Fishing fleet owner buys £40m freezer trawler

Killybegs fisherman Mr Kevin McHugh has ordered what may be the world's largest freezer trawler of its type at a cost of about £40 million.

Mr McHugh's company, Atlantic Dawn Ltd, which already owns the flagship of the £100 million Irish pelagic (midwater) fleet, has placed the order with a Norwegian shipyard, UMOE Sterkoder. The vessel is due for delivery in August 2000.

The new ship will be 142.8 metres or 464 ft long - almost half the length again of his existing leviathan, the £25 million Veronica. It will be able to hold about 7,000 tonnes of frozen fish, with a daily freezing capacity of 300 tonnes. Designed by the Norwegian naval architects, Vik and Sandvik, it will carry a crew of 60 - some of whom will be factory workers.

The vessel is not expected to depend on fish in European waters, but will take on the might of the Dutch and Spanish distant water fleets in areas like the west coast of Africa where the EU has purchased "third country" rights.

The ship will catch mackerel, herring, horse mackerel and blue whiting, for whole freezing.

The Dutch have begun building a 20,000-tonne cold store in Las Palmas in the Canary Islands to handle the catches netted by their supertrawler fleet at a time of rising world demand for fish.

Mr McHugh, who hails from Bullsmouth on Achill island, is regarded as one of Europe's leading pelagic skipper-owners, and his interests include the Bayview Hotel in Killybegs.

His brother, Eamonn, recently took delivery of a £10 million craft, the Antarctic. The move comes at a time when some of Mr McHugh's colleagues are seeking opportunities elsewhere. A consortium of Killybegs skippers, including Mr Martin Howley of Killybegs Fishing Enterprises Ltd, has bought three US fishing vessels of more than 100 ft apiece to land catch in north American ports. The underdeveloped US fleet is unable to keep up with the demands of a domestic market, importing one million tonnes of fish annually to satisfy its own needs.

The bulk of the Irish fleet, engaged in whitefish, received a recent boost with the announcement of a £40 million tax relief/grant aid investment package. The scheme, which is to be administered by Bord Iascaigh Mhara, is geared towards some 27 new vessels and modernisation of existing boats, along with assistance towards purchase of safety equipment.