At Bristol Wave safety always comes first. Every two years each of our vessels undergoes a full shipyard, including repairs, upgrades, and inspections to ensure every vessel maintains the highest safety standards.
F/V Clipper Endeavor arrives at Maritime Industrial Center in Seattle, WA
The Clipper Endeavor started out 2025 with a departure from Dutch Harbor on January 8th, 2025. The vessel remained in continuous operation through September 20th, 2025, completing a total of eleven trips: seven A Season trips, two B Season trips, and two Sablefish trips. With a crew size of sixteen, the vessel logged a total of 3,464 operating “man” days in 2025. Over this period the Clipper Endeavor produced over 61,000 cases of finished product, for a total of over 2.6 million net pounds of frozen-at-sea fish, including pacific cod, sablefish, and Greenland turbot.
Following a ten-day steam south, the vessel arrived in Seattle at the Maritime Industrial Center on October 2nd. Estimated completion date for all shipyard work is December 22nd, allowing our engineers to get home for the holidays. This shipyard schedule ensures the Clipper Endeavor will be ready in time for the 2026 A Season opening in January and will continue operating safely and efficiently for future seasons.
Safety & Inspections
This shipyard will include a full five-year ACSA inspection. The ACSA program, or Alternative Compliance and Safety Agreement Program, is administered by the United States Coast Guard and is designed to ensure safe operations by focusing on critical safety measures, including watertight integrity, vessel stability, and preventive maintenance on critical systems like the shaft, rudder, and other vital machinery. Eleven tanks will be fully inspected, shutdown procedures will be tested, the high-water alarms will be tested, along with a complete inventory and inspection of all safety gear and lifesaving equipment.
Drydock
On October 20th, the vessel will enter “drydock.” During drydock, the entire vessel is lifted out of the water for an extended period, allowing access to the hull for maintenance. This will include hull cleaning, sandblasting, welding, and other repairs, as well as painting and the installation of new zincs, a sacrificial anode designed to decay at a controlled rate. Zincs prevent corrosion to the hull and other steel by corroding first; replacing them in every shipyard reduces hull corrosion and ensures the steel stays strong for years to come. This year the Clipper Endeavor will get not only a fresh coat of paint both outside and in the factory, but the addition of draft marks on the hull. Draft marks provide a quick visual representation of total load weight, a vital piece of information allowing operators to ensure vessel stability.
Vessel Improvements & Upgrades
For 2026 the Clipper Endeavor will have both auxiliary engines replaced with keel-cooled Cummins Bobtail engines, eliminating the need for traditional heat exchangers and seawater pumps by circulating engine coolant via external tubes mounted to the hull below the waterline. This engine upgrade, referred to as a “re-power,” not only improves efficiency for the vessel, but could be the first step to additional engine upgrades for the rest of the Bristol Wave Seafoods fleet.
Working with local vendor Teknotherm, the Clipper Endeavor’s two Mycom compressors will be rebuilt, bringing them back to like-new specs. The Mycom compressor, used worldwide in industrial refrigeration and freezing applications, compresses ammonia, an industrial refrigerant used for rapid function plate freezers as well as the freezer hold.
Into 2026 A Season
We anticipate the Clipper Endeavor will depart Seattle by January 1st, 2026. The vessel will steam north from Seattle with a full crew of 16, including a captain, mate, chief engineer, cook, and twelve crew members. The vessel should arrive in Dutch Harbor, AK approximately seven days after they depart Seattle, to backload bait and refuel, before departing to the fishing grounds. With a fresh coat of paint and a new, more efficient set of auxiliary engines, we anticipate a safe and productive 2026 for the Clipper Endeavor.