Feed barge heads to Spain from Polish shipyard
A 450 tonne-capacity feed barge has begun the long journey to the east coast of Spain after its completion at the Stal Complex shipyard in Poland.
The Nova 450 barge is being towed to the Campello North site, 22km north east of the port of Alicante, which is operated by Mediterranean fish farmer Andromeda Group.
The group has sites in Greece and Spain and produces around 15,000 tonnes of bream, European sea bass and meagre annually.
Adapted silos
The Scale AQ steel barge is 30 x 18 metres and has a significant wave height (HS) rating of 5.5. As the barge will feed three different types of fish on site, it has a specially adapted silo solution to separate the different types of feed. It is the 80th barge produced at the yard and Scale AQ’s last barge of 2020.
“This is second of two identical barges we have purchased from ScaleAQ,” said Michael O’Malley, Andromeda’s farm operations manager, in a press release.
“The design and high HS make it an ideal feeding solution for our challenging sea conditions on the east coast of Spain. The design came through a severe storm (Gloria) in January 2020 without any structural damage.
“As we farm multiple species per site a high degree of flexibility is required which Scale AQ was able to accommodate, and meet a time sensitive delivery schedule. The project department in ScaleAQ has done a great job in keeping the project on time considering the impact of Covid 19 during this year, plus communication during the building phase was excellent. We look forward to getting the barge moored in its new home.”
