Historic moment for Namsov

A mid-water trawler of over 4000 tonnes was lifted clear of the water in NamPort’s new dry dock, a  first for Namibia and its fishing industry on Monday, this week. In what has been described as a historic day in the existence of Namsov Fishing Enterprises and Namdock, the MFV Sunfish rose from the water after six hours of pumping to the dry dock.
This specific dry-dock operation was not possible previously, because of inadequate lifting for a vessel of this size. With the introduction of Namdock II this service is now available in Walvis Bay.
Namsov became Namdock’s very first customer to use the improved dry-dock facility, this week. The MFV Sunfish is a horse mackerel trawler. It was built in 1992 and has an overall length of 104.5 metres, a gross tonnage of 4407 with a total crew of 94.
“Namsov is eager to support local business and ventures of this nature whenever available and suitable. The docking process was a lengthy operation that took about six hours to complete and have the vessel safely on her blocks,” the company said in a statement.
Namdock is a joint venture between the ship repair company, Elgin Brown & Hamer (EBH) Namibia and the Namibian Ports Authority, (NamPort).
Namdock comprises a concrete pontoon flanked by two steel walls and has the capacity to lift vessels of up to 160 metres long and 23,5 metres wide, with a weight of up to 8500 tonnes.
“EBH Namibia believes they can build on their successes and experiences of the past and are ideally positioned to deliver a valuable final product to Namsov on the Sunfish repair project. The project as a whole would facilitate technical and organisational skills transfer from within the two Namibian organisations to the benefit of the Namibian people and EBH is looking forward to a continuous mutual beneficial long term relationship with Namsov,” Namsov said.