Greg Palmer, coordinator of the harvest survey, explained that reliable information cannot be obtained when wind condition are above 25 knots (approximately 46kph) so, over the past few evenings, the survey boats have returned to Franklin Harbour where crew have enjoyed some rest and recreation while waiting for a break in the weather.

Today’s modern prawn fleet is a high-tech operation that farms the Spencer Gulf waters to precision accuracy.

A fleet of 39 prawn boats operating in the gulf are directed by what is called the ‘harvest plan’.

A total of nine survey boats were used, this season, to collect information in the gulf which is then processed and evaluated in real time on the water.

An industry-agreed harvest strategy is then used to direct the prawn fleet to optimise the catch and manage prawn stocks.

Precise information like this enables the fleet to collect 80 per cent of the catch from less than eight per cent of the gulf area.

Greg Palmer referred to the fleet as ‘farmers of the gulf’ – ‘paddocks’ are marked and areas rotated on a yearly basis. Poor years will see ‘paddocks’ rested and the good crop areas found and harvested in the shortest time with minimal disturbance of the gulf waters.

Where farmers on land may have fences, the prawn fleet has GPS positions. Where today’s tractors are directed by satellite navigation so is the modern prawn boat.

The prawn season runs from November to June but on an average the prawn fleet will fish for only 50 nights in a season.

This is a far cry from the early days of the SA prawn industry when crews spent many nights dropping and retrieving nets and hoping for a catch.

According to Greg, “prawns were once caught from wooden boats by steel nets but now they’re caught from steel boats by wooden nets”.