VESSEL REVIEW | Nataarnaq – Royal Greenland puts new freezer trawler into service

Fishing company Royal Greenland has taken delivery of a new Arctic shrimp freezer trawler built by Spanish shipyard Astilleros de Murueta.

The DNV-classed, Skipsteknisk-designed Nataarnaq replaces a similarly named trawler in the Royal Greenland fleet. Although intended primarily to trawl for shrimp, the vessel also has facilities for use in catching and processing Greenland halibut.

The newbuild has an LOA of 82.3 metres, a moulded beam of 18 metres, and a draught of eight metres. Facilities include an exercise room, a medical bay, and single cabins for each of the 30 crew and processing personnel. Design work on the interior accommodation spaces was provided by Maritime Montering, which had also carried out similar works on two other vessels in the Royal Greenland fleet.

The vessel's two refrigerated holds have a total capacity of 2,950 cubic metres and have a rated freezing capacity of 120 tonnes per day. Royal Greenland said that the large hold capacity will allow for longer trips with full focus on fishing, and port calls with unloading will be possible in less than 24 hours.

Nataarnaq is powered by a MAN main diesel engine with a rated output of 7,200 kW at 750 rpm. This drives a MAN propeller and gearbox arrangement to deliver a speed of approximately 15 knots in ballast condition. The crew said that the newbuild's fuel consumption is equal to that of its similarly named predecessor, despite the earlier Nataarnaq being smaller and fitted with a lower-powered main engine. Constant trawl towing speed can be maintained even when operating under heavy weather conditions.

For close quarters manoeuvring, the trawler relies on 750kW and 500kW side thrusters from Brunvoll while electrical power is supplied by two C32 main generators and a C7.1 emergency generator from Caterpillar.

The vessel is fitted with a Seaonics equipment package that consists of four 45-tonne permanent magnet winches, eight 18-tonne sweepline winches, three 30-tonne gilson winches, and two 12-tonne codend winches. Some of the winches are electrically operated and enable the use of three trawls.

The factory equipment includes a complete Carsoe processing plant installed with an automatic separation of by-catch, grading of the shrimps by size, and a continuous cooking line. The shrimp are frozen either in IQF tunnels or in automatically loaded and unloaded horizontal freezers. The frozen and packed shrimp are then set aside in a freezer hotel for later onboard palletising.

An automatic palletising system ensures that the processed catch can be easily and quickly unloaded shortly after the vessel arrives in port, thus ensuring faster turnarounds and shorter stays.

The newer Nataarnaq is the third factory trawler to be built by Murueta for Royal Greenland. It will be operated by the company's subsidiary, Ice Trawl Greenland.

Click here for more news and gear stories, feature articles, and vessel reviews as part of this month's focus on fishing and aquaculture.