The fleet of fishing vessels operated by Icelandic fishing company Samherji has made some impressive landings through 2020, with Björg EA-7 at the top of the chart with 9443 tonnes of groundfish landed last year, followed by Kaldbakur EA-1 with 9377 tonnes.
The third of the company’s series of large new fresher trawlers, Björgúlfur EA-312 was in third place with 9001 tonnes and the older Björgvin EA-311 landed 7062 tonnes. The smaller Harðbakur EA-3 and leased vessels which were only at work for Samherji for part of the year landed 4178 tonnes.
The bulk of groundfish catches were cod, haddock, saithe and golden redfish.
In value terms, pelagic vessel Margrét EA-710 was the company’s top earner, with catches valued at just over ISK2 billion, and Björg and Kaldbakur were marginally behind in catch values, both of them topping the ISK2 billion mark.
Since pelagic factory vessel Vilhelm Thorsteinssson EA-11 was sold to Russian owners at the end of 2018, Margrét has been the only vessel catching Samherji’s pelagic quotas.
Now Margrét has been sold ahead of the forthcoming delivery of new pelagic vessel Vilhelm Thorsteinssson, currently under construction at Karstensens Skibsværft in Skagen, and has gone to the Faroe Islands where it becomes the temporary Christian í Grótinum – and is expected to be replaced in early 2022 when a new Christian í Grótinum is to be delivered, also from the Skagen yard.
Margrét was built at Flekkefjord in Norway in 1995 as Antares for owners in Shetland, and the 73 metre, 2000 tonne capacity pelagic vessel was acquired by Samherji in 2015.
