In the summer the Hydrofoil Design Bureau will launch the vessel

Source: Publishing house ‘Komersant”, dated from February 13, 2017.

Author: Anna Pavlova

R.E.Alexeev’s Hydrofoil design Bureau is finishing the building of the first in modern Russia, high-speed hydrofoil ‘Valdai-45R”. It was announced by the Director for innovative development, marketing and foreign trade of the company, Sergey Korolev. According to him, the headmost sample, made with the support of the Ministry of industry and trade of the Russian Federation, will be launched in the beginning of the summer, after which there will be carried out the plant trials, sea trial and experimental operation on the one of the existing passenger routes in the central part of Russia. Until 2025 CDB plans to build about 20-30 such vessels. “Now, a lot of the fleet is eliminated, while the new vessels are not built for 20 years. That is why, in 2018-2019 there will be acute deficit of high-speed passenger vessels. We are already receiving the requests from the market, but everyone expected the headmost vessel, the work of which can be evaluated from the point of view of technical parameters”, - said Mr. Korolev. In addition to this, the vessel is interesting got the potential customers from central Europe, South-East Asia and Latin America. The price of the headmost sample of “Valdai-45R” is about 80 mln. rubles, while going to the serial building it can be about 68 mln. rubles at stable exchange rates (some imported components used in the building of the vessel).

Let’s remind that the work on the project is being carried out in the framework of the implementation of Federal target program “development of civil maritime transport for 2009-2016”, which includes the design of sea and river high-speed passenger vessels. According to the customer’s idea, “Valdai-45R” with the passenger capacity of 40-45 people will differ from the previously designed hydrofoils by improved economic efficiency of vessel’s building and operation, the level of dynamic characteristics, cruising range and increased overhaul intervals. It was assumed that there will be used the composite materials, based on carbon fiber and fireglass, for the manufacturing of vow foil system and vessel’s hull, while the hull will be made of the aluminum alloy. The vessel’s speed should achieve 60 km/hour, the hull’s length – about 21 m, the hull’s width – about 3.6 m.