VESSEL REVIEW | Jacqueline Anne – New North Sea coastal trawler delivered to Scottish fishing family

Scotland's Macduff Shipyards recently handed over the newbuild twin-rig trawler Jacqueline Anne to owner Adam Tait and his two sons Adam and Jonathan. This new vessel replaces their previous fishing vessel of the same name, which was built by Macduff in 2013 and is intended to fish around the coast of Scotland, predominately in the North Sea.

Jaqueline Anne shares the same hull form as Crystal Sea, which was handed over to the Tait family earlier in 2020 and features a hull form developed by Macduff Ship Design. This new hull evolved from the yard's previous 24-metre model with modifications made to reduce hull resistance and improve fuel efficiency. CFD technology was used at the early stage to measure the resistance of the proposed new hull against the previous design and to identify areas where further improvements could be made.

The hull is built completely from steel, apart from the wheelhouse and masts, and features a double chine hull form, transom stern and soft nose bulbous bow faired gently into the main hull body.

Below deck are the cabins, the engine room, the fish hold, and a large freshwater tank forward of the collision bulkhead. Above deck are the aft shelter, a galley/mess and side passage area, a fish processing area and then a winch room forward where three split winches are sited.

The working deck has been significantly rearranged to suit the owner's requirements and features a dry locker, hold unloading hatch, hold access stairwell and refrigeration plant room all to the port side, thus creating a large hatch-free fish processing area on the vessel's centreline and the standard hopper and tray sorting arrangement on the starboard side.

A unique deck machinery package was fabricated by the yard for the newbuild. This consists of three split winches, two split net drums, two sweep/bagging winches, two small gear handling winches, cod end lifting winch and a dedicated anchor windlass. The hydraulic system was also designed and installed by the yard and is a load sensing system with the main hydraulic control valves fitted in the engine room.

The MFB8 landing crane was supplied by Thistle Marine and features a slew ring base along with a radio remote control. The BK13 power block crane was also supplied by Thistle Marine and again features a slew ring base and is fitted with a small winch to assist with general lifting duties. Primary hydraulic power is provided by two Danfoss hydraulic pumps driven from the main propulsion gearbox and secondary hydraulic power is provided by two
electric/hydraulic motor sets, each with an output of 45 kW.

A hydraulically powered bow thruster is also fitted with 2,235 kg of thrust supplied by Kort Propulsion.

The propulsion packages features a large 2.7-metre controllable-pitch propeller supplied by Helseth. This is driven by a Kumera K-CPP-450 two-step gearbox with 12.3:1 reduction. Propulsion power is provided by a Caterpillar C32 main engine developing 559 kW at 1,800 rpm. The main engine is also freshwater cooled via a box cooler provided by Blokland.

The flexibility of the C32 main engine – which allows for full power to be developed between 1,600 and 1,800 rpm along with unlimited control of pitch inherent with CPP systems – provides the vessel with a very large degree of control. Macduff Shipyard said this was demonstrated on sea trials where the vessel excelled in control at low-speed operations such as manoeuvring in the harbour whilst also being able to optimise the engine rpm and propeller pitch combinations for both trawling and steaming to achieve maximum efficiency.

An average top speed of 10.7 knots was recorded whilst a more economical speed of 9.2 knots at 50 per cent engine load was observed during steaming to the fishing grounds.

Electrical power onboard is provided by two Caterpillar C7.1 generator sets each with a rating of 118 ekW and are arranged for freshwater cooling via a set of box coolers also supplied by Blokland. The system is designed so that if required, both generators can be run simultaneously, which gives the opportunity to power both the general systems and the electrically driven hydraulic pumps sets at the same time. A small Beta Marine 33kVA harbour generator set is also fitted and is contained within a silenced acoustic housing to reduce noise levels when the vessel is berthed.

The electrical systems onboard were designed and fitted by R.D. Downie, which also provided a large central switchboard along with all the pump and motor starters. In addition to this, R.D. Downie also provided the fire, bilge, and gas alarm systems onboard along with the navigation light panel and assisted with the installation of the navigation equipment.

The high specification navigation package was supplied and fitted onboard by Woodsons Marine Electronics.

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