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 pulley of aluminium 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]
- ^ 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 FishBytes, December 1995. [dead link]