Development of fuel saving bottom trawl

This paper was aimed at developing bottom trawl designs, for the Italian Fisheries that reduced fuel consumption. The new designs will include the use of new high strength material and the use of larger meshes in net areas where no negative effect on catching power is foreseen. It is essential that the new designs combine the features of large headline heights and good contact between the footrope and the seabed with a low towing resistance. A typical traditional trawl, commercially used in Italy, was selected as a basis for the development of the new design. This trawl became the reference (standard trawl) to which the changes introduced in the design throughout the study were compared. A model of the traditional trawl was firstly constructed.