Instrument: Nordic 264 Rope Trawl
A Nordic 264 surface rope trawl is a 198-m long, 25-m wide, 35-m vertical trawl net, equipped with a 1.2-cm mesh liner in the cod end and towed at the surface.
The trawl has a maximum mouth opening of approximately 30-m wide x 18-m high. Mesh sizes ranged from 162.6 cm in the throat of the trawl near the jib lines to 8.9 cm in the codend. To maintain catches of small fish and squid, a 6.1-m long, 0.8-cm knotless liner was sewn into the codend. It was towed with about 300 m of warp for 30 minutes at 1.5 m/sec with a pair of 3.0-m foam-filled trawl doors and 90.7-kg weight chains to spread the mouth open. All but for two mid-water trawling events, six A-4 Polyform floats were clipped to wingtips and the headrope to fish the trawl at the surface.