Sea Fish Industry Association

The Sea Fish Industry Authority (Seafish) works across all sectors of the UK seafood industry to promote good quality, sustainable seafood. Their research and projects are aimed at raising standards, improving efficiency and ensuring that the industry develops in a viable way.

They are the UK's only cross-industry seafood body working with fishermen, processors, wholesalers, seafood farmers, fish friers, caterers, retailers and the import/export trade.

The sea fishing industry has changed dramatically in the last few years. It is a multi-million pound industry where skippers and their crews work on modern, sophisticated vessels and are expected to be highly skilled technicians - able to act as efficient 'harvesters of the seas' and to operate a range of electronic instruments for safe navigation and for finding fish.

Fishing boats operate not only close to shore but also on distant fishing grounds as far afield as Greenland, Rockall, the North Atlantic and the Norwegian coast. For some jobs such as skipper or engineer, statutory qualifications - known as 'tickets' - issued by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency of the Department of Transport are required. The rules governing the issue of 'tickets' relate primarily to the size/power of the fishing vessel and its area of operation. Roughly speaking, the area of sea around the UK coast enclosed within latitudes 46o 30' N and 62o 00'N and bounded by longitude 12o 00'W is regarded as the 'limited area'. Outside this boundary is the 'unlimited area'.