Algarve fishermen say the “lack of ice is recurrent”
Fishermen in the Algarve are being affected by an ice shortage due to a “lack of maintenance of ice-making machines” at some Docapesca ports in the Algarve, two Algarve shipowners’ associations said on Thursday.
The leaders of Olhãopesca and Barlapescas, which together have a total of around 250 members, said that “the lack of ice has been recurrent” in the Docapesca harbours of Quarteira, Portimão and Sagres.
In the case of Quarteira port, several purse seine fishing boats were stranded on Wednesday and others were unable to carry out their activity, “with heavy losses for the shipowners”, Olhãopesca leader Miguel Cardoso told Lusa.
“There are two ice machines in this port, but one of them has been broken for about a year, and the other is only working with one of the two motors, which doesn’t generate enough ice to supply the boats to pack the fish on board,” he pointed out.
The problem worsens in the summer at the Quarteira port, he said, due to the significant increase in boats travelling from other parts of the country.
According to Miguel Cardoso, “at the moment, a private company from Olhão is filling in the holes and supplying much of the ice” for the ports.
‘However, sometimes the ice isn’t enough for all the seine boats that are fishing for sardines, mackerel and horse mackerel,’ he noted.
Meanwhile, the president of the Barlapescas association, Mário Galhardo, told Lusa that “the lack of ice, due to machine breakdowns or lack of maintenance, also affects the fishing ports of Portimão and Sagres.
“In Sagres, the machine has been broken for around two years, which affects the activity of around 15 purse seine boats and, unfortunately, there is no response from Docapesca to repair the equipment,” he lamented.
The purse seiners are demanding that Docapesca, the company that manages the fishing harbours, “invest more in the maintenance of the equipment so that the ice needed for fishing can be provided“.
Docapesca acknowledges issues
Docapesca acknowledged on Friday that the high demand for ice in the Algarve is making it difficult to supply some of the Algarve’s ports, saying that since the start of the sardine harvest season it has already purchased 299 tonnes of ice for the region.
Speaking to Lusa, the president of the company that manages Portugal’s ports explained that the installed capacity of Docapesca and private companies is not always enough to supply all the interested parties, which was compounded on Wednesday by the breakdown of one of the generators of Quarteira’s ice-making machine.
However, according to Sérgio Faias, the situation was back to normal on Thursday morning, with the supply of 15 tonnes of ice to the Quarteira auction, adding that repairs to his factory are being completed and it should be fully operational by the beginning of next week.
“Since the start of the sardine harvest, Docapesca has already contracted the purchase of 299 tonnes of ice for the Algarve region, 135 tonnes of which went to Quarteira,” he said, adding that in order to ensure that ice is more readily available, Docapesca has been developing preventive maintenance and technical assistance contracts for its factories.
According to the Faias, due to the complexity of the refrigeration equipment, whose performance “very much depends on the intensity of use and the surrounding atmospheric conditions”, ice supply contracts have also been set up with external producers to meet the needs of fishermen and shipowners.
In the case of Sagres, due to the expected increase in ice consumption and to avoid an ‘excessive strain’ on the Arade ice production equipment, a procedure is being finalised to hire two additional ice machines from Spain, from August, which will be operating in Sagres until the end of the sardine season, he added.
“It should also be clarified that, in the recent past, the operation of the existing ice machine at the Sagres fish auction was interrupted because it did not ensure it was in nominal operating condition. However, when the project for its rehabilitation was being developed, the producers’ organisation Barlapescas expressed an interest in building and operating a new ice machine in the fishing port of Sagres,” the Docapesca boss said.
Since then, he added, Docapesca has supported Barlapescas in developing the new ice factory project and is also supporting the preparation of an application to the MAR2030 Operational Programme, which this producer organisation intends to submit to finance the construction of the new ice-making facility.
Source: LUSA
