All three of HB Grandi’s pelagic vessels are now back at sea after the annual Seamen’s Day stopover in port at the end of last week.
According to Ingimundur Ingimundarson, manager of pelagic fleet operations, Lundey NS sailed on Monday and Faxi RE and Ingunn AK left port the following day.
‘Lundey has been searching for herring in the Dragon Area off the north-east coast without much success. They had an 80 tonne shot and were yesterday steaming towards Jan Mayen. Faxi and Ingunn started pair trawling Wednesday night off the south-east coast on the Rose Garden grounds. There was little to be had, but things looked little better in the morning. We’ll find out what the results are when they have hauled,’ he said on Thursday.
A few scarce days following Seamen’s Day is nothing unusual. Faxi and Lundey had been doing well the previous week only 12 to 13 hours steaming from Vopnafjördur. These two trawlers were able to land 450 to 500 tonne trips over roughly 24 hour periods, landing fairly small amounts that are suitable for HB Grandi’s production facility in Vopnafjördur where the last herring went through the machines on Friday last week. Now the factory is waiting for the first delivery of herring so that production can be resumed.
According to Vilhjálmur Vilhjálmsson, HB Grandi’s head of pelagic operations, production at Vopnafjördur has been going well. 2635 tonnes of herring had been landed before Seamen’s Day, of which 915 tonnes were frozen as butterfly fillets. Approximately 1700 tonnes of waste from fillet production and herring graded out as unsuitable for filleting has been processed into fishmeal.
