Helsingør June 19.th 2019
On behalf of our colleagues and ourselves we would like to express our sincere appreciation for the use of the Capella C last month. Magnus, Igor, and the crew were great from start to finish. Not only were they total professionals and very competent, they were friendly, interested, and easy to get along with. The food and sleeping accommodations were fantastic, and the boat made a surprisingly good fishing platform as it was very stable in large swells.
Setting and retrieving long lines from the bow worked very well and as you probably heard, we went out every day but one (approximately 35 long line sets) and caught 2 small Greenland sharks and a black dogfish shark. Although one of the Greenland sharks was lost as the hook was not well set, tissues samples from the other two sharks were taken, some frozen for later use, and the rest used for physiological experiments the same day. As the Greenland shark we caught was the smallest we have ever sampled (102 cm), it will prove invaluable in our studies.
In closing we would just like to say that making the Capella C available for scientific purposes was a very generous act as chartering scientific vessels for research longline cruises is a very expensive proposition. Our ability to explore the Greenland shark population in Skagerak was very helpful and will no doubt lead to other efforts.
Sincerely yours,
Dr. John Fleng Steffensen, Professor
University of Copenhagen
Dr. Peter G. Bushnell, Professor
Indiana University South Bend
