A new factory trawler being built for Mag-Sea International Co. Ltd. and Russia’s Tikhrybcom will feature a DeepChill system on board – courtesy of Sunwell and its partner Advanced Preservation Technology (APT) – to achieve optimal preservation for the vessel’s expected hauls of iwashi sardines, Pacific mackerel, herring, and salmon.
Designed by Norway’s Skipsteknisk, the vessel, f/t MAGADAN, will be constructed in Turkey’s Tersan shipyard. The trawler will be equipped to catch up to 350 tons of fish per day, Mag-Sea and Tikhrybcom said in a press release.
“At the peak of the fishing season, a holding capacity of 250 tons is required, as processing will take about 24 hours. The challenge then is to maintain this large quantity of fish at highest quality while in storage. This becomes even harder in summer season when water and fish temperature is about 18 Celsius,” the companies said.
That’s where the DeepChill system comes in, according to the release. The technology, which consists of a homogeneous mix of microscopic round ice crystals suspended in seawater, “can provide the energy required to instantly cool a large volume of fish,” the release stated.
DeepChill is expected to prove especially crucial in the preservation of sensitive fish species like iwashi sardines, which spoil very rapidly due to high omega-3 fatty acid content, the firms said.
“Today, most of iwashi catch is processed into fishmeal. Because the conventional RSW technology could not achieve cooling needed to chill and preserve large volumes of sardine over time. Also, the high flow rate and agitation of RSW damages the skin of this sensitive fish,” they said.
The DeepChill system being prepared for the f/t MAGADAN is the result of a collaboration between Sunwell, APT, Skipsteknisk, Tersan, Mag-Sea, and Tikhrybcom. It is designed, they said, for cooling a high volume of fish in large holding tanks.
“Unlike RSW, DeepChill does not require a high flow of water and does not rely on agitation that damages sensitive fish. Also, this ammonia based DeepChill unit uses less than half the size of refrigeration system in comparison,” Sunwell Technologies President Vladimir Goldstein said.
Skipsteknisk Sales Manager Inge Bertil Straume believes the f/t MAGADAN collaborators are on the cutting edge of fish preservation technology.
“We believe in this jointly developed revolutionary preservation system and hope it would be the next generation of fish preservation technology that will be applied in future project,” Straume said.
The DeepChill system is scheduled to be delivered in July 2021, the companies said.
Photo courtesy of Skipsteknisk
