New Steel Fishing Trawler Moves to the Water.  “It’s always amazing when you see a fishing trawler literally being “berthed” from the Starks workshops in Dublin Street” said Wendy Everingham, as the fifth trawler emerged from the workshop on Wednesday October 12^th.

The 16.8metre steel fishing trawler was built just around the corner from the Lyttelton Harbour Information Centre, at the Dublin Street facility for Stark Brothers.  With the road closed for this delicate operation there were loads of on lookers as the trawler emerged slowly but gently from the workshop for its road trip down to the base of number seven wharf.

“The moving of this massive object, weighing in at over 82 tonnes utilised the local resources and skills of Smith Cranes Limited, who lifted the vessel using their 300 tonne mobile crane” said Andrew Stark.  Moving new vessels from Starks Dublin Street workshop is always challenging due to the hillside location.

After moving the trawler to the water, the “A” frame and mast will be fitted, and it will then be moved to the dock wharf where final fit out will continue, through to comprehensive sea trials.  Delivery and launching, including the reveal of the trawlers name, is scheduled for early December 2011.

The 16.8metre fishing trawler was designed and built by Stark Bros Limited of Lyttelton. For each vessel built there is a core team of 4-5 workers working full time, however during the entire building phase most people in the company have a role to play in the construction of the vessel.

This vessel is yet another example of the skills and capabilities from the team at Stark Bros Limited who have served this community so well, for so many years, and from a team who have shown a consistent drive to build very successful fishing trawlers to high specification, with each new vessel building on the success of the previous ones.

The vessel is being built for Ocean Fisheries Limited, an associated company of Stark Bros Limited.  The plan is to add this vessel to the current Ocean Fisheries fleet of Frontier [19metres], Jubilee [16metres] and Nessie J [13metres].

What a great news story for Lyttelton.  Andrew Stark said “It’s generated a lot of positive interest from the local and broader community”.

Technical Detail:

The vessel is similar to the Stark designed and built FV Jubilee which was launched in 2008, it will once again sport a SCANIA DI1259M engine, driving a Hundested Marine Gear CPG-32 9.05:1 gearbox with a Hundested Variable Pitch 1800mm diameter.

This higher gear ratio and larger propeller running in a fixed nozzle should provide this vessel with significant fuel savings over the previous vessels.  The electronics package will also sport the new WASSP system from Electronic Navigation, which the company is convinced will be an excellent additional tool for the skipper to increase catch efficiency.  The Trawl Winches, Net Rollers, and Deck Lifting Equipment are also of Stark Brothers design and construction.