Puretic power block

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"Power block" redirects here. For the automotive television series, see Powerblock.

Puretic power block

Large blue water tuna purse seiner. A Puretic power block can be seen at the top of
the boom at the stern.
The Puretic power block is a special kind of mechanised winch used to haul nets on
fishing vessels. The power block is a large powered aluminium pulley with a hard
rubber-coated sheave. While many men were needed for the back-breaking work of
hauling a purse seine manually, the same work could be done by fewer men with a
power block.[1]

The Puretic power block revolutionized the technology of hauling fishing nets,
particularly purse seine nets. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization
of the United Nations (FAO), "no single invention has contributed more to the
success of purse seine net hauling" than the power block, which was "the linch-pin
in the mechanization of purse seining".[2][3]

History
The power block was invented by a Croatian fisherman, Mario Puratić, and patented
in 1953. In English, Puratić is usually spelt Puretic, sometimes Puretich.

While he was working as a tuna and sardine fisherman from San Pedro, California,
Puratić started thinking about the difficulty of hauling seine nets. The original
power block he designed was essentially a simple winch which used a V-shaped roller
coated with hard rubber. It was suspended from a davit, and powered from the warp
end of the winch by a looping rope. In 1954, the power block was trialled by
American purse seiners in the Pacific. They have evolved since then, and nowadays
power blocks are powered by hydraulic pumps. Their speed, torque and direction can
be remotely controlled from the bridge during operations. As a result, retrieving
the net is safer and requires less manual work.[2][4]

Other important innovations of the same period were the development of synthetic
fishing nets and sonar detection devices. The combination of the automated power
block hauling synthetic nets with sonar sensing revolutionised the industry.[1]

The use of power blocks was found to have further advantages. It is possible to
fish in rougher weather with the power block, because the steady force exerted by
the net stabilizes the vessel. When deployments are made which miss the schooling
fish, the net can be rapidly retrieved and redeployed on the same school. The power
block also makes it easy to get nets aboard in emergencies, such as a sudden shift
in tides or winds, or shark attacks on the catch and net.[1]

On the other hand, the increase in the effectiveness of purse seine fishing led to
herring schools choosing to school deeper in the water. Nets that could operate in
deeper water needed to be bigger and heavier. That in turn meant bigger vessels,
which pushed the smaller herring vessels out of business.[1]

Details
Salmon purse seining

Salmon seiner with power block 1967

Closeup of the power block

Seine fishing industries rapidly recognized the value of the power block, and by
1960, most northern seine vessels were using the power block. Nowadays power blocks
come with dozens of configurations and sizes. They are installed on over twenty
thousand fishing vessels across the major purse seining fisheries around the world.
[5] These fisheries haul huge schools of tuna, salmon, herring, sardines, anchovies
and menhaden from the sea,[1] accounting for a large part the world total fish
catch.[6]

Between 1969 and 1979, the Puretic power block was pictured on the reverse side of
Canadian five dollar banknote issues.[7] In 1975 Mario Puratić was given the
National Inventor of the Year Award by the Intellectual Property Owners Education
Foundation for his invention of the power block.[8]

Notes
Schmidt PG (1959) "The Puretic power block and its effect on modern purse
seining". In Modern Fishing Gear Of The World 1, pp. 400–414. Editor Hilmar
Kristjohsson, FAO, Rome.
FAO: Fishing Equipment: Power block Rome. Retrieved 28 May 2009.
The Power Block FishByes, December 1995.
Bardarson, HR (1971) "Deck Equipment for Purse Seining". In Modern Fishing Gear Of
The World 3, pp. 283–287, Editor Hilmar Kristjohsson, FAO, Rome. Download PDF
(56MB)
MARCO, the Puretic power block, and Purse Seining. Fishing News International
Archived 2009-04-29 at the Wayback Machine Download PDF (19MB)
FAO: Fisheries and Aquaculture Department Rome.
Banknote > Canada > 5 Dollars > 1969-1975 Issue colnect.com, retrieved 17 October
2016.
Inventor of the Year Award: Past Awards Archived 2011-10-06 at the Wayback Machine
Intellectual Property Owners Education Foundation.
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This page was last edited on 22 July 2020, at 08:31 (UTC).
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