In the shadow of the giant: watch a video of the Havfarm

“I think it’s difficult to see exactly how large this project is, and the significance of it. This is large in a world scale. It is something no one has ever done before,” says Torgeir Torgesen, NSK Ship design’s project manager for the Havfarm.

“That it is possible to do it here in Hadsel and Harstad is bigger than we can fully comprehend yet.”

21 permits

Project Havfarm started in the spring of 2015 and is a collaboration between Nordlaks and NSK Ship Design in Harstad, northern Norway. 

On December 22, 2016, Nordlaks received 10 development permits for the construction of a stationary offshore farm, but after appealing the decision the company received a total of 21 development permits for the construction of two different offshore farms: the stationary model and a dynamic farm. 

Norway’s development permits allow fish farmers to grow more fish to offset costs of developing new ways of farming.

10,000 tonnes of salmon

Havfarm 1 was built in China but is a Norwegian-developed concept. NSK Ship Design AS from Harstad has been responsible for design and system integration and has collaborated all the way with Nordlaks.

The stationary Havfarm is 385 metrrs long, 59.5 metres wide and has a capacity of 10,000 tonnes of salmon. It is located at the Ytre Hadseløya locality in Hadsel municipality in Vesterålen. The farm was recently stocked with smolts, and the operation is in the start-up phase.  

Most important phase

NSK’s Torgesen told Fish Farming Expert’s Norwegian sister site, Kyst.no, that seeing such an advanced and large project being realised and coming to its location after five years of development and engineering was incredibly significant.

“We are very pleased to have been able to contribute to this technology development together with Nordlaks,” said the project manager.

“Although we have had an intense focus on development of the design, definition of regulations in good cooperation with DNV GL, construction and follow-up in collaboration with YCRO (CIMC) in Yantai in China, we only have reached the starting line for the most important phase in this project, namely what happens next now in terms of fish health and biology is what will provide the most important experience from the project.” 

Dynamic concept

The next task for NSK Ship Design will be to work with Havfarm 2 as the next major aquaculture project for exposed localities.

“This is a dynamic concept where the aquaculture installation is mobile and can position itself and move between production areas independently of support vessels,” said Torgesen. 

“It is of course up to Nordlaks when this is contracted, but NSK Ship Design is well on track for contracting whenever it is.”