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Arctic Fishery Alliance to add new ship to its fleet

The Arctic Fishery Alliance (AFA) has purchased a 52-meter longliner from Iceland, which will be joining the AFA’s fleet next year following some upgrades.
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The 52-meter longliner ‘Anna’ will be joining the AFA fleet in 2023 following some upgrades and renamed to Kiviuq 1. Photo courtesy of Arctic Fishery Alliance

The Arctic Fishery Alliance (AFA) has purchased a 52-meter longliner from Iceland, which will be joining the AFA’s fleet next year following some upgrades.

The ‘Anna’, which will be renamed to Kiviuq 1 will be used to harvest Greenland halibut. It has accommodations for 29 crew with 12 two-person cabins and five individual cabins each with its own washrooms.

“This expanded accommodation will enable us to operate the vessel 24 hours per day on a two-shift basis, and most importantly permit us to have a major increase of Inuit harvesters in our crew,” said AFA Executive Chairman Jaypetee Akeeagok, it also offers a much more comfortable working environment compared to their other fishing vessel the Suvak, he added.

The ship was originally built in Norway in 2001 as a freezer longliner for the Antarctic. The planned upgrades include a new onboard factory for processing turbot and an upgraded Mustad automatic longline system.

“We are extremely pleased to finally be able to purchase a modern longliner as we have been trying to achieve this upgrade to our harvesting capacity for three years, but Covid-19 interrupted our plans to purchase another vessel last year,” said AFA president Lootie Toomasie.