VESSEL REVIEW | Forever Faithful – Versatile prawn trawler delivered to Scottish owner

Scotland's Macduff Shipyards has handed over a new fishing vessel to local owner and boat skipper Andrew West and his family. Named Forever Faithful, the trawler was designed by Macduff Ship Design as the third in a series that also includes the 2022-built Celestial Dawn and the 2023-built Zenith.

Forever Faithful replaces an earlier vessel of the same name in the owner's fleet. It will be operated in the North Sea out of Peterhead and will focus on trawling for prawns and nephrops.

The newbuild has an LOA of 22.75 metres (74.64 feet), a beam of 7.6 metres (25 feet), a depth of 4.15 metres (13.6 feet), a displacement of 298 tonnes, and a gross tonnage of 224. The fish hold has a capacity of 600 boxes while catch freezing facilities are also available.

The hull is built entirely from steel, apart from the wheelhouse and mast (which are aluminium) and features a double chine hull form, transom stern and modern bow designed to cut cleanly through the sea with less energy leading to a reduction in fuel consumption and emissions along with increased crew comfort.

Fitted for at-sea sorting and processing

The accommodation above the deck is fitted solely to the port side, with two washrooms and the cabin access fitted aft and a generously sized galley/mess amidships running forward. The starboard side features a dry locker aft centre, with the fish hopper outboard of this, immediately forward of the aft shelter where the two net drums are situated. Once the catch has been lifted on board, it is taken forward by a hydraulic conveyor onto the working deck, where the catch is selected and washed.

The vessel is arranged for freezing the catch at sea. Once the catch is sorted and washed, it is then packed at the forward end of the working deck, before being taken into a blast room on the forward port side, immediately forward of the galley when the prawns are frozen at –35 to –40 degrees Celsius for a period of around four hours to six hours. The blast room can hold around 1,000 kg of packed product on the stainless steel racking arranged inside.

Once the product is frozen, it is then lowered directly into the cold store below, situated in the aft part of the hold until it is landed at the end of the trip. A bulkhead with a large cold store door divides the fish hold into two, and the forward part of the hold is arranged as a traditional wet fish hold with its own chilling system and is capable of holding around 250 boxes of chilled fish.

The fish processing deck features a catch handling system built by the yard and Northeast Fabricators, along with the sorting tables and racking for freezing the product. The fish hold freezing/refrigeration systems along with ice machine were all supplied and fitted by Premier Refrigeration. The vessel features four separate sets of plants and utilises blower type units instead of traditional refrigeration pipes.

Extensive propulsion setup

The vessel was fully painted by the yard with International products applied to a comprehensive marine spec. The high specification navigation package was supplied and fitted onboard by Woodsons. A trawl monitoring system was supplied by Marport UK.

A Caterpillar C18 450kW (600hp) main engine drives a 2,500mm fixed-pitch propeller via a Masson Marine W6000 gearbox. A selective catalytic reduction (SCR) system is also installed to ensure compliance with IMO Tier III NOx emissions regulations. The propeller is fitted within a modern profile of nozzle duct, providing high thrust at low speeds but also a slight increase of thrust at steaming speeds.

A dedicated Doosan/Hyundai 4AD086 199kW engine provides power for the deck equipment, which includes two Thistle Marine cranes, a triple barrel winch, a small hoisting winch, and two split net drums. Some of the winches and drums also have dedicated motors supplied by Hagglunds.

The Doosan/Hyundai engine also has an SCR unit and a urea pumping system, while the cooling systems for all engines and hydraulics on board are served by box coolers supplied by Blokland Non-Ferro.

The electrical systems were designed and fitted by R.D. Downie, which also fabricated the vessel’s switchboard and control panels for all the pumps and motor starters. R.D. Downie also provided the fire, bilge, and gas alarm systems along with the navigation light panel and assisted with the installation of the navigation equipment.

Electrical power for the other onboard systems is supplied by two Mitsubishi 98kWe generators.