The Crown Prince was clearly impressed by the Danish facilities, who since the beginning of the 1980s, has served as a center for European industrial research on fishing gear. Senior scientist Kurt Hansen, who is also manager in Hirtshals, demonstrated how the test tank has been used to develop a new generation of shrimp trawls that will provide significant savings in fuel consumption during fishing, and reduce environmental impact. -Practical testing of small scale models has been crucial to the development of this and other solutions that have contributed to increase the efficiency of fisheries, said Hansen.

Although research on fishing gear has been the dominant activity in the test tank, the Crown Prince was also told about the increasing number of industrial research on new concepts for cage farming. Technological challenges for fisheries around offshore installations for oil extraction were also illustrated by a demonstration of how templates are tested for overtrawling in the design phase. The Crown Prince, who has training in maritime military operations, asked good questions about the interaction between fisheries and offshore oil activity. He was also pleased to see that research on technology development is done in Denmark.

Research Director at SINTEF VegarJohansen told the Crown Prince of the industrial importance the Flume tank has for marine and maritime industry in Europe. - The test tank in Hirtshals offers SINTEF as an research organization an advantage in the development of industrial technologies for both equipment industry, shipping companies and other operators, said Johansen.