West Coast Hake Biomass on the Africana Voyage 039, January 1986

The objectives of this cruise were to survey by means of trawling the abundance of adult and recruiting hake; to investigate the diurnal cycle of hake and other demersal species; to investigate the environment and ecological interrelationships of hake and other demersal species; to carry out acoustic target identification of mesopelagic species with RMT 8 nets; to make a few experimental trawls in deep water to search for the other species of monkfish and to determine the offshore limit of hake distribution; if possible to rendezvous with Spanish and Soviet vessels and to carry out standardisation trawls in parallel and to conduct net mouth-opening experiments with transducers on each wing of the net.