Tag Archives: Skipper John Bennett
Coronavirus: 50-day mission to retrieve Kiwi fishermen underway
Sanford deep water fleet manager Darryn Shaw said the trip to the South Georgia Islands had been made necessary due to the impacts of Covid-19, which had made it difficult to get people out of the Falkland Islands, with just one flight a week going to the United Kingdom. “Normally we would bring our people back by air, via South America, but that is not possible at this time with borders closed into that region. We did look at bringing them home via the UK, but that was going to put them at risk of actually being exposed to Covid-19 as they would have to fly into the UK and move about between airports.” Many of the crew, who are fishing for toothfish, had already been at sea for 130 days – missing the entire Covid-19 lockdown – and were eager to get home to their families, Shaw said. >click to read< 12:02
