The steel hull of the 31-metre, 8.7-metre beam Eilean Croine was fabricated in Poland and brought to Killybegs for outfitting by Mooney Boats. This new vessel is designed as a pelagic trawler with RSW capacity and with options to convert to groundfish trawling.
The order for the pelagic catch handling setup went to KER Group, which supplied a complete 450kW RSW installation and a vacuum pump discharging system, as well as fitting the new vessel’s wheelhouse and accommodation aircon, and the chiller and freezer rooms. The RSW system works with R134a as its refrigerant , chilling sea water to -1°C and the design team at KER came up with a PLC to control the system of chilling and catch distribution between the RSW tanks.
The vacuum pump system is another innovation, and a more compact installation has been achieved by utilising vacuum capacity into large-gauge stainless steel pipework to eliminate the need for a single large vacuum tank.
SeaQuest Systems supplied the hydraulic deck equipment, starting with a pair of 28-tonne trawl winches an integrated shooting and hauling control. The trawl winches have grooved drums and capacity for 1,200 fathoms of 24mm warp. The setup for handling pelagic gear includes two 35-tonnes and one 15-tonne net drums, plus 28-tonne topline and tail-end winches.
The Seaquest package also includes netsounder, gilson and anchor winches. All of the winches are managed from the wheelhouse control position overlooking the deck.
The 14-inch fish pump, also from Seaquest, is powered by its own dedicated hydraulic power system. Seaquest also supplied the radio controlled knuckleboom discharging crane and the powerblock crane for handling gear on deck.
KT Nets supplied Eilean Croine’s fishing gear, with 1,000 fathoms of 26mm Steel Core Dyform Warp and a package of chandlery and spares, as well as 973-metre and 580-metre pelagic trawls, an 870-metre tuna trawl and a custom-made set of blue whiting gear.
Sophisticated electronics
The wheelhouse is laid out with fishfinding and navigation systems supplied by Barry Electronics. The fishfinders are the Furuno FSV-25, FSV-85 and FSV-75 sonars, in addition to the 330/200kHz Simrad FS70 trawl sonar.
Marport supplied the M3 Trawl Monitoring System, with two catch sensors and a TE150W tunnel sensor.
The sounders are a Simrad ES80 set with a C-All multifrequency transducer, a JRC JFV130 BB and a WASSP F3X High Power multibeam sounder. The current log is a Furuno CI-68. Plotters are a pair of Sodena Easy Win sets with tides, AIS and ARPA, and a MaxSea Time Zero V4 chart plotter linked to the WASSP system, which also has its own Hemisphere satellite compass.
There is a comprehensive CCTV system of 24 cameras onboard, enabling the skipper to monitor any part of the vessel from the wheelhouse, including the propeller.
Other Killybegs suppliers involved in Eilean Croine’s build are MMG Ocean, who supplied an 8-metre folding gangway for crew safety and GCM painters who painted the new trawler from top to bottom.
Eilean Croine has an ABC 6DZC main engine, which powers a 3,380mm propeller via the Nogva Heimdal gearbox. This also drives a shaft generator to provide electrical power via the PTO, making the main engine the primary power source when not operating under heavy load.
This four-stroke 6-cylinder line engine offers modest fuel and lube oil consumption. Additional power is supplied by a pair of Scania auxiliaries, which are a 9-litre, 5-cylinder unit a 16-litre, 8-cylinder set, plus a small Deutz genset. The electrical systems utilise a variable frequency (60-50Hz), considerably reducing fuel consumption.
