight on deck. He believes in eating proper meals and cooks elaborate roasts in Force 10 winds. He is also a devoted Manchester United fan.

 

DECKHAND: ‘BRICKTOP’

Age: 26

The youngest and smallest member of the crew, he is the engineer and the most opinionated and defiant. Bricktop left school and followed his father’s footsteps, straight onto fishing boats.

Bricktop loves a practical joke, and likes to push new deckies to breaking point to see what they are made of. He even put a riled lobster in a deckie’s bed.

 

DECKHAND: STEVIE

Age: 38

Stevie is originally from a seaside town in Scotland called Girvan and has been at sea for the last 23 years, 12 to 14 of these with Phil.

Stevie has recently spent time doing courses in power boating and yachting. Although Stevie has the most experience of the deckhands, rising up the ranks to skipper doesn’t appeal to him. He prefers to stay on deck as he thrives off the physical side of the job.

Stevie has a big heart with a tough exterior. He gets through a lot of IrnBru in a day, he is lured by the promise of big money and loves the fact that it's always a challenge.

 

SEAN

Age: 36

Sean’s original plan was to join the merchant navy but wasn’t able to when his dad fell ill, forcing Sean to stay and help him. He then worked on tug boats and subsequently ended up in fishing in 1988.

Sean is a hard worker. He hauls in the long nets, and this can sometimes take up to seven hours a day. He also works the fishroom with Stanley storing and counting up the catch. He takes pride in his work, and is adamant that all the nets are stored neatly with no tangles.

 

 

 

BOAT 2: THE VAN DIJCK

SKIPPER: ANDREW ‘DREW’ MCLEOD

Age: 46

Drew is known as one of Brixham’s most hard-working and experienced skippers, having qualified at 21 as one of Brixham’s youngest ever skippers. He inherited a love of the sea from his dad, a captain in the Merchant Navy, and started working as a deckhand the day he left school.

 

After skippering smaller boats Drew excelled at catching scallops and moved into skippering the largest scalloper in port – the Van Dijck. Although he’s spent some time on shore managing a small fleet owned by his father as well as training decky learners, the Van Dijck has always been his old faithful that he’s skippered on an off for 25 years. However, since government restrictions started to reduce the number of days he could go to sea (recently dropped to 10-11 days a month), Drew has struggled to make the Van Dijck pay its way and money for much needed to update his scallop equipment is scarce. With debts piling up, Drew needs to start earning well if he’s to keep the Van Dijck and keep his fishing business. Drew lives with his wife Lizzie and his two youngest daughters.

 

DECKHAND: MIKE AKA ‘PILLAR’

Age: 29

Pillar was born and bred in Brixham and has been fishing for 6 years. Originally working in car garages, Pillar was encouraged to try his hand at fishing by his step father who is a skipper – and found his experience in garages meant he quickly picked up the skills needed to work a scallop boat. Pillar is also the ship’s cook – known for cooking hearty meals to keep the crew going throughout their tiring shifts on the open deck. The downside is that he misses his kids and partner a lot while at sea, and looks forward to calling them as soon as he’s in mobile phone range.

 

DECKHAND HARRY

Age: 19

Like a lot of the Brixham crewmembers, most of the men in Harry’s family are fisherman. Although the youngest on board, Harry already has 3 years fishing experience under his belt and is quick and keen to learn. Skipper Drew is known for training up young fishermen and has spotted an aptitude in Harry. But Harry misses time at home and is beginning to wonder if a job on land would suit him better.

 

DECKHAND: LITTLE TOM

Little Tom: 25

Little Tom (nicknamed to differentiate him from First Mate Tom), is son of a greengrocer and a former semi-pro skate boarder from Brighton. Despite having no connection to the sea, fishing always appealed to him. He tried it out nearly 3 years ago and found he loved being away at sea. He’s the newest to the Van Dijck, and has only done a few trips scalloping so is still getting to grips with the technical intricacies of maintaining and adjusting the scallop gear. It means he’s most likely to receive a shouting at from the usually placable Drew.

 

DECKHAND: MIKEY

Age: 26

Mikey is from North West Scotland where he learnt to fish on oyster and prawn boats. He worked on the the Van Dijck on and off over several years and is used to the constant care and adjustment needed of the scalloping gear, depending on how rocky the sea bed is. Mikey is straight talking and quick to crack a joke.

 

FIRST MATE: TOM

For Tom’s first months as a deckhand, he suffered terrible seasickness every single day – a curse that he says is the worst feeling in the world that just won’t stop. But he loved being at sea and refused to let it beat him, until one day it just stopped. It means he’s sympathetic to a point when decky learners are seasick – but sometimes wishes they’d listen to his advice to work through it rather than just give up. As First Mate, he’s responsible for the boat whilst Skipper Drew has a few precious hours sleep.

ENDS