Abstract
Nowadays, consumption of fisheries products is increasing. There are several factors, one of which is a quantitative development through aquaculture. Another factor is an increase qualitative consumption of fish which require that fish be supplied alive. This requires a lot of technical effort to transport the live fish that have low survival rate (c.f. tuna and mackerel) in coastal waters and in the open sea. To develop a towing cage for transporting the live fish, model test in a circulate water channel and simulation by computer tool were carried out. In order to spread vertically, floats were attached at the upper part of the cage, and iron chains attached at the lower part of the cage. For horizontal spreading, kites were attached on the cage. The tension and spreading performance of the cage were measured. The result shows that the tension and reduction ratio of inside volume of the cage were tended to increase with increased towing speeds. The suitable operation condition in towing cage was 1.0 m/s towing speeds with vertical spreading force 8.7 kN, horizontal spreading force 5.6 kN; in this case the reduction ratio of inside volume of the cage was estimated as 25%.