SriLanka

Sri Lanka has a coastline of 1770 Km. There are 2637 marine fishing villages; 14 major fishing harbours; 34 anchorages for fishing vessels and 650 fish landing centres.

The marine fishing fleet consists mainly of small- to medium-sized craft, owned and operated by private individuals. The total fishing fleet in 2004 consisted of 31,663 boats of diverse types, broadly classifiable into:

• Non-motorized traditional craft
• Motorized traditional craft
• Fibre glass hulled boats of 6–7 m LOA
• Larger boats of about 3.5 t
• Offshore multi-day boats
• Beach seine craft.

Traditionally, fishing has been inshore using simple canoes with outriggers and, despite development efforts spanning over 50 years, this type of boat still makes up for nearly half of the fleet. Some 2% of fishing boats are canoes powered by outboard motors, and a further 3% are beach seine craft without motors. Larger, motorized day boats were introduced in the mid-1950s and consist of two types of craft: 18’ flat-bottomed FRP with outboard motors (37%), and 28’ FRP motorized boats (5%). In the early 1980s, 59’ motorized multi-day boats were introduced (5%).

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