The vessels are the Vidir and Norma Mary (formerly the Akureyri) which have been continual big earners for the company over the past 20 years.

The Norma Mary was managed by Samherji's subsidiary business, the Onward Fishing Company, based in Aberdeen and had fishing quota rights in Scottish and Norwegian waters.

She was built in Poland in 1974 and lengthened about 21 years later before being eventually sold to the Onward Fishing Company in 2002. The vessel has been fishing out of Scotland ever since. In her final trip she landed frozen fish products worth over 300 million Icelandic kronas (about £1.9-million sterling).

Like the Norma Mary, the Vidir was built in Poland in the 1970s but spent most of her career fishing from Iceland. She was converted to a freezer trawler in 1991 and modernised in 2002.

Samherji said the decision to lay up the trawlers was partly due to the company's fleet modernisation programme and partly the result of reduced fish quotas. Iceland's cod catch allowance has been slashed by a third in the past 18 months. The Icelandic company's other British operations include Ice Fresh Seafood, a fish processing business in Grimsby and trawler operation, Marr Fishing Vessel Management, based in Hull.

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