During his recent interview with reporter Son Trung from the Da Nang Newspaper, the Deputy Commander of the municipal Border Guard High Command, Colonel Nguyen Quoc Binh, stressed the need to create anchorages for fishing boats at the city’s Man Quang lagoon in order to deal with the current boat overload at the Tho Quang fishing wharf.

Colonel Binh remarked that Tho Quang is the nearest wharf to the Hoang Sa fishing ground where many offshore fishing boats from localities nationwide usually conduct fishing activities.  Nestled inside the Son Tra Mountain, the wharf boasts good infrastructure and offers good seafood trading and fishery logistics services.  Thanks to these advantages, this venue welcomes a large number of offshore fishing boats, especially high-capacity vessels, from the city and other central coastal localities.

The Tho Quang fishing wharf full of fishing boats

Under the central government-issued Decree No 67/2014/ND-CP regarding fisheries development policies which allow Vietnamese fishermen to access loans for building new boats, more high-capacity vessels will be built in the years ahead.  Therefore, there will be an increasing number of boats seeking safe shelter from storms at the wharf in the near future.

During this year's 3^rd tropical storm which entered the central region last month, 1,255 fishing boats were seen anchored at the wharf, although it can only accommodate 800 vessels.  Although the storm was not too strong, with winds of only levels 8 and 9, 2 boats were involved in side-by-side collisions and sank.  Given the current high density of fishing boats at the wharf, there will be more collisions during stronger storms, and this is likely to cause heavy damage to them.

However, the city has not yet developed any plans for the expansion of the wharf to deal with the boat overload problem.  Colonel Binh, therefore, remarked that the Man Quang lagoon is now the only location in the city for the building of new anchorages for boats which are currently tied up along both banks of the Han River, as well as helping to reduce the problem of overload at the wharf.

With regard to temporary solutions to deal with the overload during the current rain and storm season, he suggested that under-30CV fishing boats should dock along the banks of the Co Co River, whilst those with a higher capacity should berth at the port of the city’s petroleum depot and other areas next to cliffs.