Fairfree

Fairfree

Ship data flag Canada United Kingdom   other ship names HMCS Coppercliff HMS Felicity Ship type Mine sweeper (1944–1946) Heckfänger (1946–1957) home port Glasgow Owner Christian Salvesen , Leith Shipyard Redfern Shipbuilders, Toronto Build number 54 Launch January 19, 1944 Commissioning August 10, 1944 Whereabouts Scrapped August 1957

Ship dimensions and crew length 64.19 m ( Lüa ) width 10.70 m Side height 3.66 m measurement 1305 BRT 575 NRT

Machine system machine 1 × Montreal Locomotive Company triple expansion steam engine Machine performance 2,000 PS (1,471 kW) propeller 1 × propeller

Machinery from 1949 machine 2 × Mirrlees, Bickerton & Day twelve-cylinder diesel engines Machine performance 2,500 hp (1,839 kW)

The fishing vessel Fairfree was the world's first commercially used stern catcher .

history

prehistory

An Algerine- class mine sweeper

The ship was built in 1944 by the shipyard Redfern Shipbuilders in Toronto as a Canadian minesweeper HMCS Copper Cliff . The ship was one of the 110 Algerine- class units built and, upon completion, was transferred to the Royal Navy , which put it into service as HMS Felicity .

In 1946, a consortium that had previously operated the experimental stern catcher Oriana acquired the post-war ship for £ 5,000 and shipped it to Fairfield Shipbuilders in Glasgow for conversion . An excess boiler was removed there and sold to a local brewery for £ 3,000. After further removed parts had raised about the rest of the original purchase price, Fairfields converted the mine sweeper into the Fairfree rear catcher according to the plans of the engineer Charles Dennistoun Burney . The new name is said to be due to the Fairfields shipyard and the virtually free acquisition of the mine sweeper.

Use as a fishing ship

In October 1947, the converted ship was put back into service as the Fairfree with the Glaswegian fishing license plate GW19 and the sea trials began. After extensive testing, the shipping company Christian Salvesen from Leith took over the ship in the same month and used it under the fishing number LH217 from the new home port of Granton / Leith and later sporadically from Immingham . In August 1949, the Fairfree received a new drive system consisting of two twelve-cylinder four-stroke diesel engines from the manufacturer Mirrlees, Bickerton & Day from Stockport. Another two years later, Salvesen transferred the Fairfree to the South Georgia Company from Leith, but continued to operate the ship. From September 1951 the Fairfree was launched in Shore, Leith Docks and finally sold in August 1957 for £ 15,000 to the shipbreaker Ship Breaking Industries in Charlestown Fife.

Encouraged by the successful use of the Fairfree , Salvesen commissioned the very first completely new rear catcher Fairtry (1954) and further replicas, Fairtry II (1959) and Fairtry III (1960). As early as 1954, the Howaldtswerke in Kiel began building the rear catcher ( Pushkin series for export to the Soviet Union) and in 1957 the Rickmerswerft supplied the first rear catcher for operation under the German flag, the Heinrich Meins .

Web links

• the Fair Free at grantontrawlers (English)
• the Fairfree at hulltrawler (english)

Individual evidence

1. ^ David Edgerton: The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900 , Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 167.
2. ↑ data at grantontrawlers (English)