Hornafjördur engineering company Vélsmidjan Foss is busy with an order for anti-roll tanks for two of HB Grandi’s pelagic vessels, Lundey NS-14 and Faxi RE-9. HB Grandi is one of Iceland’s two largest seafood companies and the contracts were signed early in the New Year for the new anti-roll tanks to be fitted as the boats return to port after the capelin season. Vélsmidjan Foss had already supplied an anti-roll tank for freezer trawler Venus HF-519, also part of the HB Grandi fleet.
‘It’s a pleasure to have an order like this from HB Grandi. Anti-roll technology makes a big difference for a fishing vessel, both for the crew’s wellbeing and not least for the whole catch handling and production process. This is certainly applicable to the pelagic vessels that catching increasingly to land fish to be frozen ashore for for human consumption. So it’s important to ensure that quality is maintained by minimising any movement of the catch in the tanks,’ said Vélsmidjan Foss’s managing director Ari Jónsson.
The anti-roll tanks are located at the aft end of the foredeck of each ship, and each anti-roll tank is fitted with a system of valves and a Stability Watch management system, developed by Verkís, which manages the tanks’ activity.
‘The tanks are put together here on our workshop floor, after which there’s the job of fitting them on board the vessels. We’re pleased to have landed this order and looking forward to seeing what effect they have on the these vessels’ seakeeping,’ Ari Jónsson said.
In co-operation with naval architect Stefán Gudgeirsson and engineering consultant Verkís, Vélsmidjan Foss has established a new company, Rolling ehf, to handle the production and sales of its anti-roll tanks and equipment. As well as having sold anti-roll equipment to Icelandic vessels, a system has also been sold to a customer in Australia and Ari Jónsson said that the sale to the other side of the world demonstrates just how far the company has come in developing and constructing effective anti-roll technology for fishing vessels.
‘The tanks we manufacture are active tanks,’ Ari Jónsson explained. ‘They work in such a way that a volume of water is pumped into them, depending on the vessel’s loading condition. The system’s computer senses the vessel’s movement and sends the information to the management system. This processes the data and sends commands to the the hydraulics to open and close valves to slow the movement of water in the tanks, which effectively dampens the ship’s motion.’
Contact Foss via ari@fossehf.is
