Halifax-based Ashored Innovations is testing the waters with their Rope On-Command (ROC) fishing system.
Since starting in 2018, the ROC fishing system being developed by Ashored has undergone four major design changes, said Ross Arsenault, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer.
“Each prototype iteration has been built in higher volume than the previous batch and tested through multiple trials or pilot projects,” said Arsenault.
“We conduct pilots in as many diverse conditions and environments as possible to ensure no user type is ignored and no feature is missed. We are amidst trials at the moment and will likely have multiple trials operating simultaneously for the foreseeable future. We test iterations of our prototypes on a constant basis and even after full release will continue to do so until the customer says there is no room left for improvement.”
Arsenault said every new development phase either improves or refines an existing feature and/or adds new features. “We limit the number of changes we make per development cycle to ensure we can figure out exactly what is and what isn’t working. By taking this approach, we’ve gone from a simple time-based release with moving parts to a robust acoustically activated release (with a timer back-up) with no moving underwater parts,” he said.
“We’ve been encouraged at every step of the way by the results we’ve made improving the product,” said Arsenault.
According to its website, the Ashored ROC fishing system works with existing lobster and crab trap trawl lines. The gear is activated via acoustics (or a backup timer) to the surface. Once the buoy and connecting rope rise to the surface, fishermen can use existing onboard equipment and processes to retrieve the gear and prepare it for redeployment. Ashored’s ROC fishing systems include a rope containment and release module (MOBI) that also uses sensors to collect and transmit data to an onboard gear tracking system (ATLAS). ATLAS consists of Ashored’s ATLAS+ software and smart tagging to reduce gear loss and allow fishers to automate the tracking of gear and logging of catch information.
“When the pandemic hit, we knew we needed to use this time to make major technological advancements. To do so, we built a bigger team, brought key competencies in-house, got an office/workshop, bought a serviceable testing boat, and as result, had great success in driving down production costs, increasing success rates (reliability) of models/prototypes and also deepening our product pipeline.”
Throughout 2018 and 2019, Ashored took part in local and international competitions, accelerators and incubators, bringing home a Platinum Award Winning Startup from the MassChallenge Boston in 2019 for their work developing sustainable fishing technology to reduce/prevent marine entanglements, ghost gear and ocean waste in commercial fishing.
“Each program helped provide new guidance on different aspects of the business, product, or industry and helped us develop partnerships with other like-minded organizations,” said Arsenault.
“COVE (Centre for Ocean Ventures and Entrepreneurship) helped us establish ourselves early in our development and we formed relationships with companies like Enginuity who were vital to our early stages of product development. We are also a member company of Canada’s Ocean Supercluster, have worked with several of the fantastic post-secondary institutions in Nova Scotia and formed a working relationship with the brilliant team at eSonar in Newfoundland. All of these relationships are necessary to building an industry, but our support and learnings from fishing associations eager to test the gear and the regulators (DFO and NOAA) have helped guide us at the major decision-making points.”
Arsenault said Ashored is working with customers now through projects that are approved by the government.
“The big thing for us when it comes to releasing the product as widely available to the market is that we want to ensure we’re checking all the boxes for both the fishers who will use the gear and the regulators who approve it. At this time, we’re working with these stakeholders and other companies in this new industry to solidify the features and requirements this gear will need to adhere to. We are confident that our technology will be available in a wider capacity next year, but an extra permit will still likely be required. We are trialing working gear this year, but still view this work as beta-testing with early adopters and will to a degree view next year’s customers as beta-testers/early adopters as well.”
In the meantime, Ashored has developed and is retailing stainless steel lobster traps that are recyclable, long-lasting, incredibly durable, customizable and will not leach plastics into the ocean.
“We’ve worked closely with fishers from day one to identify their biggest challenges and align those challenges with solutions that can also positively impact the environment,” said Arsenault.
“Fishers don’t want to create waste in the ocean, but fishing gear is intrusive and must balance a difficult position of being robust, affordable and highly effective (volume wise) at fishing. Many current lobster trap designs are considered disposable and sacrifice robustness in favour of up-front affordability; this leads to more traps becoming ocean waste, which leads to ghost fishing among other cyclical harvesting challenges. Ashored has taken these learnings and has developed a stainless-steel lobster trap… We’re working with fishermen on both purchase and leasing options for the traps and are offering broad and affordable pricing options while they are still being produced in small batches.”
In addition to federal hiring subsidies, Arsenault said Ashored has been fortunate enough to receive major funding from Innovative Solutions Canada: Sustainable Fishing and Aquaculture Equipment as well as support from NSBI, ACOA and NRC-IRAP. Ashored has grown its team from the three founding members to 10 full-time employees and several other key contributors.
