USA: Jensen Maritime to Design One of The Largest Freezer Longliner Fishing Vessels

Jensen Maritime Consultants, a Crowley Maritime company, has been chosen to design one of the world’s largest freezer longliner fishing vessels for Alaska fishing company Alaskan Leader Fisheries LLC. The vessel, Northern Leader, will be constructed by J.M. Martinac Shipbuilding Corporation of Tacoma, Wash.

Once built, this vessel will have one of the largest freezer hold capacities of any longliner vessel. Longline fishing is a commercial fishing technique. It uses a long line, called the main line, with baited hooks attached at intervals.

Jensen’s design services will include the complete marine-engineering services for the vessel, from the concept design phase all the way through production engineering and 3-D modeling.

“Jensen is very pleased to bring its more than 50 years of naval architecture and marine engineering services to Alaskan Leader Fisheries and their new longliner project,” said Johan Sperling, company vice president. “Jensen’s heritage lays in the fishing industry and it continues to remain a very important part of our business. But the real strength of Jensen lies in the diversity of the product offerings. Our experience is allowing us to inject new technologies into this industry that were developed for the workboat industries – most importantly, the new propulsion package being delivered on the Northern Leader.”

The Northern Leader will be 184′ X 42′ X 18.75′ in size and will be used to support the longline fisheries of the North Pacific, Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands. The innovative vessel design will allow for full utilization of all targeted fish species using equipment that has minimal environmental impact on the ocean’s ecosystem, while maintaining the lightest operational fossil fuel footprint possible.

The vessel will be designed with more than 38,000 cubic feet of freezer hold, representing a frozen production capacity of 1,867,000 pounds, and will be capable of fishing 76,800 hooks per day using a Mustad Autoline Super Baiter (Norway). Daily freezing capacity will be a maximum of 153,000 pounds per day of H&G production. Fuel capacity of the vessel will be approximately 136,000 gallons.

The Northern Leader will be designed to be fully diesel-electric. Its propulsion will be powered by (2) Schottel Z-Drive rudder propellers, type SRP1012FP (1,000 kW each) and (1) Schottel tunnel thruster type STT170FP (300 kW). The diesel generating system will be provided by NC Power Systems of Seattle and will consist of (4) Caterpillar C32 gensets rated at 715 kW each, (2) Caterpillar C18 gensets rated at 425 kW each, and (1) Caterpillar C9 genset rated at 238 kW.

The vessel will be ABS classed for the Maltese Cross, A1 Fishing Vessel with AMS. Total international tonnage is estimated at 1800 ITC.

“The full services we are able to provide has been enhanced by our association with Crowley, which acquired Jensen in 2008,” said Sperling. “Crowley has provided a foundation that has allowed Jensen to grow and become a recognized full-service naval architecture firm, providing sophisticated, state of the art engineering solutions for all of their clients, including Alaskan Leader Fisheries.”

The delivery date for the Northern Leader is late April, 2013, and it will be homeported in Kodiak, Alaska.

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Shipbuilding Tribune Staff, February 15, 2012; Image: jensenmaritime