SWATH pleasure sector opens on a Silver Cloud
Europe’ s latest SWATH vessel, and its first for private pleasure rather than commercial pilot or coastguard operation, arrives in the US late this month after sailing from Germany where it was built.
Silver Cloud
takes the SWATH concept out of the rough-seas pilot transfer and coast guard sector and into the pleasure sector and is said to offer many benefits for non-commercial private owners.
The vessel was handed over in late September and began its maiden voyage on 7 October from the Lemswerder yard to Palm Beach in Florida, where it is due on 23 November. The unidentified American owners said ‘we like the performance, functionality and expedition look’ of the boat, as well as the interior design. They added that the boat was also ‘spacious and comfortable’.
Silver Cloud is 41m long and 17.8m wide, driven by two turbo-charged Caterpillar C32 DITA diesels which combine for 1,640 kW of output to provide a maximum speed of 14 knots. The vessel also has Caterpillar generators and, with a displacement of 600 tons, a range of 3,500 nm.
Designed and finished off at Germanys Abeking & Rasmussen yard, the steel hull and aluminium superstructures were built at Russias Yantar Shipyard in Kaliningrad. There is accommodation for 10.
The newbuilding is modelled on A & Rs 50m long SWATH pilot mother ship Elbe, completed in 2000 on a hull manufactured at Aker Yards in Wismar. A series of smaller 25.65 m versions have since been built as pilot transfer boats for service in German estuaries and for customs authorities in neighbouring Holland.
The yard is currently building five SWATH patrol boats of 25.65m for the Latvian Coast Guard, the first for delivery in 2010. It is also building two 60m pilot mother ships for delivery in September 2009 and about spring 2010 for service in the German Bight and the Jade-Weser Estuary.
By Tom Todd
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