BOATS & GEAR
PRODUCT ROUNDUP
Turbine toilets Tecma’s pumps liquefy waste By Brian Hagenbuch
talian maker Tecma from Thetford Marine provides a wide line of ceramic toilets for commercial vessels across a number of fisheries. Their trademark turbine macerating pump is a quiet, clog-proof evacuation system. Richard Brunson, Thetford Marine’s U.S. field sales manager, said the proprietary pump creates a 200-mph vortex that liquefies waste. “The technology is that we liquefy everything, so you don’t have any clogging issues. Whereas other centrifugals, they just try to grind everything up. But then you have lot of large bits; they don’t emulsify to a liquid. Then you get clogging downstream,” Brunson said. The high-pressure turbine pumps can pump waste over 30 feet vertically
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and 270 feet horizontally, outperforming traditional centrifugal pumps with low to medium pressure. “We’re the only ones in this industry that use this patented high-pressure turbine pump. Say if you’re low in a boat and you want to pump up 25 or 30 feet, the competition can’t do that,” Brunson said, adding the technology has come in handy for processors where crew quarters are added down low and waste is pumped up to the next deck. Brunson said the Tecma Silence Line is the most popular for commercial fishermen. It removes waste at an efficient 1.5 gallons per second and comes in a household size bowl — the Tecma Plus; and a marine size — the Tecma Standard. A patented water trap and two check valves keep odor at bay in Tecma toilets.
Strong, quiet pumps move waste farther away.
For smaller boats — gillnetters looking to scale up from the industry standard 5-gallon bucket, for example — Brunson said Tecma’s Compact Line is ideal. “It’s perfect because they can use salt or fresh water. Mostly (raw) because gillnetters don’t carry that much to start with,” Brunson said. Thetford Marine has a useful YouTube channel with clear, succinct instructional videos on how to install toilets and replace pumps, among other things. THETFORD MARINE
www.thetfordmarine.com
A fisherman’s e-logbook DeckHand Pro looks to crack U.S. market By Brian Hagenbuch
he electronic logbook Deckhand Pro from Real Time Data was born over a decade ago in Australia to streamline paper tickets. Ten years later, the logbook is being used for more than 30 gear types in New Zealand and now has its eye on the U.S. market. In March Deckhand Pro was awaiting approval from NOAA’s Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office for fishermen with federal permits. In the meantime, the company is refining its product through privately funded pilots with New England and Bering Sea fishermen. “Because new electronic reporting regulations are evolving at different speeds across state and federal jurisdictions, we are focusing first on deploying a useful logbook product to private
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38 National Fisherman \ May 2021
fishermen while also working to integrate Deckhand Pro into the regulatory frameworks of their particular fishery,” said Lange Solberg, the company’s business development director for North America and a third-generation Bristol Bay fisherman. Deckhand Pro hopes to knock out some elbow room in a burgeoning market by being a “fishermen-first company” that can cater to the distinct realities of life on the water across diverse fisheries. One of the linchpins of this is Deckhand Pro’s malleability, which is in part facilitated by new code dubbed Catchflow. Catchflow is customization software that will be marketed to fishermen’s associations, processors, fleet managers and others who can tailor the logbook to suit
An electronic logbook built to fit your fishery.
the particular needs of their fisheries and fleets, and snap that customization on to the foundational software. Solberg added that Deckhand Pro strives to be more than a reporting device that fulfills regulatory and recording needs. It aims to be a way for fishermen to add data that will make their business more efficient, sustainable, and profitable. Fishermen, he said, are onboard. DECKHAND www.deckhandlogbook.com
www.nationalfisherman.com
