Whether fishing for herring, mackerel, blue whiting, or capelin — backed by specialized knowledge on operations and markets, flexible processing at sea gives pelagic flagship an edge in the face of limited catch quotas.
2009 was a tumultuous year for Christian í Grótinum when the Klaksvík-based family business took delivery of the Norðborg, the most sophisticated pelagic fishing vessel of its kind anywhere in the world.
One year on, veteran skipper Kristian Martin Rasmussen said he was pleased with progress to date; since the new ship had sailed after Whitsun last year she had landed catches worth 100 million dkk already at year-end.
“The new Norðborg has provided us with highly flexible production and while it has been very successful, it has been a sharp learning process,” Mr. Rasmussen said.
The previous Norðborg played an important role in this development. That vessel had been a pioneer pelagic processor and over the years had been stretched and extended more than once — and the cost of yet another refit prompted Mr. Rasmussen and his sons to explore possibilities for a newbuilding.
“The experience with the old Norðborg was central to what we are doing now,” he said. “With the complex vessel we have now, all this would have been too much to learn from scratch.”
With licenses to fish on herring, mackerel, capelin and blue whiting across a variety of areas and seasons, the flexibility of the Norðborg compared to a conventional vessel becomes apparent with the list of options available.
One decision made during the design of the new Norðborg was to include a fishmeal plant. Although this was theoretically hardly a good financial move, it has proved to have been a wise step. Offal processed from the factory deck into fish meal is exported to Chinese buyers or landed to Havsbrún in Fuglafjørður, which also buys all of Norðborg’s fish oil, said sales manager Pól Huus Sólstein.
“The key to this production is to achieve a complete separation of oil to ensure that the meal is 100% dry,” Mr. Sólstein said.
Saving local jobs: During its seven months of operation in 2009, Norðborg’s reduction plant produced 2,250 tonnes of meal and 1,175 tonnes of oil and without this capacity, offal would have to be stored in one of the RSW (refrigerated seawater) tanks and landed periodically, limiting range and requiring more frequent landings.
Norðborg’s factory deck can route herring through a variety of processes to produce butterfly fillets or single fillets with or without skin. There are also options for other herring products at sea, including herring chunks for products in brine and deli herring.
Herring, mackerel, and blue whiting can also be produced as headless, eviscerated or whole frozen fish, as required. Capelin is whole frozen on board as selling capelin fresh for roe production is not economically viable.
The prime winter mackerel season is still open to Norðborg as the RSW capacity on board can be used to deliver chilled catches to shore-based processing plants, allowing the ship to operate as a tank vessel with catches sold via the usual at-sea auction system. This is the preferred option, but the opportunities are still there to catch left-over quota during the summer when the fish tend to be softer and have a higher oil yield.
“Much of the business challenges today are in managing the choices available,” said managing director Eyðun Rasmussen.
Norðborg finished last year with catches of 23,200 tonnes of fish that became 14,200 tonnes of finished product — of which the bulk was herring fillets, followed by J-cut herring and mackerel and some whole frozen blue whiting.
2010 started well with a trip on herring followed by a first trip on capelin, generating catch values of 16 million dkk (2.15m eur) with a subsequent trip on blue whiting that was completed in as little as 12 days.
Alongside the Norðborg venture, Christian í Grótinum also purchased four of the pair trawlers that were left from the collapse of Maru Seafood in Klaksvík, which also included the Kósin processing plant. The trawlers were refitted and brought up to standard with Nónhamar and Fjallshamar sold on to Vár in Vestmanna to replace an older pair team there, while Safir and Smaragd are now fishing on saithe.
Meanwhile the Kósin facility was reopened when fishing company JFK purchased it.
“It’s too early to say yet, but saithe fishing could be an option to diversify our business,” Mr. Rasmussen said. “At least we’ve been able to help secure the raw material supply for Kósin.”
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