"Akamalik" "One of the world's most high tech trawlers" "She catches shrimp and packs them" "In her onboard factory" "No matter how nasty the weather" "Her crew is as tough as nails" "They fish some of the most treacherous waters on earth" "The payoffs can be huge but it takes skill, luck and most of all a ship they can trust" "The port of Sisimiut on the south west coast of Greenland home to one of the world's most impressive fishing trawlers." "Akamalik" "This 85 meter state-of-the-art ship is the star of the Royal Greenland company." "She is no mere fishing boat" "Akamalik's a powerful ice breaker and a super efficient floating factory." "But her main job is to catch as many shrimp as she can hold." "Akamalik's just pulled into port to unload 220 tons of them." "Sweet reward for a treacherous journey through the ice choked Davis Strait." "A mission captain Linjohn Christiansen is confident to take on with a ship like Akamalik." "When Akamalik come home with a belly full of booty it's great news for the locals." "Their economy depends on prawns." "Before she heads back out to sea" "Akamalik needs fuel." "and a fresh load of salt for her processing plant." "And her crew of 26 needs to stock up on food." "Lots of it." "Akamalik should return top port in a couple of weeks." "but there's no guarantee." "So chef Peter Peterson has ordered enough food from Denmark and Greenland to last two months." "Akamalik's crew is a mix of Innuit fishers from Greenland and officers from Denmark's Faroe islands." "The size of everyone's paycheck depends on the size of their catch." "An incentive to take big risks fishing in sub-zero seas that could kill them." "Akamalik's crew know that when they head out to sea it's not just their own fortunes at stake all of Greenland is counting on them." "Almost all of Greenland's exports are fish." "More than half those fish are prawns." "Akamalik's owner, the Royal Greenland Company does most of the catching and selling." "and is the island's biggest employer." "This is the latest chapter in Sisimut's history" "It goes back 4500 years when the Innuit first settled here." "The Greenlanders on Akamalik's crew come from countless generations whose imprints are all over the landscape." "The old portal made of whale bones" "The modern fish processing plant down on the pier." "And the Danish Blue church." "where grieving family mourn the loss of strong men who work the sea." "In a place where there are no roads and isolation is a fact of life its the tough and the brave who survive." "Akamalik is all stocked up and read for her next mission." "Her crew expects a nasty journey." "In the dead of the Arctic winter temperatures of -30 Celsius are a daily reality." "along with icebergs, suddens storms and blinding fog." "Akamalik will brave those seas for upto 3 weeks." "It will take the better part of the day to reach the shrimping grounds and everyone has a job to do along the way." "The trawl crew keeps busy mending nets." "Akamalik carries 3 nets." "Two to fish with and one is a reserve." "Each net weighs 1 ton and costs almost $200,000" "But that money is made back quickly." "A full net hauls in shrimp worth almost $45,000." "Well worth a little knitting." "Down in the engine room chief engineer *** Johansen keeps a close watch on Akamalik's guages." "As she approaches open water." "Akamalik's 6,660 horsepower engine can push her to 14 knots." "and she has a range of 16,000 kms." "Far enough to head all the way south to the Bahamas." "But ofcourse, that's not where they're going." "The traditional shrimping areas lie off Greenland's west and Southwest coast." "Some hidden deep under the ice." "And thats exactly where captain Christensen is headed." "He'll use modern technology like sonar's and echo sounders to help him." "but mostly he'll draw on 20 years of experience fishing these waters." "The pressure's on to find the shrimp and fill the hold." "If the captain is wrong it will set Akamalik and her crew back before they've even begun." "Akamalik's Arctic mission is underway." "The hi-tech factory trawler has left the Greenland's port of Sisimut in search of shrimp in the ice clogged sea." "She is custom build for a dangerous job." "Her hull is encased in 30mm of steel." "So she can break through ice fields upto a meter thick." "Her bow thrusting onto the pack until her weight crushes the ice beneath." "At the back of the ship, the crew examines the trawl doors." "Each of these 7 ton steel monsters must be in perfect working order." "They hold Akamalik's nets open like giant windsocks so the prawns can flow in." "They're not really door at all." "Anchored in the middle by an 8 and a half ton rockhopper the trawl doors use water currents to stretch the nets out 70m off each side of the ship." "The trawl doors are connected to the ship's winch cables with giant shackles." "The crew is replacing them because they're worn out." "If the shackles snapped the trawl doors would sink in no time." "taking the nets and the catch with them." "Its only 3 in the afternoon but it's already getting dark." "Chief mate Michael *** has released the captain at the helm." "There's ice everywhere." "Any lapse in concentration could result in disaster." "Most icebergs break off the east coast of Greenland's ancient ice sheet." "But ocean currents carry them northwest." "hitting Akamalik directly in their path." "Its not a test Michael is eager to take." "Akamalik is tough but like great ships before her, she is not invincible." "Before the Titanic went down ships didn't monitor icebergs." "Nowadays they show up on the radar as smaller red dots." "By the dark hours of the next morning captain Christensen is ready to use every hi-tech advancement on the bridge to chase the shrimp." "The captain relies on Sonars and Echo sounders to zero in on the depths and geography that attract Arctic shrimp" "They usually live between a 150 and 500m down." "near underwater banks and ridges." "But not a single instrument can tell them where to find the shrimp." "For that the crew depends on their captain and his 2 decades of experience." "The rising sun brings a new challenge." "Ice fog." "The result of -33 degree air meeting -2 degree water." "But despite the fog" "Captain Christensen has found the underwater ridge he was looking for." "130 kms northwest of Sisimut." "He's fished here before." "and hauled in big catches." "Akamalik's technology and the captain's knowledge have gotten them this far." "From hereon he and his crew are at the mercy of luck and chance." "Down on the trawl deck the four man crew readies for the dangerous job of sending a pair of nets out into the Arctic waters." "Meanwhile on the bridge the captain slows the ship from 14 knots to only 2 just enough to keep the heavy nets from dragging her backwards." "There are trawl eye sensors to the nets." "The trawl eye will give critical information about how many shrimp are entering the mouth of the net and how much clearance it has from the ocean floor." "Meanwhile on the bridge the captain controls the massive winches that move the cables." "He watches over the crew carefully excangeing critical information and direction" "Ice fog, frost bite and hypothermia are all common problems but right now there are far more dangerous concerns." "The winch cables strain under the tension created by the 1 ton nets" "If the cable snaps and whips across the deck it can injure or kill anyone in its path." "If *Mars*, *Gulling* or any of these fishermen were to slip overboard into the sub-zero water he would be unconscious in less than 15 minutes dead in 45." "Get caught in one of the numerous ropes, weights and mesh being dragged along the deck and you would drown almost immediately." "Finally the nets are cabled up to the trawl doors and the doors are dropped into the sea." "The nets sink down to a mere meter off the bottom." "And Akamalik moves into her trawling speed of 5 knots." "The crew is depending on captain Christensen to catch the shrimp." "Here in the ice, trawling is a costly venture." "Akamalik's engine has to work harder." "burning almost twice as much fuel as in open water." "Every dollar they earn from the haul must be balance against the steep cost or fuel." "It costs $27,000 a day to keep her running." "So it's not enough to catch a lot of shrimp the captain is also looking for those that fetch the best price." "And all this in some of the most treacherous waters on the planet." "Day 2 of Akamalik's shrimping expedition 130 kms off Greenland's west coast the factory trawler has lowered her nets for the first time." "They've been out for 6 hours now and the crew waits eagerly for a sign that they are filling up." "Down below factory chief Samuel Jacob Samuelsen is ready to fire up the onboard processing plant." "The more time that passes, the more anxious the crew." "Everyone on board gets a base salary but no shrimp means no bonus." "With the shrimp slow in coming the crew looks to captain Christensen for answers." "Onboard, his crew calls him *Nalagac* the Greenlandic word for "God"." "Or the almighty leader and captain" "Any explanation in why the nets are slow in filling up is pure speculation." "But the sensors on Akamalik's nets gives the captain a clear picture of whats in them and where they sit in the fathoms below." "The headlines has echo sounders to help guide them along the ocean bottom." "the belly and the ** where the shrimp are trapped have tension sensors that stretch as the net fills up." "A monitor on the bridge shows a red line as the net stretches." "Finally after 8 hours 2 red lines indicate 4 and a half tons of shrimp in each net." "The captain decides its time to haul them up." "His crew is relieved but now the really dangerous work begins." "Five meter swells send sub-zero water rushing onto the deck." "creating a slippery slope." "The trawl doors and the rockhopper are hauled in." "The crew wraps ropes around the nets and shackles them to the cables above." "Then the captain engages the ships powerful gills and winches to haul them it." "a little bit at a time." "9 tons of shrimp come pouring out the nets." "They're dumped into buffer tanks full of sea water to keep them fresh and unbruised." "It's time to fire up the factory." "Conveyor belts carry prawns through the bi-catch separator." "The prawns slide down and any other fish are pushed up and flushed back out to sea." "From there, factory workers remove stones and other foreign bodies by hand." "Akamalik's factory contains more than a kilometer of conveyor belt." "Almost 15 times the length of the ship." "At full speed, it could process a whopping 80 tons of shrimp a day." "Factory chief Samuelsen sizes up the catch." "Those big prawns will fetch two or three times more than the smaller ones." "The prawns are sorted by size." "Smaller ones drop through the narrow slots at the top" "The largest like those bound for the Japanese market slide down through the larger openings at the end of the sorter." "Still raw, they go to weighing and packaging tables." "The boxes are stamped, labeled and glued shut." "They then go to a press freezer where they stay for 3 hours." "until the shrimps core temperature reaches" "18 celcius" "The boxes are removed from the freezer packed into cartons that are closed with strapex band" "It's a super efficient process." "And it all takes place in the belly of an ice breaker at sea north of the Arctic circle only minutes after the shrimp are hauled out of the water." "After a slow start things are looking up for Akamalik and her crew." "But the expedition is far from over." "They will stay at sea until her hold is filled with more than 400 tons of shrimp." "But right now the crew is thinking about another kind of food." "Akamalik is a 24x7 operation" "Crew changes are scheduled around the 3 meals and the midnight snack prepared each day by chef Peter Petersen." "He knows what the crew is looking for." "And its not sea food." "They want meat." "Chef Peterson is the only one who sees every crew member everyday." "Whatever's on their minds he is happy to listen." "A family that pulls together when the going gets tough." "Akamalik is heading into more ice." "And now the ocean's rocky bottom is also a threat." "On the bridge, chief mate Michael *** is navigating Akamalik through seas that could shred her nets at any moment." "40 kms off the west coast of Greenland" "Akamalik's nets are out but she is fishing in tough waters." "Chief mate Michael ** is worried about the nets tearing on the bottom." "to keep the nets intact he reads the contours of the ocean floor using a trawl eye sensor that sits on top of the net." "It sends an echo down measuring the variations in depth." "In rocky waters that echo shows up on the monitors as a jagged line." "The key is constantly adjust the depth of the net" "Riding the peaks and avoiding the valleys." "Michael rides that line for the better part of 6 hours then he sees a bad sign." "All his efforts may have been for nothing." "There's a massive break in the line of the trawl eye sensor." "It looks like one of the nets might be torn." "Its a situation that calls for desperate measures." "Even a small tear in the net could grow quickly into a gaping hole resulting in lost shrimp, lost revenue and wasted time." "Pulling up the net now with Akamalik approaching the ice is high risk." "If the nets not already torn it might just snag at the surface." "Each of Akamalik's nets is worth almost $200,000." "but everyone onboard knows that the catch that might slip though a torn net is far more valuable" "The trawl crew rushes to haul the net up." "and everyone keeps a close eye out for potential snags." "Trawl master Isaac Nielsen checks carefully for damage."