2011
Grand Prize Winner ($30,000) – The Yamazaki Double-Weighted Branchline
Kazuhiro Yamazaki, Japan
The 2011 International Smart Gear Competition awarded the grand prize to an idea submitted by a captain of a Japanese tuna vessel. The device is a simple and effective idea that uses readily available materials to not only work at reducing the bycatch of seabirds but reduces injuries and fatalities to crews caused by rapidly recoiling weights and hooks. Read more →
El dispositivo creado por Yamazaki.
2011 Runner-Up ($10,000) - The SeaQualizer
Bill Brown, Jeffery Liederman, Patrick Brown, and Ryan Brown, U.S.A.
This winning team, from the Florida based company, Finovation Inc., came up with the idea for the SeaQualizer to address a significant problem in the management of some recreational fisheries - the mortality of bottom dwelling fish that are released at the surface as bycatch. The device was selected by the judges for its elegant but effective design and the potential change its adoption could have on decreasing the mortality of fish in the recreational fishing industry. Read more →
SeaQualizer open in hand
2011 Runner-Up ($10,000) - Turtle Lights for Gillnets
Shara Fisler and John Wang, U.S.A.
The 2011 International Smart Gear Competition awarded a runner-up prize to a device designed to address the problem of bycatch of sea turtles in gillnets, an issue that is of significance in many countries around the world.
Read more →
Read more →
Fishermen attaching LED's
Special Tuna Prize Winner ($7,500) - The Yamazaki Double-Weighted Branchline
Kazuhiro Yamazaki, Japan
For the first time since the Smart Gear Competition was established in 2005, a winning design, that reduces the accidental catch and related deaths of sea birds in tuna fisheries, has won more than one award.
Kazuhiro Yamazaki, a captain on a Japanese tuna vessel, not only received the 2011 Smart Gear Grand Prize, but was also awarded the Special Tuna Prize of $7,500, offered by the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF). Read more →
Kazuhiro Yamazaki, a captain on a Japanese tuna vessel, not only received the 2011 Smart Gear Grand Prize, but was also awarded the Special Tuna Prize of $7,500, offered by the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF). Read more →
Landing Tuna