According to Significant Ships of 1996
The large deep-sea freezer-factory trawler HELEN MARY has a flush upper deck with a threetiered superstructure covering most of the aft two-thirds of the vessel. A two-man forward navigating console is matched by an operating desk aft with a full view over the working deck and offering remote control of the Brusselle trawl winch. Powered by two 350kW motors, it is fitted with two 51tonne-pull wire drums, two 35tonne net drums, and four 25/33tonne pull auxiliary drums, all fitted with pneumatic couplings and brakes. There is also a Marelec autotrawl system which automatically controls the winch motor to ensure the equal tension in both warps whilst fishing. A 4.4tonnes crane mounted on a gantry over the stern assists the handling of the various nets used for fishing at different depths.
Fish and water are removed from the nets by a Karmoy 1100m3/h fish pump into 12 refrigerated sea water tanks for pre-cooling. After passing through water separators, elevators take the fish to sorting machines, from there to the freezing room equipped with 40 freezers, each with 26 vertical plates. The blocks of frozen fish are then sealed into plastic wrappings and automatically placed in cartons, before being stored in the refrigerated and insulated cargo holds.
A Grenco refrigeration plant is capable of cooling down 660tonnes of fish from 20°C to –2°C in 4hours in the refrigerated seawater tanks, as well as supplying 20tonnes of slurry ice in 24hours, and cooling 30m3 process water from 30°C to –2°C in one hour. Two independent freon R22/brine systems make up the main plant which is driven by four compressors and allows the plate freezers to process 280tonnes of fish/day at –25°C by means of air coolers at the ship side.
Length, oa: 116.70m, Length, bp: 107.83m, Breadth, mld: 17.70m, Depth, mld to the upper deck: 13.05m, Volume of insulated hold: 6903m3 , Deadweight: 6422dwt, Draught: 7.80m, Service speed: 17.65 knots. Main engine output 2x3960kW.