New Opportune arrives in Scalloway

WATCH: A Burra partnership has taken delivery of their new fishing boat which arrived in Scalloway at 11am this morning.

Opportune (LK 209) has been completely refitted and overhauled by Macduff Shipyards for skipper Ross Christie and his partners, father Jim Christie and Mark Inkster. The vessel replaces her namesake that was sold to Ireland in August.

Jim’s sister and Ross’s aunt Marjorie Williamson was on hand to christen the net with a bottle of champagne for good luck! Skipper of the first Shetland Opportune Theo Fullerton was also there to welcome the new boat.

Opportune was the last vessel built by Millers of Methill in 2001, named Tranquility, but was fire damaged in harbour when owned by Lunar Fishing. She was subsequently bought by Macduff Shipyards, who had designed her, and the partners decided to go for a £1.3m rebuilt of the vessel rather than pay twice as much for a new boat.

She was chopped aft of the wheelhouse and lengthened by two frames to 24.8m with a square transom instead of the old cruiser stern she had originally. She has also been fitted with two new trawl winches built by the shipyard and two shelterdeck net drums as well as the powered seine-net reels under the deck shelter.

The vessel can switch quickly between trawl and seine-net and will be fishing all around Shetland according to her skipper.

She has new accommodation below the aft deck and has been completely refitted with accommodation, galley and messroom as well as spanking new suite of wheelhouse monitoring, controls and navigation equipment.

Opportune will normally be operated by a crew of seven, presently including several non-shareholder local men, three Filipinos and a Ghanian.