The latest pelagic trawler to join the Fraserburgh fleet has got off to a fine start since it was delivered in September, with a series of high-value landings to kick off the new Christina S’s career.
There’s no mistaking the distinctive Karstensen lines of the 77-metre by 15.60-metre breadth Christina S, the latest in a series of pelagic vessels built in Skagen for fishing companies around the North Atlantic. The yard’s own design, fine-tuned in collaboration with the customer, this is a dedicated pelagic trawler with a 2350 cubic metre carrying capacity in its eleven RSW tanks, built to chase herring, mackerel and blue whiting on much the same pattern as its Fitjar-built predecessor.
Christina S has been built for the Simpson family, and although there’s a relationship with the Karstensen yard going back 30 years, with Sedulous and three different fishing vessels with the Christina S name calling regularly over the years for maintenance and repair work, this is the first time they have collaborated on a newbuild.
Christina S has the sleek lines of the latest generation of pelagic vessels, laid out with long forecastle and boat decks. The steel hull construction topped with aluminium wheelhouse, boat deck, funnel and masts was fabricated in Gdynia at the Karstensen Shipyard Poland, and arrived in February this year at the Skagen yard for outfitting.
The design of this new vessel set some ambitious targets in terms of working and living conditions, catch quality, and optimising fuel consumption – and to meet all of these, no expense has been spared in the latest equipment and systems on board.
The order for the deck equipment package went to Killybegs company SeaQuest, which provided a set of high-pressure hydraulic drives for the winches, cranes and the fish pumps.
The 360° visibility wheelhouse on board Christina S is outfitted by the yard’s own team, and places three Nor-Sap wheelhouse chairs facing the array of screens comprising the Furuno Blue Bridge display, and within consoles placing key system controls within easy reach, in addition there is a control position aft, overlooking the trawl deck.
The key fishfinders are the Furuno sonars, a low-frequency FSV-25, the medium-frequency FSV-85 and a high-frequency FSV-75, plus the trawl-mounted FS-70 sonar from Simrad. Sounders are a Simrad ES80, plus Furuno FCV-38, FSS3-BB and DFF-1 sets, the 3D set is an 80kHz WASSP unit and the current indicator is a Furuno CI68. A Scanmar installation with a package of sensors is used to monitor the trawl gear.
Accommodation has been outfitted by Maritime Montering and on main deck level this consists of three single and two twin cabins, all with en suite facilities. There are four more single cabins and a sick bay in the superstructure, alongside the changing room and oilskin store, gym and steam room.
Six more cabins are located at boat deck level and the crew’s day room/lounge, cinema, mess room, galley with provision room and separate fridge-/freezer rooms are all located within Christina S’s deck house.
The propulsion is an all Wärtsilä installation, with a 12V31 main engine powering a 4200mm 4G1190 propeller via an SCV 100/2-PDC68 reduction gearbox with a Cummins AvK, 2800kW/3500kVA shaft generator run on a PTO. Christina S has a two-step gearbox providing fixed revolutions of 138 and 116rpm. On sea trials, this arrangement delivered speeds of 18.20 and 16.50 knots.
