Product range
Wire, Rigging & Lifting
Wire rope, thimbles, shackles and the deck rigging a towed gear system lands on.
Industries
Commercial Fishing
Forty years of bottom-trawl development in Atlantic Canada, four shops that build and repair the gear, and a flume tank and a sea trial behind the designs that leave them.
- Years developing trawls here
- 40+Years developing trawls here
- Harvesters served
- 700+Harvesters served
- Net lofts
- 2Net lofts
- Branches
- 4Branches
Why us, for this
A trawl is a system, and we are responsible for all of it.
Hampidjan Canada — formerly Rope, Net & Twine — has been producing and developing bottom trawls in Atlantic Canada for more than forty years, and is the industry leader in shrimp trawling in the east. Over that time we have worked with over 700 harvesters, across shrimp, crab and whelk and the groundfish fleet: redfish, cod, yellowtail flounder, skate, Greenland halibut, capelin and mackerel.
The netting, the doors and the rope come from the Hampidjan Group's own factories. The design work, the cutting, the hanging, the rigging and the repair are done here, in our lofts, by people who have watched the gear come back in. That is the difference between a distributor and a gear maker: when a trawl does not fish the way it should, there is somebody in this company whose job it is to work out why.
- Trawl design
- Net lofts
- Thyborøn doors
- Groundgear & sorting grids
- Flume-tank modelling
- Sea trials
- In-season repair
What we do for the fleet
The whole of the gear, and the parts you replace every season.
Each of these is work that happens in our own shops. Follow any one of them through to the trade or the range behind it.
Trawls designed, built and re-rigged
Bottom, shrimp and midwater trawls — Gloria designs cut, hung and rigged to the vessel and the ground it tows over, then modified when the first trips say what it needs.
Doors matched to the gear
Pelagic and bottom doors, Thyborøn included, sized to the trawl they have to spread rather than bought on their own. Our Poly-Ice door brand merged with Thyborøn Skibssmedie in 2011, and we have supplied their doors in this region since.
Groundgear and footgear
Rockhopper discs, bobbins, bunts, spacers, toggles and chain, made up on the apron and measured to the design rather than to the last one that went out.
Sorting grids to the species
Single, double and triple grids built to what is being fished and what has to go back over the side.
Warps in steel and DynIce
Cut to length, measured, marked, spliced and turned; new warps installed on the vessel, and your own wire repaired rather than replaced where it still has life in it.
Pots, dredges and fixed gear
Cod, crab, lobster and whelk pots standard or customised; sea cucumber dredges built here on five-bar steel frames; scallop and mini dredges to order.
Repairs that catch the season
Panel swaps, belly and codend replacement, re-netting and field repair — because a trawl ashore in the middle of a quota is the expensive problem, not the netting.
On the floor
What a trawl looks like before it is a trawl.
Every frame here is one of our own shops or one of our own jobs. None of it is a stock photograph.
The loft floor
Enough clear floor to open a full trawl out flat, headline strung, panels hung and worked by hand — with the netting, twine and rope it is built from racked down both sides of the aisle.
Groundgear, measured
Rubber disc groundgear laid out flat on the apron with a tape run along it. Footgear is built to the design's spacing, and the only way to know it is right is to measure it before it goes on the sweep.
Doors in stock
Thyborøn doors on the floor, strapped and waiting to be rigged to the trawl they will spread. Doors are sized to the gear, so they are stocked against the trawls we build rather than against a catalogue.
Pots, netted and stacked
A column of pots nested on the pallet, each one netted over its ring and seized by hand with white twine. They are built to the species and the vessel that hauls them, and stacked the way they will be stowed on deck.
Loaded out at the wharf
A trawl going aboard by boom truck at Port au Choix. Gear that is finished in the shop still has to get onto the boat, and that last hundred metres is part of the job.
Before the gear is cut
We model it, we tow it, and then we build it full size.
Gear development is a line of work here, not a brochure page. For forty years this company has run applied research and technology development with harvesters, fishermen's associations, government and academia across Atlantic Canada — on ecologically sustainable and fuel-efficient fishing gear, on fisheries value chains, and on getting new technology out of a trial and into a fleet.
A design goes through as much of this as it earns: numerical modelling of the trawl and the trawling system, a scaled model towed in the flume tank at Memorial University's Marine Institute in St. John's — the largest in the world — and then full-scale evaluation at sea, on a commercial vessel, on a working trip.
Numerical modelling
Innovative trawls and trawling systems modelled before anything is cut, with materials and door selection worked out against the design rather than after it.
Flume-tank testing
Scaled models and individual gear components towed and filmed through the observation windows, so a change is watched rather than guessed at.
Full-scale sea trials
Trawls and trawling systems evaluated at sea on commercial fishing vessels — and fixed gear tested the same way, on real trips.
Prototypes and technology transfer
New gear developed, tested and then handed over: mentoring, advisory work and technology transfer for industry, government and academia, under non-disclosure where the work needs it.
The flume tank is Memorial University's, at the Marine Institute in St. John's. We model in it; the 500,000 lb bed used for rigging and lifting assemblies is our own, at Paradise.
The range
What we build, and what it fishes for.
Every line here is gear this company builds or supplies in Atlantic Canada, against the fisheries it was built for.
| Gear | Built from | Fisheries | Where the work happens |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bottom and shrimp trawls | Gloria designs; Magnet and Utzon netting | Shrimp, redfish, cod, flatfish, Greenland halibut | Net lofts — Spaniard's Bay, Dartmouth |
| Midwater and semi-pelagic trawls | Group netting and rope, rigged here | Capelin, mackerel, herring | Net lofts, then rigged to the vessel |
| Trawl doors | Thyborøn — pelagic and bottom | Matched to the trawl, not to the boat | Stocked and rigged at the branches |
| Groundgear and footgear | Rockhopper discs, bobbins, bunts, spacers, chain | Ground-dependent — hard bottom to mud | Made up on the apron, measured to the design |
| Sorting grids | Stainless bar, framed | Single, double or triple, to the species | Fabricated and fitted to the trawl |
| Warps | Steel wire, or DynIce | All towed gear | Cut, measured, marked, spliced, turned; installed on board |
| Pots and traps | Steel frame, rope and netting | Cod, crab, lobster, whelk | Standard or customised, built to the fishery |
| Dredges | Five-bar heavy-duty steel frame, netted | Sea cucumber, scallop | Fully manufactured on site; frames repaired and re-netted |
Scroll the table sideways for all 4 columns.
Netting, doors and rope are manufactured by the Hampidjan Group; the design, cutting, hanging, rigging and repair are done in our own shops.
Solutions
The gear behind the fishery, and the trades that keep it fishing.
We supply it and we do the work on it. Both halves come out of the same four shops.
Gear we supply to the fleet
All products
Product range
Rope & Cordage
DynIce and steel warps, headline and sweep rope, and the cordage a trawl is hung on.
Trades behind it
All services
Service
Trawl & Net Services
Trawls designed, cut, hung, rigged and repaired — the trade this company was built on.
Service
Rope Splicing & Rigging
Warps cut, measured, marked, spliced and turned; new wire installed on the vessel.
Service
Custom Marine & Industrial Solutions
Dredges, pots, sorting grids and scaled models — the gear that has no part number.
Service
Inspection & Testing
Deck rigging and lifting gear inspected by hand, and proof tested when the job calls for it.
Four shops
Two net lofts, a welding shop, and a branch on the Northern Peninsula.
For a fishing operation the network is not a list of addresses — it is where the floor space is, where the welder is, and how far the gear has to travel when the season is running.
FAQ
What buyers ask us about Commercial Fishing
Both. We have been designing and producing bottom trawls in Atlantic Canada for over forty years. A new design starts from the vessel — its power, its winches, the ground it tows over and the fishery — and can be modelled numerically and towed as a scaled model in the flume tank before the full-size gear is cut.
As much as the job earns. Numerical modelling of the trawl and trawling system; a scaled model towed and filmed in the flume tank at Memorial University's Marine Institute; then full-scale evaluation at sea on a commercial vessel. Fixed gear is tested the same way — at sea, on working trips.
Faster than the gear can be replaced, which is the point of keeping two net lofts and a welding shop in the province. Panel swaps, belly and codend replacement and re-netting are routine; field repair is available where the vessel cannot come to us. Tell us the trip you have to make and we plan back from it.
Yes — pelagic and bottom doors, including Thyborøn, whose brand our own Poly-Ice doors merged into in October 2011. A door is sized to the trawl it has to spread and the vessel that tows it, so we rig the two together rather than selling the door on its own.
We have worked with over 700 harvesters across Atlantic Canada. Fleet and programme work — standard designs held against a season, repeat groundgear and grid specifications, staged deliveries across four branches — is normal here rather than exceptional.
Harvesters, fishermen's associations, government and academia, across Atlantic Canada and internationally, over forty years of applied research and technology development. Where the work is commercially sensitive we do it under non-disclosure.
That is a good share of the development work. New and emerging fisheries need gear that does not exist yet — a pot for a species nobody has fished at scale, a dredge to a new regulation, a grid to a new size limit. We scope it, model it where that pays, build it, and prove it at sea.
Trawl and rigging plans for what we design and build, and — for rigging and lifting assemblies proof tested on our own bed — a test certificate for each item, stating what was tested and to what load.
Start a quote. We route it to the right branch.
Send specs, photos, drawings, or inspection and testing requests. Your reply comes from the branch that will do the work.