The Armon shipyards have survived Spain’s crippling recession and have managed to remain active through the lean years.
‘We haven’t been as busy as we would have liked to have been, but we haven’t had to stop and we haven’t had to lay off staff,’ said Jaime Paz at the company’s Vigo yard.
Vigo is one of a group of the company’s shipyards across northern Spain, each with its own set of specialisations. Navia builds mainly tugs and fishing vessels. Burela concentrates on aluminium craft such as short-sea crew vessels and Vigo builds fishing vessels as well as building for a growing number of oceanographic, research and offshore customers.
The Gijon yard, brought into the group a few years ago, dwarfs the rest of the yards in terms of its capacity for vessels up to 200 metres LOA and a 40 metre beam, taking it into ferry and freighter territory. Changes across the group have taken place with steel plates now cut and shaped at a central facility, which in the case of the Vigo yard frees up space for more specialised production.
The Vigo yard has been kept busy in the last few years, largely with a series of tuna purse seiners, mainly for customers in central America, building for three of the four Mexican tuna operators. These have been four 90 metre seiners for Pesca Arteca, two for Maratun and one for Ardez. In addition, there have been two for Spanish operator Albacora, and two for TriMarine.
As well as its eleven tuna vessels in three years, Armon’s Vigo yard has built up a track record of delivering research and scientific vessels, including a hydrographic survey vessel currently under construction for Columbia.
‘We build the blocks upside down as that’s easier for welding, and then spin them over to assemble the completed blocks,’ he explained.
‘Fuel costs have fallen and we’re aware of real interest in new fishing vessels with owners looking at building new for the first time in some years. This has always been a cyclical business and we have the feeling that fishing is starting to move in the right direction again. There’ll be good news in the next few years and not just for Armon. Freire is building for a Norwegian owner here in Vigo and Nodosa has orders for new vessels.’
The yard has long been a major player in building fishing vessels for owners across Europe and beyond, and last year delivered the new Jean-Pierre Le Roch for French operator Scapêche and new trawlers for Irvin and Johnson in South Africa.
‘Armon has a history of building fishing vessels. Of the more than eight hundred deliveries, over half have been for the fishing industry.’
