Chilean fish farming operator, Patagonia Wellboat, has ordered three MAN Diesel and Turbo 6L21/31 gensets for its new Wellboat.
The L21/31 engine has a 1,290-1,935 kW output range and will be installed on Patagonia’s new vessel, which will be built at Asenav, Chile’s largest, private shipbuilder, and will be the first vessel in a new generation of wellboats designed and developed by Asenav in co-operation with Patagonia.
MAN says the order for the gensets is the latest in a long line of Chilean fishing and fish farming orders for medium-speed MAN engines, where the 23/30 model has especially been popular. The MAN 21/31 engine has already been installed on three Copenica trawlers, built at Peru’s SIMA Callao Shipyard.
Patagonia Wellboats is a pioneer in transporting live fish and has a fleet of wellboats for the transportation of salmon and trout.
The wellboat concept is a unique fishing-vessel-cum-housing-facility where fish are collected from where they are bred and transported live to processing facilities near the market. Large pipelines transfer the fish from their breeding enclosures at sea to the wellboat’s storage tanks. Wellboats control all conditions in their storage tanks including water temperature, CO2 levels and water quality to help the fish settle and stay calm, minimising the stress factors that Patagonia says inevitably affect fish quality. There are also cameras in each tank to monitor movement.
Though storage capacity differs, a wellboat typically holds around 1,400m³ of water and houses up to 180 tonnes of fish.
Delivery is scheduled for the end of this year, with vessel delivery expected May 2016. The new order includes an option for an extra, identical wellboat.
