Page 27: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (January 2001)

FSL Secures Major Block Booking From

Hoverspeed

Portsmouth-based Fleet Support Limited (FSL) has reached a milestone in the fast ferry refit market with a block booking for up to five Hoverspeed craft through- out the next few months.

The premiere vessel, Diamant, has already arrived and is set to be followed by the Rapide, which was scheduled for a December delivery. Hoverspeed Great

Britain, Hoverspeed Danmark and the monohull Super

Seacat One will arrive this month; docking periods will encompass up to three weeks.

All the ferries will undergo a variety of work with

FSL prime contracting the program and carrying out the majority of the work, with engineering support from Dover-based Burgess Engineering. The overall package includes aluminum welding, hull surveys, mechanical engineering, structural work and mainte- nance of the water jets.

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RINA Feasibility Study Improves High

Speed Comfort

Italian classification society RINA has concluded that the comfort of passengers on High Speed Craft can be upgraded by onboard seaworthiness management systems. According to a technical and economic feasi- bility study jointly performed by RINA and Italian shipyard Rodriquez Cantieri Navali on an integrated system for real time monitoring of comfort and structural behavior of high-speed craft has shown that the system offers positive benefits.

The feasibility study, which was recently com- pleted, is part of the 5.5 million Monitus R&D project, which commenced on January 1, 2000 and is expected to last 36 months. The Monitus project will jointly be carried out between

Rodriquez Cantieri Navali; Rodriquez Engineer- ing; Registro Italiano Navale; Marin and Ishdtu, is to develop and test field an integrated system for monitoring the structure and seaworthiness of high-speed craft. The onboard system will be able to detect the severity of loads as well as motions and will provide suggestions to the ship's master on how to best optimize the vessel's handling in all sea conditions.

The system is a spin-off of Rodriquez's innovative

SMS — Seaworthiness Management System — which is fitted to most of the company's fast vessels.

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Blount-Barker Shipbuilding Formed port for Bay Queen Cruises, a dinner/excursion line, and the American Canadian Caribbean Line that operates three overnight passenger cruise ships.

In 1952, Luther Blount was approached by Frank

Barry and Gerald O'Driscoll to negotiate the design and construction of a 130-ft., 600-passenger vessel.

Barry's business, Circle Line, was subsequently awarded the National Park Service's contract to handle tourist excursions to the Statute of Liberty.

The Miss Liberty remains in operation today, and has carried more than 60 million passengers from

Manhattan to the Statute of Liberty. This vessel is believed to have carried more total passengers than any other in the world. Blount Industries went on to design and construct a total of seven vessels for the Circle Line Statute of Liberty Ferry.

In 1955, Blount Industries used U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) T-boat regulations and designed "Blount 65" vessels which are just under 65-ft. long. Typi- cally they carry some 250 passengers and can reach 10 knots on about 10 gallons of fuel per hour. This design gained immediate success and various ferry, commuter and excursion operators throughout the world still use these vessels today.

In 1962, Blount designed and built the Narra- gansett, the world's first small stern trawler.

Although Blount garnered three patents from this invention, the design was widely copied by fisher- man without charge. This net/drum technology remains popular worldwide, with virtually every small trawler using this rig design.

Cruise, Ferries, Dinner Vessels

In 1964, Blount expanded the capacity of the shipyard to build the M/V Uncatena, a 150-ft., triple screw passenger/vehicle ferry for the Woods

Hole/Martha's Vineyard/Nantucket route. This popular mini-cruise boat design was eventually extended to 200-ft., and later applied to Blount's

American Canadian Cruise Line. Today this line consists of three larger cruise ships with varied itineraries including the Maine coast, Newfound-

January, 2001 land and Labrador, intra-coastal waterway to Flori- da, eastern and western Caribbean, and the north- ern coast of South America.

Blount expanded its cruise ship fleet in 1998, with a new line of 183-ft., 100-passenger Grande

Class small cruise ships. During the 1980s,

Blount's "Spirit Class" three-deck dinner boats began cruising U.S. harbors such as Baltimore,

Norfolk, Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. These stylized vessels are still in use today, giving 400 to 600 lunch or dinner pas- sengers views of harbors and Broadway-style entertainment. In March 2000, the 600-passenger

M/V Horizon was completed, marking the 20th dinner boat built by Blount and the sixth Blount- constructed dinner boat to operate in New York.

Innovations

Luther H. Blount currently holds 21 U.S. patents.

Technical and production staff has greatly con- tributed to the success of Blount's business over the years. The company has employed various naval architects including Preston Gladding, Fendall

Marbury, Warren Sherburne, Bob Henry, A1 Bates,

Chris Melo, Darren Preston and William Jordan.

By effectively combining its resources, Blount has developed various marine construction techniques and designs. Highlights include: • Three-dimensional lofting, a technique now widely used throughout the industry, eliminates the need for mold loft and allows the builder to follow the designer's exact requirements. • High horsepower stern drive propulsion with whalefin skeg helps increase available payload space. With Blount's stern drive, the engine is turned around and placed well aft over the pro- peller shafting. The shaft is driven by toothed belts. • 400-ton lift dock, designed and patented, accommodates hulls up to 150-feet long. This air controlled, electric-powered lift dock operates with a single lever and is powered by just one 50-horse- power motor.

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Smart Radar Level

Sensor with Generic

RS485 Output

The first flat array antenna for liquid tank gauging.

This software driven array allows for each sensor to remotely configure itself for the type of product as well as the structural characteristics within each tank. It is completely self-diagnostic and is factory calibrated using a laser interferometer to .1mm. It is designed for the harshest environments and can be provided in a high temperature version to 385°F. It is intrinsically safe with Class 1, Div. 1,

Group D & C approvals. As a smart sensor, all processing calculations and software are resident in the device itself, only a high level generic data output, i.e., RS485 (or others on request) is sent to the cargo control area.

Options: • Multiple alarm set-points •Temperature • PV Pressure • I.G. Pressure • Tank Management Software • Automated draft and trim s

Call today for more information!

ELECTRONIC MARINE

SYSTEMS, INC 800 Ferndale Place

Rahway, NJ 07065 732.382.4344 732.388.5111 fax [email protected] e-mail http://www.emsmarcon.com

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