Monteferro has been built for fishing company Kalamar, a joint venture between Spanish operator Rampesca and Falklands company RBC, and the new trawler operates under the UK flag with a Stanley registration. It replaces one of Kalamar’s older vessels, Kalatxori, while the other, Castelo, remains in operation with the company.
Challenges during the design process were accommodate a crew of 44 in mostly two-berth cabins, with crew conditions in line with the latest ILO requirements, while ensuring that Monteferro remained under 1499gt, as a vessel over 1500gt would fall into another size bracket with fewer available fishing days under the Falklands management regime.
The first of a new generation of trawlers for fishing in the Southern Atlantic, Monteferro is a 63.50 metre stern trawler with a 12 metre beam, fitted with a factory deck designed for optimal flow of catch. Packages catches of illex and loligo squid, depending on the season, are frozen in the bank of eight blast freezers that have a combined throughput capacity of 67 tonnes per day. Monteferro has a sophisticated refrigeration management system, combining frequency converters and R407F refrigerant, with four 132kW and one 75kW Bitzer compressors. Catches are stored at -40°C in Monteferro’s 1320m3 fishroom and middle deck storage area.
Ensuring good fuel economy in an industry where fluctuating fuel costs are a constant problem was high on the list of priorities for Kalamar when looking to build a new trawler and Monteferro has a 2400kW MaK 8M25C main engine, driving a 3700mm four-bladed, ducted Baliño-Kawema controllable pitch propeller through a Reintjes LAF2375 gearbox with a 1:5.87 reduction ratio. Electrical power is provided by the 1345kVa Stamford Tipo shaft generator and a pair of Scania DI16074M gensets.
The deck is laid out with a pair of 35.50 tonne Ibercisa trawl winches controlled using a Scantrol iSYN system at the heart of the all-electric deck equipment system. The winches are designed to route energy back into the ship’s electrical system as the gear is shot away.
The deck machinery as a whole was supplied by Ibercisa, with a 16m3 net drum mounted over the deck and a row of 16 tonne sweepline winches at the head of the trawl deck. In addition, Ibercisa supplied the two 29.50 tonne gilsons, a 19.60 tonne codend winch and 3.60 tonne outhaul winch, as well as the mooring capstan and anchor winch. The three M230.20 deck cranes, each with a 1.20 tonne capacity and a 13.60 metre reach, are from Guerra.
