The first of a series of Norwegian-designed longliners for fishing company Virma has been delivered by the Northern Shipyard in St Petersburg.
These Marin Teknikk MT1112XL longliners were ordered almost six years ago – prior to the war in Ukraine and sanctions and limitations on supplying components and equipment to Russia.
Gandvik-1 has an overall length of 59 metres and a 13 metre breadth, and is designed to transfer 25 tonnes of finished products every operational day to its 500-tonne capacity refrigerated fishroom.
The Gandvik trio were originally designed as highly progressive vessels, with diesel-electric propulsion and with the fishing gear hauled through a moonpool. The build has taken significantly longer than expected – as the delivery of the first vessel was originally proposed for the end of 2020.
This first vessel is scheduled to be followed by sister vessels Gandvik-2 and Gandvik-3 – all of them built under the investment quotas initiative – and Gandvik-1 went from the Northern Shipyard to Murmansk for to be provisioned and prepared, and is expected to start fishing for cod and haddock in northern waters in the second half of June.
