Looming large over the quayside in her home port of Killybegs, Atlantic Dawn dwarfs all other vessels in her vicinity. At 144.6 m in length, she is officially the world's biggest trawler. Owned by Kevin McHugh, the vessel cost a staggering £50 million to build. The trawler will not, however, be operating in Irish waters. rather, she is destined for the north-west coast of Africa to work under EU/Third Country agreements.
Launched from the yard of Umoe Sterkoder AS of Kristiansund, Norway, the huge vessel is powered by twin MAK 8M 43 engines, air cooled and turbocharged, coupled to 2 reduction gears.

Her 2 Scana Volda propellers are 4m in diameter on 105cm hubs. Propeller blades are controlled by hydraulics within the hubs. To control all the power there are 4 remote control stations fitted to the bridge while a separate system controls the Brunvoll bow and stern thrusters.

The pelagic factory trawler is capable of employing either trawl or purse seine and is adaptable to catch such divers species as mackerel, horse mackerel, sardinella, pilchards, anchovies, blue whiting, silver smelt and sardines.The catch will be pumped on board and stored in refrigerated holding tanks where the catch will be held at -1 centigrade until the factory can process it. Nets for the vessel have been supplied by the Irish companies of Swan Nets and Gundrys and were custom made while a heavy duty purse seine was made by Nordsjonot AS and is 600 m long by 90 fathoms deep. The 3 full midwater trawls and codends, made by Swan, range from 1250 to 1800m.

The purse seine is hauled amidship on the starboard side and the net is transported by 4 rollers to the net bins aft. Deck machinery was produced by Rapp Hydema who provided the split trawl TWS 35000 winches, each rated at 105 tonne pull.

Atlantic Dawn has a bridge that would do credit to a liner.