Mother Ship
Aas Mek’s new vessel has some gaelic inspiration
ONe of the largest and most sophisticated wellboats in the Scottish aquaculture sector is due to enter service this week. Migdale Transport is set to take control of Marsali, which will make the trip across the north sea from a shipyard in Norway to support Cooke Aquaculture Scotland’s salmon farming sites in Orkney and Shetland.
The new vessel will see the company take on 14 new jobs – 12 deck and engineering roles, and two support roles in planning and logistics. Most of the crew on the Marsali will transfer over from sister-ship Migdale.
“The crew of the Migdale has a lot of experience of working Cooke’s fish farms in Orkney and Shetland”, explains Migdale Transport boss Hugh Murray.
“It made sense to transfer them over to the new boat to bring that continuity and knowledge across, but to do that we needed to upgrade some of the crew’s tickets from a 500 gross tonne vessel, to a 3,000 gross tonnes and we’ve upgraded the engineering crew to 3,000kW. Upgrading these tickets has taken up to a year to complete.
The Marsali was constructed by wellboat specialists Aas Mek Verksted in the pretty coastal town of Vestnes in mid-Norway and has been specifically designed to meet welfare requirements for farmed salmon and will be able to carry up to 210 tons of live adult fish.
Aas Mek is one of the oldest and most established yard, they’ve been building wellboats and have been innovating from the earliest days of the aquaculture industry.
“Due to the Covid 19 pandemic some of the crew that brought Marsali over to Scotland have had to go into two weeks’ quarantine in Norway before being allowed onto the vessel to complete more training and to understand the ship’s systems” explains Hugh Murray.
“It’s been a real challenge to get everything in place but we are fortunate that we can get our boat out, as other boats that are being built are being delayed due to a lack of parts and engineers as a result of coronavirus.”
Migdale Transport’s purchase of Marsali doubles the number of wellboats the company owns.
The support sector has been investing heavily in more and more sophisticated vessels to respond to customer demand, particularly in terms of fish health and welfare, and the environment.
Hugh Murray adds: “It was important for us to understand our customer’s needs, and we worked closely with Cooke to design the best vessel for their requirements.
“We specifically designed the vessel to cope with the weather and tidal conditions in Orkney and Shetland. The vessel will have to make several passages past Cape Wrath on the northwesterly-most tip of Scotland where the sea state and weather conditions can be atrocious.
“So we’ve given her a bigger engine and more powerful thrusters than other vessels of this size, and we’ve reduced the glassed area in the wheelhouse.”
It’s not just design changes to cope with the Scottish weather or the bigger capacity that marks Marsali as a special ship.
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We specifically designed the vessel to cope with the weather and tidal conditions in Orkney and Shetland”