These decisions have to be made quickly, for, on his judgment, the captain 

 awaits his immediate orders: to continue operation of a damaged trawl if it 

 can be quickly repaired; or to use a part of the crew to get out another trawl 

 from the storeroom and to make an exchange. 



So the captain depends on the chief net mender to evaluate on first view 

 the time necessary to make repairs of torn meshes, or to replace a section 

 of the net with new netting. A small error in dimensions or in repairing the 

 meshes, when the net is heavily loaded, may result in a great loss of fish 

 and requires careful repair with the sacrifice of precious time. 



Processing the cod caught in great quantity becomes a problem in order 

 to get them out of the way before the next catch comes aboard without break- 

 ing the rhythm of fishing. It is, nevertheless, broken when huge hauls come 

 aboard. 



The processing follows rigorously the same procedure as on the sailing 

 vessels. But, on the trawlers, the captain and his officers, are sufficiently 

 occupied with navigational problems, surveillance of the fishing, and the ex- 

 ecution of general procedures. A strictly professional crew of four or five 

 splitters and salters who do nothing else, three sailor gutters, an apprentice 

 seaman header, and a ship's boy washer being assistants to each splitter. 

 The work goes on night and day, powerful lights being distributed around the 

 operations. In summer, in the high latitudes of Greenland, Spitzbergen, and 

 the Barentz Sea, perpetual daylight makes lighting unnecessary. 



Liver oil is carefully processed aboard the trawlers. The earliest trawl- 

 ers treated the livers by direct steam action which dissociated and broke down 

 the cells. Oil thus treated floated to the surface of the metallic vats in which 

 the livers were processed. It was drawn off and put in barrels. Oil thus 

 processed was only of industrial quality. 



Aboard modern trawlers, oil is extracted by the Norwegian process by 

 heating in double boilers warmed by steam. This was first done under steam 

 pressure. Now it is carried out at atmospheric pressure, at the temperature 

 of boiling water. A number of vitamins which do not stand up under tempera- 

 tures of steam pressure are thus saved. A still better method for conserving 

 the vitamins is to process the livers by grinding them cold and then centri- 

 fuging, a method used sometimes by the Norwegians. 



106 



