Earlier this month work began at Hampidjan’s new premises in the Westmann Islands with a net loft and a shop. At present the building has a 400 square metre floor space, but once this coming summer’s expansion has been concluded, it will expand to 1100 square metres.
Hampidjan has a history of many years of service to the Westmann Islands fleet via several local suppliers, but when its main partner company in the Westmann Islands changed hands last year, the decision was subsequently taken to open Hampiðjan’s own facility.
According to fishing gear sales and marketing director Guðbjartur Thórarinsson, the new unit has a background as a netloft, as for many years master netmaker Sigurdur Ingi Ingólfsson ran his business there.
‘We were looking for more space for our activities. The design work on the expansion of the building has been done, and we’ll be putting the construction out to tender shortly. If everything goes as we would like it to, we should have the extension to the building complete before the end of August this year,’ he said.
The Hampidjan Westmann Islands net loft will start with a staff of three, although a full crew of six or seven is envisaged. The manager is local master netmaker Ingi Freyr Ágústsson, and he expects the main bulk of the work to centre around providing the best possible the service for the Islands’ purse seine and trawl fleet.
‘Close to half of the country’s pelagic fleet works from here and many of those companies go to Hampidjan for their fishing gear, in particular for the pelagic trawl fisheries that they take part in for most of the year. We expect to provide a wide-ranging set of services from repairs, maintenance and production of new capelin and herring purse seines, as well as the general hardware that the fleet needs,’ Ingi Freyr Ágústsson said.
