In the process of fishing on boats, refrigeration technology has a direct impact on the nutrition and economic value of catches. Based on the analysis of different refrigeration systems and methods of cold storage, the resent research progress on refrigeration systems was summarized, which might be useful to provide the basis for the improvements and optimization design of refrigeration system on the fishing boats. At present, there were four methods to keep the catches fresh by low temperature, such as iced preservation, sea water preservation, partial freezing preservation and freezing preservation. Among them, the former three refrigerated preservation methods usually adopted single stage compression refrigeration system, while the freezing preservation commonly used double stage compression refrigeration system. Forms of evaporator in tanks of fishing boats were mainly air cooler and direct-expansion coils. Chinese fishing boats with refrigeration system often selected R22 as refrigerant, which was environmental unfriendly, looking for new environmental protection safe and efficient alternative refrigerants was also a hot spot in present research.