Macduff completes Shetland contract
Macduff Shipyards has recently signed over their latest new build catamaran, Lily Mae, to Scottish Sea Farms’ Shetland Division.
Designed to be a general purpose workboat within the aquaculture industry, Lily Mae recently completed trials in the Moray Firth and has now been sailed back to its home port.
Ahead of the delivery to Shetland, Graham Smith, Regional Production Manager for Scottish Sea Farms, told Fish Farming Expert: "The design was a joint collaboration approach between SSF staff - Engineering Manager Keith Fraser and site manager Robbie Coutts - working closely with MacDuff shipyards. The objective was to design a vessel that optimising deck space, and enough lifting capability to handle larger nets. Crew comfort was also a consideration, so we managed to create a really nice spacious wheelhouse area."
"The vessel will be used in the Scalloway area as a general site service vessel, mainly focusing on net cleaning, net changing and general site duties," he added.
Above desk, the vessel is arranged with the wheelhouse and raised deck forward and a large open deck aft. Below deck, the hulls are sub-divided with an aft peak containing the steering gear, engine rooms in the centre and a forward peak. The wheelhouse has been fitted to the yard’s typical high standard and is laid out with a helmsman station on the starboard side and a galley/mess area to the port side.
With a length of 14m, beam of 6.2m and a depth of 2.1m the vessel exhibits great stability and has a working deck of 60m2 and is capable of carrying 20 tonnes.
A Palfinger PK18500(M)B deck crane is fitted, which is capable of hoisting 1600kg at 10.1m reach, along with two separate Rapp Marine capstans with a pull of 5t and 1.5t. Operations are based primarily over the starboard side and transom where there are removable railings which fit into flush mounted stainless steel sockets. A large HDPE panel is fitted along the starboard side of the vessel in the region that contacts and rubs against the salmon cages to provide extra durability.
The propulsion package consists of two Iveco N67 engines, with a power of 260hp each, driving 965mm diameter open propellers through PRM 4:1 reduction gearboxes. In trials the vessel achieved an average top speed of 10 knots.
