The latest delivery from Macduff Shipyards, Fruitful Vine BF-240, has been delivered to owners Nicol Fishing ahead of Christmas. The newbuild replaces a trawler of the same name, built at the same yard in 2010.
The new Fruitful Vine will fish around Scotland, operating mainly solo, but with the opportunity to operate as part of a pair team opposite the family’s other trawler, Steadfast Hope BF-340.
A sistership to Orion, Fruitful Vine was originally intended to be built to the yard’s previous 24.50 metre hull layout, until the decision was taken to revisit this design with the bow section remodelled based on preliminary results from a tank testing programme which the yard and Macduff Ship Design were running for another project.
Fruitful Vine’s hull is built completely from steel, with an aluminium wheelhouse and masts. The layout is largely in line with that of other recent new builds from Macduff.
Below deck are the cabins, engine room, fish hold and a large freshwater tank forward of the collision bulkhead. Above deck are the aft shelter, galley/mess and side passage area, fish processing area and then forepeak where the trawl winch is situated.
The hydraulic deck equipment package is also from Macduff Shipyards, with a triple barrel winch with increased drum size to accommodate pair fishing gear, a pair of split net drums, two bagging winches, two small gear handling winches, cod end lifting winch and a dedicated anchor windlass.
Thistle Marine supplied both the MFB8 landing crane and MBK13 powerblock crane, both of which are mounted on a slew ring base.
Primary hydraulic power is provided by a single Parker hydraulic pump driven from a dedicated Mitsubishi 6D24 auxiliary engine producing 218kW, while secondary hydraulic power is provided by a Parker hydraulic pump driven from a power take off fitted to the main propulsion’s gearbox. A hydraulically powered bow thruster with 2.3 tonnes of thrust is also fitted, supplied by Kort Propulsion. The hydraulic system, designed by the yard, is cooled via a Blokland box cooler and Bowman heat exchanger.
The propulsion package features a 2500mm fixed pitch Wartsila propeller, driven by a Caterpillar C32 main engine with 660hp@1600-1800 rpm through a Masson Marine W7400 reversible gearbox with 9.077:1 reduction. Fruitful Vine is the eighth vessel built by the yard in recent years to feature this propulsion package which has demonstrated itself to be both robust and adaptable with the wide operating speed range of the C32 main engine providing flexibility to achieve full power from a fixed pitch propeller both during both steaming and trawling. Fruitful Vine also features a triple rudder system and high lift propeller nozzle provided by Wartsila.
Cooling systems for all engines and hydraulics onboard are served by box coolers supplied by Blokland Non-Ferro.
Electrical power on board is provided by two Mitsubishi generator sets supplied by Macduff Diesels Limited, each with a rating of 98kWe and of sufficient size to run the vessel’s power independently.
The electrical systems onboard were designed and fitted by RD Downie who also fabricated the vessels switchboard and control panels for all the pumps and motor starters. RD Downie also provided the fire, bilge and gas alarm systems onboard along with the navigation light panel and assisted with the installation of the navigation equipment.
The fish processing deck features a catch handling system built by the yard and is complemented by a DEGA resin floor system fitted by PBP services. Two separate compartments are formed within the fish processing area which house both a storeroom and ice plant room. The fish hold refrigeration system along with ice machine was supplied and fitted by Premier Refrigeration.
The wheelhouse electronics are supplied and fitted by McMinn Marine, in addition to the WASSP sounder and Tie Zero plotter supplier by Furuno and the Scanmar gear monitoring systems,
