New factory trawler Baldvin Njálsson GK-400 has been delivered by Astilleros Armón to Nesfiskur, based at Garður in the south of Iceland.
Nesfiskur went to Icelandic naval architect Skipasýn for the design of their new trawler, which features the large propeller that has become a hallmark of a the company’s trawler designs. The Astilleros Armón yard was chosen as the builder, and the yard has a long background of building complex vessels, including a number of factory freezer trawlers for fishing companies around the world.
Baldvin Njálsson measures 65.60 metres overall, with a 16 metre beam and a depth to the main deck of 6.60 metres. It has a fishroom capacity of 1720 cubic metres and accommodation for a crew of up to 28 in six single and eleven twin cabins.
Propulsion is from Wärtsilä, with a 2990kW 6L32 main engine turning a 5000mm diameter four-bladed propeller via an SCV100 gearbox with a 9.03:1 reduction, a combination that returned a 15 knot top speed and a 72 tonne bollard pull during sea trials. Designed to minimise fuel consumption and emissions, as well as noise levels and vibration, the result is also one of the quietest propulsion systems for a vessel of this kind.
Baldvin Nálsson has a floating-frequency 1875kW shaft generator which allows a reduction of main engine revolutions, depending on the required output. Auxiliary power is provided by 596kW Scania D116 gensets.
The deck is laid out with a full-length trawl deck and a full set of electric Ibercisa deck equipment, with a row of six 55kW, 15-tonne pull sweeplines at the head of the three trawl lanes. The main winches are three 250kW, 48-tonne units mounted above the trawl deck, and with the mid-wire winch offset on the starboard side. The winches are controlled by a Scantrol autotrawl system.
Baldvin Njálsson is designed to operate on groundfish with heading, gutting and sorting lines in its Optimar factory for roundfish fillets and H&G redfish, with automated sorting to grade fish by size and weight. Production is frozen in vertical and horizontal freezers with automatic discharge, after which an automated palletiser takes over and a cargo elevator takes pallets to the fishroom, where an electric forklift is used to stack cargo.
