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In UK2, Peterhead on Scotland's North Sea coast was home to only 174 of Scotland's 2806 vessels. Stornoway, Fraserburgh and Mallaig harboured between 250 and 360 each, but the scale of vessels operating from Peterhead outstripped capacity elsewhere, making the port by far Scotland's biggest.
118 218t of fish out of Scotland's 465 756t total catch in 1996 were landed in Peterbrough, dominated by cod (19 067t out of 51 012t), haddock (35 130t out of 85 113t) and whiting (13 983t out of 29 958t). The port also landed large quantities of pelagics, but areas like the Shetland Islands and Skye and Ullapool took a larger share of these species.
In Northern Ireland Kilkeel emerges as the leading port, with 134 of the province's 352 vessels in 1996, the biggest capacity fleet of around 50t per vessel and the highest catches.
Of the 27 850t of fish landed in Northern Ireland in 1996, 9 341t went through Kilkeel. 1 108t of this was cod, which amounted to half the total caught of the species. Ardglass recorded much higher catches of pelagic species like herring and horse mackerel, but with demersals fetching much higher returns, Kilkeel is also top of the table for the value of its landings.
The Netherlands
The Dutch have the biggest and most powerful vessels in the EU, with average capacity reaching 168t and engines of more than 450kw according to 1998 figures. Only the Belgian fleet comes close to matching the Dutch.
A quarter of the Netherlands' 384 325kw engine capacity in 1997 could be found in the hulls of the 77 vessels fishing from the region of Flevoland. The Netherlands had 450 boats at the time. The 14 vessels in the Dutch fishing giant 'Agglomeratie s'Gravenhage' - registered in the port of Scheveningen - however were built for freeze-storing catches on distant water missions, and notch up an massive average tonnage of 1885t.
Kop Noord Holland registered the most vessels, but these were smaller capacity boats designed for round fish and shrimp catches closer to home.
Sole, plaice and shrimp form the staple landings for most Dutch ports, and 139 585t of the 791 785t landed in 1997 came to Kop Noord Holland, mainly in these three species. Agglomeratie s'Gravenhage meanwhile clocked up 123 727t of mainly pelagic species like horsemackerel, herring and mackerel.
Italy
Italy's fishing sector is also carved up into three areas; the West coast (Tyrrhenian), the East coast (mainly Adriatic), and the country's two large islands Sardinia and Sicily.
In the first zone, I1, 4 685 vessels were registered in 1997, around 29% of the 19 000 strong Italian national fleet.
3 452 of these were very small scale boats, mounting to only 1186t between them; smaller than some of the Netherlands' biggest single boats. These vessels landed around 21% of the fish caught by the Tyrrhenian fleet. The largest section of the I1 fleet was made up of 675 'multi-purpose' vessels with a combined tonnage of 13 100t, while the 368 bottom trawlers and 142 purse seiners each took a slightly smaller share of tonnage capacity.
Napoli had a fleet of 741 vessels totalling over 8 000t, and Salerno another 600 boats wielding over 6 000t capacity. Alongside the fleets at Roma and Reggio Calabria, these four provinces occupied almost half the total vessels and tonnage in the West Coast.
Catch statistics record the body of landings as 'other fish,' thought mainly to be pelagics. These made up around 56% of the 63 713t landed in 1997.
Molluscs, clams and crustaceans made up the rest.
The country's Adriatic fleet is much larger however, and absorbs 41% of all Italy's vessels and 44% of its tonnage capacity, with 6 704 boats bearing 106 437t in 1997.
1070 bottom trawlers occupied the bulk of I2's capacity with 39 450t, while multi-purpose fishing took up 1 784 vessels and another 29 595t. Although slim on capacity, the largest number of boats were in the small-scale fishery, with 2 841 vessels.
Over 40% of the vessels and tonnage on the East Coast sailed from Venezia, Bari, Ferra and Foggia.
The Adriatic catch was 255 445 in 1997, of which 91 000t were 'other demersal fish.' Pelagics took second place at 72 000t, followed by the molluscs, clams and crustaceans.
Sicily and Sardinia host the rest of the Italian fleet, with just under 5 000 vessels between them in 1997. But Sicily, with its large scale fishing sector, boasted almost three quarters of the fleet and 88% of its capacity, concentrated in the Western province of Trapani and its two big ports Marsala and Mazara del Vallo. Sardinia concentrated almost exclusively on its artisanal fishery.
The two islands landed 122 083t or 28% of the Italian catch in 1997, and while there are not more detailed regional figures available, Sicily can be expected to have had the lion's share of this.
62%, or 72 000t were 'other fish,' with crustaceans, pelagics and molluscs making up the rest of the catch.
France
The North coast of France, excluding Brittany, had a fleet of just over 1 000 in 1997, registered mainly in Cherbourg (377), Caen (241) and Boulogne (222). The latter, however, had most of the capacity with an average tonnage of 68t per vessel boosting the harbour to 15 185t out of a 36 797 tonnage in the Northern fleet. Fecamp recorded only 34 vessels, but made a large dent in the region's capacity with 211t boats on average.
Boulogne concentrated on industrial species like cod, saithe and whiting 60% of its landings while Cherbourg fishermen operated closer to the shore for crustaceans and molluscs.
From Brittany down to the Spanish border, France's 3 331 vessels made up the largest share of the nation's fleet of 8 800 and more than half the country's 210 000t capacity in 1997.
The fleet was fairly evenly distributed along the coast, with higher numbers in Guilvinec, Marennes Oléron, Sables d'Olonne and Saint Nazaire. The highest capacity was registered in Concarneau, where average vessels sizes were 203t, against a regional figure of 34.7t.
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