One of the key names associated with building for the Dutch fishing fleet over the years, like every yard, Maaskant Shipyards has had some quiet years as the fishing industry has struggled, but this is set to change.
The yard’s last large conventional beam trawler was the GO-22, built in 2006. Maskant’s director Frits van Dongen said that now everything has changed and with the huge increase in plaice fishing, for which twin-rig trawling is the most effective method, there is a strong interest in investing in new capacity and they have produced designs for new vessels with options for combining pulse trawling, twin-rigging and with possibilities to reconfigure these for fly-shooting as well.
‘Realistically, we are looking at designs that provide the capacity to target sole with pulse gear for a short winter season, and to switch to twin-rigging for the rest of the year to concentrate on plaice,’ Frits van Dongen said in an interview with Hook & Net, adding that Maaskant were also involved at the outset of the MDV project with a design for the southern North Sea, although the Padmos/Hoekman-built MDV-1 was the vessel that was built to test and showcase new techniques and technologies.
‘The designs are restyled to give them a newer look, but we old look is still there,’ he said.
‘36 by 8 metres is the ideal size, as it was forty years ago before beam trawlers went beyond 40 metres with a 9 metre beam. 36 by 8 metres means a thousand box fishroom capacity and the design is for a 1500hp engine, although we think that 1200hp would be enough power.’
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