October 4, 2019 — When you see the new fishing vessel Viking Power, you’ll know it.
Due to arrive in New Bedford in early November, the unusual-looking scalloper has a hull that slopes outward at the bow. Just below the water line, it comes to a rounded point, like the nose of rocket.
Fleet Fisheries owner Lars Vinjerud II commissioned the boat. He said the aerodynamic shape serves two goals: to make the boat more fuel efficient, and to make it more comfortable and safer for the crew. The boat should do less pitching in rough seas.
“The waves are supposed to roll up and roll off,” he said.
Vinjerud designed the boat in concert with an Alabama shipyard, Williams Fabrication, which built the boat in Bayou La Batre, Alabama — the same harbor where the fictional Forrest Gump landed shrimp.