Marine / 60 North Fishing director welcomes arrival of new Prolific
THE NEW 25-metre Prolific arrived in Lerwick late last night (Thursday), much to owner Mark Anderson’s relief.
She is the sister ship of the new Copious LK985, which arrived in the isles at the end of January.
Both vessels belong to 60 North Fishing (Shetland) and replace two of the company’s previous vessels with the same names.
Reflecting on the successful completion of the second new vessel for the company, Anderson told Shetland News that it all had been a “very stressful” experience.
“Both of the boats were nine months late, each of them, in being delivered,” Anderson said.
“We sold the previous boats, first one in April last year and the second one in the end of June… so it’s been a long time coming.”
Built at the Croatian Tehnomont shipyard both vessels are fitted with a 588kw engine and have been designed to be more eco-friendly and as such more economical.
Arrival of the new Copious the ‘ultimate expression of confidence’
“There have been a lot of things like Covid and the Ukrainian war, it’s had a lot of knock-on effects [on production] … it’s just been a bit of a struggle.
“It’s all done now anyway… both of the boats are here and we probably have a couple of weeks work to do on this boat, to get her really ready for sea.”
Anderson said he thinks it’s important for the fishing industry to innovate and “keep on moving forward”.
He said: “I’ve seen folk that haven’t pushed forward, and it doesn’t work.
“If you don’t keep on going forward, you end up instead of sitting still, you actually go astern.”
With both of Anderson’s sons working for the company, he is keen to build a future for them.
“With [my sons] Jake and Nicol working with us, and [my daughter] Rachel’s partner Tighe working with us… there is every reason to be building new boats,” he said.
“Hopefully, when I retire – I’ll surely retire some day! – it will be a good platform for them to go to sea on.”
He says whilst the old vessels were “brilliant boats”, the new models will be “a step forward” in terms of safety.
“There’s a big push on safety… a bigger boat tends to be a slightly safer platform as a peerier boat.
“I shouldn’t be trying to diss our old boats in any way, shape or form… they did really well for us.”
Upgrades on the vessel include a new cooling system, but it is not up and running quite yet.
“It was the first of its kind,” Anderson said. “The company that made the tank hadn’t made them before.
“There’s a design issue with it, but they’re doing their bit, they’re trying to sort it out. They’re going to remanufacture a bit of it and hopefully it’ll work fine.”
The skipper and company owner remains positive that everything will be ready in two weeks’ time.
“We tried to put as much into the boat as possible, as far as equipment was [concerned to] just produce a good product.
“We have a pretty good name for ourselves for landing fish with the old boats and I would like to think that we could improve on that as well – why not?”
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