Galician company Grupo Calvo, which was recently the first to launch canned tuna with an MSC label, has signed a contract with the Freire yard in Vigo for a new tuna purse seiner.
The 77 metre tuna seiner will operate in the Atlantic and will have a capacity of around 1500 cubic metres in 18 freezer compartments. The construction period is expected to be 19 months and the contract was signed at Grupo Calvo’s Madrid offices.
‘Building tuna purse seine vessels in the present market is undoubtedly important for Freire, as these are highly sophisticated vessels where coordination and quality capacity are key aspects to successfully accomplishing these projects,’ commented Marcos and Guillermo Freire, managing directors of the family-owned Freire Shipyard.
‘We are very proud to have achieved this contract for such an important international company as Calvo, which is also of Galician origin, and with whom we have had a business relationship for more than 40 years.’
The yard has many years of experience in the construction and repair of tuna vessels for national and international shipowners as well as trawlers equipped with state-of-the-art technology such as the recently delivered Markus for Greenlandic owners.
‘Calvo Group, which currently manages 12 vessels, has relied on Freire’s capacity to increase the efficiency, productivity and comfort of their new fleet,’ the company said.
Freire Shipyard is located in the North-West of Spain and was founded in 1895. Four generations later, the Freire family are still the only shareholders of the company.
The construction of steel vessels began in the early 1960s, and since then Freire has built over 280 vessels in steel for more than 25 countries. The shipyard is currently devoted to building sophisticated steel vessels up to 155 meters of length and has a worldwide reputation.
