23 March 2022 – Westcon Ølen orders seawater coolers from Hydroniq Coolers for a newbuild trawler the shipyard is constructing for Norwegian seafood company Bluewild.
This is the first fishing vessel that is built with Ulstein Design & Solutions’ characteristic X-Bow design.
Ålesund-based Hydroniq Coolers will deliver three of the company’s Pleat seawater coolers to the vessel. Two of the coolers will be used for central cooling of the vessel’s main engine room, while the third will provide cooling to other auxiliary systems.
The Pleat coolers are different from standard plate heat exchangers. The central coolers consist of six elements per cooler, which can be easily opened and cleaned by the vessel crew when at sea. One Pleat cooling element corresponds to approximately 15 plates in a conventional plate heat exchanger. Maintenance time and cost (time consumption and seals) is thus typically reduced by up to 90 percent.
“There is limited space on board most fishing vessels. Our Pleat has been designed with this in mind. Low energy consumption, long service intervals and easy to maintain,” says Magnar Kvalheim, sales manager at Hydroniq Coolers.
The patented Pleat is a module-based titanium cooler, with 6 bar design pressure.
The trawler that Westcon Ølen is building will be 73.2 metres long with a storage capacity of 2,000 cubic metres. The vessel can accommodate a crew of 30. She is newbuild number 41 at Westcon Ølen and has a planned delivery date in 2023.
The fishing vessel is built as a freezer trawler with a live fish factory and on-board processing of fillets and boiled shrimp. It will be equipped with a diesel-electric hybrid power and propulsion system and a large battery pack. Surplus energy from the winches will be stored in the battery pack, and excess heat from the engines will be recovered and applied where necessary on board the ship. In addition, the characteristic X-Bow design from Ulstein Design & Solutions will ensure that fuel consumption is significantly reduced.
Westcon Ølen is constructing the trawler for Bluewild, which is an Ålesund-based seafood company with a total of 90 employees at sea and onshore.
“It is fantastic that an Ålesund-based shipowner orders seawater coolers from another Ålesund-based company. That being said, the energy efficiency and maintenance-friendliness of our Pleat system is much more important to Bluewild than our location,” Magnar Kvalheim adds.
Hydroniq Coolers will manufacture and assemble the equipment at the company’s headquarter in Aalesund, Norway and deliver it to Westcon Ølen during 2022.
Hydroniq Coolers is owned by Norwegian investment company SMV Invest AS.
