The first new pair team to be built by Macduff has been delivered as Stewart Buchan has taken delivery of Faithful FR-129 and Crystal River FR-178 has been handed over to David Cardno. The two operate exclusively as a pair team.
Built to the same design, Faithful and Crystal River have the same hull form as Good Hope FR 891, also built by the yard in 2019. These trawlers have a 26.50 metre length overall with 7.80 metre breadth and 4.20 metre moulded depth. This hull form was developed using CFD technology, assisted by the Wolfson Unit in Southampton, to optimise their design to reduce resistance and fuel consumption while also providing enough hull space to give each of them a fishroom capable of holding 1150 boxes.
Macduff Ship Design played a key role in developing the hull model, fairing the lines, analysing the stability, draughting a full set of structural plans and producing a computer kit of steel parts required to build the hull. The components were CNC machine profiled by Macduff Profilers, an the ship building plate parts delivered to the fabrication halls for assembly. The wheelhouse and masts were built from marine grade aluminium to save weight.
Faithful and Crystal River have deck equipment systems tailored for them by the yard, and each has a triple barrelled winch powered by a Hagglunds CA210 motor, twin split net drums, a bagging net drum, one small gear handling winch, cod end lifting winch and a dedicated anchor windlass. Thistle Marine supplied both the MFB8 landing crane and MBK13 powerblock crane mounted on a slew ring base.
The hydraulic systems are also the yard’s own design, cooled by a Blokland box cooler and Bowman heat exchanger.
Each trawler has a layout with the hydraulics powered by a single Denison hydraulic pump driven from a dedicated Cummins QSL9-M auxiliary engine producing 330hp, and secondary hydraulic power is provided by a separate Denison hydraulic pump driven from a power take off fitted to the main reduction gearbox. The 280hp bow thruster is also powered via the hydraulic system.
Main engines are Caterpillars, and Faithful and Crystal River each has a 750hp C32 main engine turning a 2500mm fixed pitch Wärtsilä propeller via a Masson Marine W7400 reversible gearbox with 9.077:1 reduction. Cooling for all engines and hydraulics is provided by box coolers supplied by Blokland Non-Ferro.
This power arrangement has become something of a Macduff standard, with seven newbuilds having been fitted with this package in recent years. According to the yard, this setup has proved to be 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 during both steaming and trawling. Speeds of 9 knots were achieved on sea trials at 50% engine load, and 100% engine load provided a 10.70 knot top speed,
Faithful and Crystal River each has a Wärtsilä high lift nozzle and a triple rudder arrangement with steering gear from Scan Steering.
Electrical power is sourced from the two Mitsubishi generator sets supplied by Macduff Diesels Limited, each with a rating of 98ekW and of sufficient size to run the vessel’s power independently providing complete redundancy.
The 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 fitting the fire, bilge and gas alarm systems along with the navigation light panel and assisting with the installation of the navigation equipment supplied by Woodsons of Aberdeen.
On the way to the fishroom, catches pass through the tailor-made catch handling system fabricated and installed by the yard to the owners’ specifications. The catch handling decks each include two separate compartments for the 2.50 tonne Geneglace icemakers and associated equipment. The ice machines and fishroom chiller systems were supplied and fitted by Premier Refrigeration.
The last pair built at Macduff were the Solitaire and Sonia Jane, built in the 80s – and those were wooden-hulled trawlers.
This time, to deliver the two trawlers with a short an interval as possible, construction was split between Macduff facilities. Faithful took shape in the Macduff main fabrication hall and Crystal River was built at the Buckie facility. To streamline the process as far as possible, many of Crystal River’s steel units were also built in Macduff before being shipped to Buckie for assembly.
As is the case across industry in general, the yard faced numerous challenges related to the Covid pandemic which delayed the schedule for both trawlers – and subsequently made delivery at the same time problematic. All the same, Macduff has been able to deliver Faithful and Crystal River within three months of each other, and a yard spokesman commented that they would like to sincerely thank both Stewart Buchan and David Cardno for their patience.
