Unfortunately the ship was not build for these big catches. The grader and the unfortunate form of the fishold room were the reason that it could only stores 900 boxes. Far too less for these big catches and also not so nice for the current discard regulations. It was time to rebuild the vessel. Because Denmark is missing the expertise for beam trawlers, the jobs Kloster did over there took too much time and were too expensive. This was the reason to do his next job with VCU TCD. A company in Holland that developed itself the last couple of years to a specialist in lots of fishery types, also beam trawling.
The ship arrived in the port of Harlingen on the 29th of February. A team of VCU was ready to take action. One of the biggest challenges was to make the fishold bigger. The auxiliary engine room was quite big so it was possible to move the wall between the fishold and this auxiliary engine room with four frames. The space in the fishold could become even bigger by integrating the fish bins in these wall. This movement causes that every component in the auxiliary engine room had to be demounted. This were pumps compressors, generators, electrical cabinets, and a lot of piping. When the wall was in the right place and completely welded, all the equipment had to be mounted back in a room that was 3 meter smaller than first. It was quite a puzzle and a big challenge, but it was not impossible. The result of this job is a fishold room with a capacity of 1600 boxes.
To process the big catches of plaice and the corresponding discards, it was useful to rebuild the catch processing. Erik and Rene bought a gutting machine which is, together with his current grader, integrated in the catch processing on the processing deck. The existing components that could be reused, were revised. The result of all this is a catch processing installation that is able to gut and grade a lot of plaice in a short time. It is also able to sort and process discards.
VCU TCD was asked to do some more work on the vessel. The starboard derrick is revised and supplied by a new turningpoint. The sumwings, the fishing blocks, the saltwater piping in the engine room and the fuel pumps of the main engine were revised. The ship is also completely painted. With the help of the flexible subcontractors, VCU TCD was able to do this big job in 8 weeks.
The post Rebuilding of fishing vessel L – 510 appeared first on Kystmagasinet.