Fishing vessels

Main article: Fishing vessels

The Albatun Dos, a tuna boat at work near Victoria, Seychelles

Fishing vessels are a subset of commercial vessels, but generally small in size and often subject to different regulations and classification. They can be categorized by several criteria: architecture, the type of fish they catch, the fishing method used, geographical origin, and technical features such as rigging. As of 2004, the world's fishing fleet consisted of some 4 million vessels.^[41] Of these, 1.3 million were decked vessels with enclosed areas and the rest were open vessels.^[41] Most decked vessels were mechanized, but two-thirds of the open vessels were traditional craft propelled by sails and oars.^[41] More than 60% of all existing large fishing vessels^[49] were built in Japan, Peru, the Russian Federation, Spain or the United States of America.^[50]
Fishing boats are generally small, often little more than 30 meters (98 ft) but up to 100 metres (330 ft) for a large tuna or whaling ship. Aboard a fish processing vessel, the catch can be made ready for market and sold more quickly once the ship makes port. Special purpose vessels have special gear. For example, trawlers have winches and arms, stern-trawlers have a rear ramp, and tuna seiners have skiffs.
In 2004, 85,800,000 tonnes (84,400,000 long tons; 94,600,000 short tons) of fish were caught in the marine capture fishery.^[51] Anchoveta represented the largest single catch at 10,700,000 tonnes (10,500,000 long tons; 11,800,000 short tons).^[51] That year, the top ten marine capture species also included Alaska pollock, Blue whiting, Skipjack tuna, Atlantic herring, Chub mackerel, Japanese anchovy, Chilean jack mackerel, Largehead hairtail, and Yellowfin tuna.^[51] Other species including salmon, shrimp, lobster, clams, squid and crab, are also commercially fished.
Modern commercial fishermen use many methods. One is fishing by nets, such as purse seine, beach seine, lift nets, gillnets, or entangling nets. Another is trawling, including bottom trawl. Hooks and lines are used in methods like long-line fishing and hand-line fishing. Another method is the use of fishing trap.