ELECTRIC winch maker Aker Brattvagg of Sovik, Norway, says it will be promoting its new free standing electrical driven spooler at Nor-Fishing.

"It is a better way to spool wire onto a drum which will result in a longer lifetime for the wire, " according to Jan Kjaerstad of Aker Brattvagg.

"Atlantic Enterprise has just had one installed. If she gets only six more months of use out of her wire, the ship will save a lot of money, " he says.

The spooler is sold as a stand-alone system, which can be integrated with the ship's existing winch system ö either electric or hydraulic.

Aker Brattvagg says that its computercontrolled spooler's setup is easy to change for wire diameter when wire is stretched/worn to get precise turns and layers.

"We are still focused on electric winches for trawling, but our winches are a good solution for pelagic vessels as well, " says Jan Kjaerstad.

"You can take away almost all the hydraulics on a pelagic vessel if you go electric which will free up a lot of space.

"An electric winch system is more compact, has very few moving parts and its controls are easier to use. Its AC motor is almost maintenance free ö bearings have to be changed only after 50,000 to 60,000 hours, " he says.

The company says that, by incorporating frequency control technology, electric winches can have the same finesse as hydraulic winches.

Canada's twin-rig shrimper Atlantic Enterprise has been using electric winches for the last two years in very rough weather conditions off of Newfoundland and Greenland.

"Fishermen are worried that electric winches cannot take water on the deck the way hydraulics can, " says Jan Kjaerstad.

"But if you look at Atlantic Enterprise where she fishes and other vessels with electric winches that operate in the Barents Sea and off Antarctica, you can see that this isn't the case, " he says.

Jan Kjaerstad says that Atlantic Enterprise's owners are very satisfied with her Aker Brattvagg electric winches, with the fuel savings being higher than expected ö around 1 to 1.5 million NOK a year.

"We were aware that there should be fuel savings in towing. What we had not calculated was that, when the winch stops, it stops, " he says.

"But with a hydraulic system the pumps keep up a constant circulation of fluid in the system, so this increased the savings beyond what we had estimated." The triple-rigger Vesttind has four Aker Brattvagg winches; the pelagic trawler Centurion del Atlantico fishing blue whiting in the Southern Ocean has a pair of winches, and all of research ship G.O.

Sars' winches are electric.

These include twin 35 tonne demersal trawl winches, twin 60 tonne pelagic trawl winches, 47 tonne net drum, double two x 11.50 tonne net drum, twin 13 tonne gilsons, a 5.60 tonne net sounder winch and a 10 tonne outhauling winch.

"These electric winches are totally silent in operation and they are always ready. There are no pumps to start: all you do is turn the handle and they're ready, " says Jan Kjaerstad.

"We believe our electric winches are for every fishing vessel in the world."

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Free standing spooling device