It’s only a few years since the owners of Kvitholmen took delivery of a new seiner – and now that vessel has been replaced with a new one from the same builder.
The previous 12.95-metre LOA, 5.9-metre breadth Kvitholmen was delivered to fishing company Kvitholmen AS in June 2018 and has fished successfully with seine net gear, but the owners soon became aware that carrying capacity in particular was limited.
They went back to the Skogsøy Båt yard in southern Norway and placed an order for a larger, aluminium-hulled seiner, which was delivered at the beginning of this year and headed north to fishing grounds off the north of Norway.
Rigged to fish with seine net for groundfish or purse seine gear for pelagic species, new Kvitholmen has been built with a new hull design, optimised for these fishing methods. Sea trials prior to delivery showed the same turn of speed fully loaded as empty.
The new vessel has a 14.99-metre length and a 7-metre beam, and this makes a big difference, allowing for an 80-cubic-metre fishroom, compared to the previous Kvitholmen’s 50 cubic metres. There’s also more space for the crew and the deck layout, and everything is larger, including the high-capacity pump for transferring catches from the gear,
Kvitholmen has a 750hp Volvo Penta main engine, designed to minimise consumption and emissions, and driving a larger propeller than the older vessel had. The deck equipment layout is also more powerful, and the new seiner has winches with a 12-tonne pull, providing more power than the old vessel’s 3-tonne winch system.
