except two: the UK, and Germany, who still fished up to from the Icelandic coast. German trawlers, however, tended to be more interested in saithe and ocean perch rather than cod, haddock and flatfish; because of this, they tended to stick to oceanic, rather than coastal waters. As the dispute escalated, British trawler captains began to cover their names and registration numbers to avoid action from Icelandic courts; as an additional, and somewhat less effective measure some hoisted the Jolly Roger in addition to the Union Jack. The Icelandic Coastguard viewed this as a violation of international law, and took many photographs of the trawlers displaying these signs; including a picture taken on 5 September 1972 of a ship believed to be the trawler Peter Scott (H103). The Icelandic strategy involved the use of net-cutters, invented by Commander Péter Sigurǒsson, Director of the Coast Guard, with assistance from Friŏrik Teitsson from the Icelandic lighthouse institution and Tómas Sigurǒsson, who were both ironmongers. The invention—tested in 1958—was known as the trawlwire cutter; it was not used until 5 September 1972, after every Icelandic ship had been equipped with it. The ships would take a two-step approach: They would inform the trawler of their violation of Icelandic law, and request them to move outside the 50-mile limit. If this yielded no results, they would lower the cutter into the water, and attempt to cut the nets—worth several thousand pounds—by sailing past the stern of the trawler at right angles. As previously mentioned, the Ægir carried out the first successful cutting on 5 September in an action against a trawler believed to be the Peter Scott, sailing under a pirate flag and a Union Jack, with its registration number and name covered. Throughout 1972, 10 trawlers had their nets cut: nine British, and one West German. For the year of 1973, this had expanded to 60 British and 14 West German trawlers; a loss of hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of nets. A British response was inevitable given the anger of the trawler captains at the time. The captains believed that they were well within their rights to fish on what they understood to be the high seas, an assumption they interpreted from the 'interim measures of protection' issued by the International Court of Justice on 17 August 1972. As such, and in line with the ICJ's ruling, the British government endeavoured