As Royal Greenland continues to renew its fleet, the company has gone with Danish supplier Carsoe to equip the factory decks of its new fishing vessels, and the latest is no exception.
The latest trawler to be ordered follows the established pattern of Skipsteknisk design and construction at the Murueta yard in Spain. Due to be delivered in early 2025, Akamalik is designed as a pure shrimp trawler, while previous vessels in the series include one factory filleter and others laid out to process a variety of species.
Akamalik will be fitted with a complete shrimp processing factory with a high level of automation including robot handling and automatic freezing of the processed catch.
Bringing the experience from the previous vessel, especially Nataarnaq, which was delivered in 2021 and has since then set several records, the Carsoe factory on this newest addition to the Royal Greenland trawler fleet is also designed for high capacity. As a new addition, the factory will include an innovative palletising section with three integrated palletising robots.
On the compact processing deck of a factory trawler, it is essential to make the most of the space, all while ensuring an operationally reliable factory. With a total of three palletising and sorting robots, the handling can be adjusted according to product type and production flow to keep the final part of the processing plant running smoothly.
With three robots, each overlapping the next robot’s range of motion, the production can continue without pausing, even if one robot is inoperative. It is also possible to bypass one or two robots and send the products direct to the cargo hold, if further sorting is not required.
Palletising and transportation of the catch to the cargo hold is done in a continuous flow and at a minimum of floor space with a cargo elevator as an integrated part of the palletising machine.
While the handling part of the factory contains many new features, the design of the processing factory is based on Carsoe’s numerous shrimp processing systems. This factory plant is almost identical to the one on Nataarnaq including automatic by-catch separation and shrimp grading, a continuous cooking line as well as four IQF-tunnel freezers, each with a capacity of 25 tonnes per day.
The factory is also designed with a separate line for Japan-grade shrimp with a highly automated flow, including an automatic horizontal plate freezer and a masterpack line.
