(NORWAY, 10/27/2023)
After nearly thirty years of experience in the fish farming industry, Alex Vassbotten had developed promising ideas on how to simplify the challenging, daily tasks that occur at a salmon and trout farm. Alex is owner and CEO of Steinvik Fiskefarm AS, a family-owned company in Norway with an annual production of 10,000 MT of fish. Combined with the Mundal Group’s expertise, specialists on design and development of innovative composite vessels, Alex’s ideas were realized through the establishment of HAVsterk AS.
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| Havsterk’s feed barges are made of the sturdy material composite, cannot sink and are equipped with ensilage tanks for storage of dead fish. |
Today, HAVsterk offers customized innovations for handling dead fish and ensilage. The company's products enable you to dispose of dead fish in a much easier way than current methods, and can more effectively hinder spreading of diseases. HAVsterk's service vessels and dead fish barges are equipped with a crane, mixer and grinder and an automatic system for adding formic acid. Additionally, HAVsterk's ’s products are made of composite – a strong material which is more environmentally friendly and requires less maintenance than traditional materials.
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| Alex Vassbotten. |
Composite was first developed for use in the aviation and aerospace industries with the aim of developing a material in which could give increased performance. Driving this development was the fact that no homogenous construction materials available at the time encompassed all the sought-after properties for their intended purposes. Composite is currently used in many industries, for instance, boat and shipbuilding, maritime, offshore, construction, military and the car industry. Common for these industries is that corrosion resistance, longevity, low weight, and freedom of design are important.
Composite has many advantages compared to traditional materials such as aluminum, concrete and steel:
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High mechanical strength
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Low weight
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Corrosion resistance to salt and frost
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Great design possibilitiesVersatile material combinations
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| Havsterk’s ensilage barges lead to easy, hygienic and efficient handling of dead fish in close proximity to the net pens. |
All of which lead to noticeably reduced maintenance costs. Composite is an environmentally friendly alternative to other materials, as demonstrated by a study comparing the composite bridge in Fredrikstad, Norway with bridges made of concrete and steel. The bridge made of composite weighed 40% lower than steel and 30% lower than concrete, and had the lowest accumulated energy content and CO2 footprint.
Vacuum Infusion Process and PuraCoat make HAVsterk’s composite even stronger. Vacuum Infusion Process, or VIP, is a technique used to mold composite, giving it lower weight and more strength. This technique utilizes vacuum pressure to drive resin into the laminate. The benefits of using this method is that one can take better advantage of the fiber-to-resin ratio because one prevents the resin from becoming redundant, and it creates less mess and time saved in the process.
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| Due to their light materials (composite-sandwich), it is easy to tow the barges to anywhere you please and they are unsinkable despite of adverse weather. |
PuraCoat is a fire retardant, wear and chemical-resistant, homogenous coating, which is sprayed on the hull of the HAVtruck with a thickness of 3-5 mm. This technique has been used offshore for many decades on equipment exposed to powerful mechanical stresses, such as hits and rough use on the ocean floor.
About HAVsterk
HAVsterk AS is a pioneering innovator and supplier of service boats, feed and dead fish fleets that can effectively handle dead fish in the fish farming industry. As the name suggests, Havsterk's products have been developed with special consideration for the environment, hygiene, strength and durability.
HAVsterk's headquarters are located at 387 Radøyvegen, Sæbøvågen, Hordaland, 5938, Norwa and it has 25 employees.
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