Macduff Shipyards ave delivered the new Steadfast Hope to John and Zander Nicol of Gardenstown.
Steadfast Hope replaces their previous boat, Flourish, which was built at Macduff in 2001. The new trawler is a sister vessel to the Rebecca FR-143 which the yard delivered recently. Steadfast Hope is the third vessel built by the yard for the same owners in less than sixteen years.
Steadfast Hope has an overall length of 24 metres, a 7.40 metre beam and a depth of 4.20 metres. This twin-rig trawler’s double chine form hull, bulbous bow and transom stern construction are part of the yard’s latest design that incorporates numerous design changes based on CFD research to improve efficiency for both trawling and steaming.
Macduff Profilers, a division of the shipyard, supplied the steel kit for the vessel from cutting information supplied by Macduff Ship Design Limited and the complete vessel was fabricated, engineered and fit out in Macduff.
With the exception of the wheelhouse and masts the entire vessel is built from Lloyds Grade A steel.
Steadfast Hope’s layout has been designed specifically for the owners to meet their requirements. The wheelhouse has been designed at owners request with a bay window type area on the port side, providing excellent visibility over the aft working deck with as a little obstruction as possible.
he fish handling area has also been customised to owners’ desired layout and features a fishing handling system manufactured by Seagate Fabrication Ltd of Peterhead which has a main conveyor running athwartship, immediately aft of the large hopper, with numerous selection bins and washing compartments in front of this which then lead to a short elevator which leads the final product to the hold for weighing and packing.
The fishroom chiller system and the icemaker are supplied by Premier Refrigeration in Fraserburgh.
The main engine is a 600hp-rated Caterpillar C32 ACERT, close coupled to a Masson Marine reversing gearbox with a 9.077:1 reduction, driving a 2500mm propeller designed and supplied by Wärtsilä, turning inside a matching nozzle of new design, also provided by Wärtsilä. The remaining stern gear package was designed in house by the shipyard and produced by Macduff Precision Engineering on CNC machines. Sea trials demonstrated encouraging results with this stern gear package with very smooth and quiet performance in all operating conditions and strong towing performance.
Steering gear is from Scan Steering and the 150hp T700 thruster is from Hardy Engineering.
A 330hp Cummins QSL9 variable speed auxiliary engine is arranged to drive the hydraulic pumps for the deck machinery with a Centa Drive. Emergency hydraulic power is arranged with a pump fitted to a large capacity PTO on the gearbox. Two Beta Marine generators are fitted, each based on a Cummins 6BT5.9D2(M) and Mecc Alte alternator, each with an output of 81.6 kW, 415/3/50.
Cooling for all the engines and the hydraulic system is provided through Blokland box coolers, supplied through European Marine.
Deck equipment was supplied by Macduff, including a Macduff three-drum winch, two split net drums, anchor windlass, one gilson winch and two gear handling winches. The cranes are a Thistle MKB13 Short Post Crane with tilting 24 inch power block head and a Thistle MFB8 discharge crane.
