The new 80-metre trawler built for Baffin Fisheries has arrived in St Johns – a couple of months behind the original schedule.
Inuksuk II has been built at the Tersan yard in Turkey to a Skipsteknisk design for Baffin Fisheries, the Inuit-owned fishing company that is a leading player in northern Canada, harvesting more that 10,000 tonnes of Greenland halibut and shrimp for markets around the world.
The new trawler vessel has a processing and freezing deck with two production lines for frozen-at-sea shrimp and groundfish. The modern factory includes two large automated plate freezers, three shrimp tunnels, a sorting robot, and automated palletising. Refrigerated fishroom capacity is for up to 1300 tonnes of Greenland halibut, or 900 tonnes of shrimp.
The deck is configured for twin-rig trawling.
Inuksuk II didn’t get off to an easy start. Handed over to its owners at the end of September, it sailed from Yalova in Turkey in October but suffered a main engine malfunction a few days into its delivery trip. The new trawler was towed to port in Greece, before a second tow took it back to the yard in Turkey for the main engine problems to be addressed.
Now it has made a belated landfall in Canada, and is being prepared to start fishing operations a few months later than had originally been planned.
