The latest Macduff newbuild, Andrew West’s Forever Faithful, has started fishing for nephrops in the North Sea. The new vessel replaces an older one of the same name that also came from Macduff in 2016, and the latest Forever Faithful is the yard’s fifth build for the West family.
This is the third in a series of sister vessels built at Macduff Shipyards’ Buckie site, and in which the yard continues to develop and invest. Forever Faithful PD-289 follows Zenith BF-106, handed over at the beginning of last summer, and Celestial Dawn BF-109, which was delivered in the summer of 2022. All three vessels share the same hull form and general fishing arrangement, although each has been laid out to suit owners’ preferences.
The hull of the 22.75-metre LOA, 7.60-metre beam Forever Faithful is an entirely steel construction, topped by an aluminium wheelhouse and mast, and features a double chine hull form, transom stern and modern bow designed to cut cleanly through seas, requiring less energy and making for a more comfortable working platform.
Although a sister ship to two other vessels, the layout of the Forever Faithful varies significantly, both inside and out. In a first for the yard, the accommodation above the deck is fitted solely to the port side, with two washrooms and the cabin access fitted aft and a generously sized galley mess amidships running forward. Accommodation is for a crew of six to eight.
On the starboard side is a dry locker aft centre, with the fish hopper outboard of this, immediately forward of the aft shelter where the two net drums are situated. Once the catch has been lifted onboard, it is taken forward by a hydraulic conveyor onto the working deck, where the catch is selected and washed.
Forever Faithful is arranged for freezing the catch at sea, with a handling system built by the yard and Northeast Fabricators. Sorted and washed catches are packed at the forward end of the working deck, before being taken into a blast room on the forward port side, immediately forward of the galley when the prawns are frozen at -35 to -40°C for four to six hours. The blast room can hold around 1000kg of packed product on the stainless steel racking arranged inside.
Frozen product is then lowered directly into the cold store below, situated in the aft part of the hold until it is landed at the end of the trip. A bulkhead with large cold store door divides the fish hold into two, and the forward part of the hold is arranged as a traditional wet fishroom with its own chilling system, and capable of holding around 250 boxes of chilled fish. The fish hold refrigeration and chiller systems along with ice machine were all supplied and fitted by Premier Refrigeration. The vessel features four separate set of plant, and utilises blower type units instead of traditional refrigeration pipes.
To minimise the new vessel’s emissions and to ensure cost-effective operation, the propulsion package was very carefully considered. Forever Faithful has a Masson Marine W6000 gearbox with a large 10:1 reduction, the largest reduction ratio the yard has fitted to date with a fixed pitch propeller. This gearbox allowed the yard to fit a 2500mm diameter propeller, fitted within a modern profile of nozzle duct, providing high thrust at low speeds but also a slight increase of thrust at steaming speeds compared to the previous vessel.
Propulsion power is provided by a 600hp Caterpillar C18 main engine. This is a Tier III certified engine and comes with a catalytic convertor and a urea/AdBlue system which enables the engine to meet the new, more stringent emission standards set by the IMO. Certification of the engine and SCR system was arranged by Finning CAT with certification provided by DNV/GL. The system was proven to work well during sea trials where the 35dB reduction SCR silencer helped reduce noise levels throughout the vessel. It is the third system of this design fitted by the yard to date, and the sixth vessel the yard has delivered with Tier III certified engines.
Primary hydraulic power is provided by a dedicated auxiliary engine, a Doosan/Hyundai 4AD086 with 199 kW engine power available. This engine also certified to IMO Tier III standards and features a SCR unit and urea pumping system. The auxiliary engine drives two hydraulic pumps for primary power, but the vessel also features a 45kW electric motor hydraulic motor pump which acts as a net retrieve and can be ran in the harbour powered by either generator set.
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, providing complete redundancy.
A bespoke hydraulic deck machinery package was fabricated by the yard including of a triple barrel winch featuring a Hagglunds compact CA210 motor, two split net drums complete with two Hagglunds compact CA70 motors per drum. Thistle Marine of Peterhead supplied both the MFB8 landing crane and MBK7 power block crane, both of which featuring a slew ring base. A small hoisting winch is fitted to help the move the catch in the hold when landing.
The trawler’s electrical systems were designed and fitted by R.D. Downie who also fabricated the switchboard and control panels for all the pumps and motor starters, as well as providing the fire, bilge and gas alarm systems along with the navigation light panel and assisted with the installation of the navigation equipment. The package of wheelhouse electronics was supplied and fitted by Woodsons of Aberdeen. Marport UK supplied Forever Faithful’s trawl monitoring system.
