fillet boxes made from wax- impreg- 

 nated paperboard for storing iced fish. 

 Encouraging results have been obtained 

 and it is possible that these boxes may- 

 be used to replace the increasingly 

 expensive fillet can, thus providing 

 considerable savings to the processor 

 with no loss of quality in the fish. 



Engineering Applications. 



Methods of handling fish both on the 

 boat and at the wharf have remained 

 substantially unchanged in the New 

 England area for over 50 years. Many 

 of these handling methods contribute 

 to increased operating costs and tode- 

 creased product quality. For example, 

 the use of harbor water in scrubbing 

 down penboards and hold surfaces may 

 add more spoilage bacteria than it re- 

 moves, and can contribute to spoilage 

 of the next load of fish placed in the 

 vessel's hold. Also, pitchforks now 

 used in unloading fish may result in 

 tearing of the flesh with consequent 

 loss of quality. 



Figure 7.--Pitchforks puncture the fish flesh and contri- 

 bute to lowering its quality. 



The aim of the project is to eliminate 

 the mishandling of fish both at sea and 

 ashore through the application of mod- 

 ern engineering afid sanitation tech- 

 niques. One of the steps towards this 

 goal has been the development of a 

 mobile fish-weighing and de-icing unit 

 during the past year. Designed pri- 

 marily for unloading cod and haddock, 

 this machine has a wire-mesh hopper 

 into which the baskets of fish and ice 

 are dumped as they are swung out of 

 the vessel's hold. Much of the ice 



mixed in with the fish falls through 

 openings in the hopper or the conveyor 

 belt; the remainder is removed by hand. 

 The conveyor carries the fish up to a 

 box, mounted on a scale, where the fish 

 are weighed and emptied into tote boxes 

 for transport to the processing line. 

 This machine eliminates at least one 

 pitchfork operation and the need for a 

 price allowance for ice that is normally 

 unloaded with the fish. 



Figure 8.--Dumping the weigh box of the de-icing and 

 weighing machine. 



As groundfish are gutted aboard the 

 vessel, they are tossed into a wash box 

 and then pitchforked to the vessel's 

 hold. As another phase of this research, 

 a fish wash box was developed for 

 handling groundfish on the vessel, thus 

 eliminating the use of pitchforks and its 

 damage to quality. Cleaning of the ves- 

 sel's hold with harbor water is not 

 satisfactory, and many bacteria remain 

 to contaminate further new catches of 

 fish. To attempt to correct this condi- 

 tion studies were conducted on the ap- 

 plication of chlorinated water on the 

 vessel. A small diaphragm pump de- 

 signed to meter sodium hypochlorite 

 solution into the sea water wash line 

 of the vessel was installed aboard a 

 Boston fishing trawler. Sea water con- 

 taining 50 to 60 parts per million of 

 chlorine was used for washing the fish 

 after gutting and in port for washing 



