Lack of certified equipment gums up passenger fleet upgrade - shipowner
The outfitting of newbuilds with new equipment has turned out to be a problem for shipowners and may hinder the upgrade of passenger fleet for the rivers and canals of St. Petersburg, a shipowner told PortNews.
The lack of modern onboard equipment and applications certified by the Russian River Register has delayed the construction of a series of 10 boats (project 75, "Palmyra") to the class "P 1.2" of Russian River Register of passenger capacity of 100 people each, Development Manager of Astra Marine Group Mikhail Rishnyak said in an interview with the PortNews correspondent.
The St. Petersburg-based group of companies is one of the largest carriers in the region, the owner of recreational passenger boats, including high-speed crafts.
Mikhail Rishnyak said that Astra Marine has implemented a program of the recreational boats upgrade in order to improve the quality and safety of services provided by the carrier. As part of the program Peterhof Express (an Astra Marin’s unit) commenced the construction of the first three passenger ships of "Palmyra" project at the facilities of Shlisselburg-based LLC Ladoga Transport Plant. For this purpose, Astra Marine has attracted a bank loan and signed contracts with travel agencies to ensure more passengers for the new vessels during this year’s navigation season. The first three ships are scheduled for commissioning for June this year.
The new P1,2 class ships of this project would replace the popular in St. Petersburg pleasure boats of Fontanka class. The new luxury passenger vessel has a length of 21,5m, beam – 5.6m, draft – 0.7m and accommodations for about 100 people.
In pursuit of safety, quality, reliability, best performance and elegant design the carriers make high demands on the new passenger fleet and on the equipment installed on the vessels.
"Understanding the importance of such a thing as safety of passengers on board, the basic mechanisms - the main engines, steering gear, navigation tools, lights, the firefighting system, etc. are supplied with a certificate of the Russian River Register,” Rishnyak said.
“However, some equipment, intended for installation and satisfying the above criteria in the Russian Federation, is not produced for now and the equipment manufactured abroad has not yet been certified by the Russian River Register."
“The equipment certification procedure at Russian River Register takes a lot of time. For this reason, foreign manufacturers do not tend to take the initiative. In addition, many of them have had international recognition of classification societies, which allows them to successfully sell their products worldwide.”
At the same time the Russian River Register bound by the "Rules" and "Technical Regulations" that have entered into force, does not allow for the installation the equipment not having the appropriate certificate.
"This situation has led not only to stop the procurement of equipment and outfitting of ships, but also raises the question of the possibility in principle of the construction of new vessels of this type to the class of the Russian River Register," said Mikhail Rishnyak.
The Russian shipowners, according to the Astra Marine’s executive are faced with several problems that hinder the development of new shipbuilding in Russia, in particular of passenger fleet.
