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On the 25^th of April, 20128 open lecture "Actual practice of civil vessels design" took place in State Marine Technical University of St. Petersburg.
 
The lecturer was General Director of Marine Engineering Bureau, Sc.Dr., prof. Egorov Gennadiy.
 
The lecture was presented for professorial staff of the university, as well as for Ph.D. students and ordinary students, specialists from yards, design bureaus and research organizations of maritime community of St. Petersburg.
 
The lecture was begun by announcing of important for marine industry event that took place on the 20th of April 2018 at Krasnoe Sormovo Shipyard. The first in the history "super-full" dry cargo vessel with wide abilities of cargo transportation was launched.
 
The lecturer noted that since 2012 52 tankers with the whole-world record for self-propelled vessels block coefficient 0.93 are just constructed, and 2 more ones are launched yet. But RSD59 dry cargo vessel "Pola Makaria" became the first sign. Vessel's flag is Russia, shipping company Pola Rise is a Customer.
 
It is a fact that even few years earlier it was impossible to imagine a mixed river-sea sailing dry cargo vessel with R2 class (voyages around Europe through Biscay Bay and Irish Sea in winter) that on the one hand, meet requirements of all international conventions, and on the other hand fully satisfies to the conditions for work through European part of Russian inland waterways. The vessel is of Volgo-Don Max class with river deadweight 5272 at draught 3.60 m and marine deadweight 7679 t at draught 4.50 m that is characteristic for shallow-water Azov and Caspian ports.
 
Just as it was difficult to imagine conventional vessel of such dimensions with only TWO cargo holds; the second "long" hold is of 77.35 m length, that allows transportation of high cost oversized "project" cargoes (elements of drilling rigs, factories' equipment, etc.). Vessel is likely suitable for general cargo transportation because less bulkheads number leads to less space missing for such cargo placing.
 
But there are removable shifting grain bulkheads that allow to separate cargo hold space and effectively carry dry bulk cargoes as grain.
 
The vessel is fully adapted transportation of widest spectrum of dangerous goods classes (packed and dry bulk cargoes of 1.4S, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.1, 8, 9 classes of IMDG Code and cargoes of category B of IMSBC Code), i.e. Sulphur, Fertilizers, Coal, etc.
 
It is interesting to mark that this 141 m length vessel is of displacement more than 10 thousand tons, but operational speed 10.5 kn is provided by diesel engine of summary power 2400 KW that use low cost heavy fuel oil that is reserved for 20-day voyage. Crew of 11 people is able to provide full control of this vessel with RS automation class AUT1-ICS.
 
Ice 2 category ensures regular year-round sailing in freeing non-Arctic seas (independent sailing in 55 cm rare ice brush at speed of 5 kn and sailing behind ice breaker in the canal through 50 cm cohesive plane ice at speed of 3 kn); it provides sailing not only in southern seas, but also in northwestern Baltic region.
 
Advantages of the RSD59 project in comparison with the best of the previously constructed dry cargo vessels of the Volga-Don Max class of the RSD49 project:
 
• deadweight at draught of 3.60 m is 5272 t (RSD49 has 4507 t), increase is 765 t;
• deadweight at a draught of 4.20 m 6896 tons (RSD49 project - 6021 tons), increased by 875 t;
• deadweight at the maximum draught of 4.53 m is 7679 t (RSD49 has 7143 t at maximum draught of 4.70 m ), increase is 536 t;
• the existence of a long L = 77.35 m hold (RSD49 vessel has L = 52 m cargo hold ) that allows transportation of oversized and heavy cargo; this is relevant for the market of the Caspian region countries;
• the hold's height is increased up to 9000 mm, that is 620 mm bigger than for RSD49 project. Such height allows to load 9'6'' containers ("high cube containers"), 3 ones in single stack;
• removable type hatch covers are installed. Opening and closing of each section is operated with the help of a special frame crane, which is located in the area of the front bulkhead of the residential superstructure;
• movement and controllability are provided by two rudder propeller units (better maneuverability in the narrow waters, more cargo space due to the reduction of size of engine room).
 
Only 10 vessels of this absolutely unique by its abilities project are under the order, but as experience of "super-full" tankers shows, most likely it is only the beginning.
 
The lecturer announced another important event of the river shipping industry. On the 19th of April, 2018 Oka Shipyard launched the fist small-draught ROB20 "double-hull" non-self-propelled oil barge with deadweight 6000 t of class "O" of the "Novaya Belskaya" type. The time comes, when not the river-sea vessels are being built, but river ones with operational draughts 1.20-2.75 m.
 
While designing the hull of ROB20 prj. with overall dimensions of 118 x 22.6 x 3.0 m, computational methods were widely used, which made it possible to "compensate" additional double bottom and double sides; so the carrying capacity is up to 6000 t with a draught 2.75 m. This is definitely a record for inland navigation vessels.
 
The carrying capacity is 4590 tons at draught 2.20 m, and 3560 tons at draught 1.80 m.
 
The lecture noted that such enhanced barge's characteristics, namely 6000 t of cargo while light weight is 880 t provide to announce this project as an unique one.
 
Years ago the world's first oil barges set the same records, they also had a very long and flat hull design with a minimum weight of the hull. In 1885, they were designed and built in Tsaritsyn and Saratov by an outstanding Russian engineer Vladimir Grigorevich Shukhov.
 
Prof. Gennadiy Egorov noted, that for a significant part of country's shipowners of oil tankers of inland navigation, the date of January 1, 2018 means the termination of operation of their existing tankers built during the Soviet era.
 
National Russian requirements in the form of Technical Regulations prohibit transportations by "single-hull" tanker the dangerous goods in river (any ones, including light grades of oil and oil products).
 
The Technical Regulations for Safety of Inland Water transport Objects were approved by the Government of the Russian Federation by the Decree dated August 12, 2010 No. 623 and entered into force on February 23, 2012. According to the provision 108b of Technical Regulations, oil tankers (except the berth-connected ones) with carrying capacity of more than 600 tons, must be provided by double bottom and double sides extending along the entire length and height of the cargo tanks, or cargo tanks must be of independent type. All oil tankers that do not meet the requirements of subparagraph "B" of pointed provision, cannot be operated after December 31, 2017.
 
It should be specially noted the segment of oil small-draught barges intended to work through the Belaya River (transportation of export oil products). These are completely "fresh" barges with double sides and a single thickened bottom of the project 82380, built in 2002-2003 (!!!), that not meet the requirements of the Technical Regulations, and classic single-hull barges of the project P-27 "Belskaya".
 
For example, in 2011 small-draught single-hull barges of the "Belskaya" type in conjunction with epy "Ural" pusher tugs exported 880 thousand tons of oil products through the Belaya River from the Ufa refineries, 550 thousand tons in 2010 navigation, up to 1 million tons in 2012 navigation.
 
In fact, this means that beginning from the 2018 navigation, only 4 barges of 82230 prj. will be operated through the Belaya River, as well as those of the P-27 prj. barges that were significantly modernized by installing the double bottom and sides and increasing the depth (there are two such modernized barges, and four else are going to be modernized during winter repair of 2017-2018). How effective such significant investment is, if the youngest of the barges were built in 1975?
 
In order to handle this cargo traffic, new "double-hull" oil barges are needed; Oka Shipyard started to build them.
 
These barges are intended for transportation of oil with a flash point of 60°C and above; the main cargo is masut through the Belaya River and the Volga River, including reservoirs.
 
Therefore, the class of the Russian River Register is O 2.0.
 
As the tug-pushers are supposed to be the same "Ural" / "Volgar" type ones (at the first stage).
 
For information, old "Belskaya" type barges of the P-27 prj. with river class "P" in the initial single-hull version at draft of 1.80 m take on board 2,960 tons of cargo, and at a maximum draft of 2.60 m - 4590 t.
 
So one may observe an increase in the abilities of new ROB20 barges, both in capacity of transported cargo and in the vessel's class, plus the "double-hull" construction as a basic criterion.
 
In the long term, it is supposed to develop river dry cargo barges on the basis of technical decisions for ROB20 oil barge. These new barges should be light, first of all for grain transportation, with small draught and high loading capacity, namely 5800 t at draught 2.75 m.
 
The lecturer has told to colleagues about today creation of new concepts of civil vessels, having shown concrete examples (railway ferryboats for Vanino - Holmsk and Ust-Luga - Baltiysk lines, cruise passenger vessel) that economic criterion functions dominate over other classical type restrictions.
 
Vessels are a commercial product; they are constructed for private clients which cannot be forced to buy not necessary products.
 
Misunderstanding of this simple thesis is extremely dangerous and leads to very big losses of resources and finances. Nobody has to create vessels without quite real, not "paper" client. Nobody may "play" in shipbuilding.
 
Active debate took place after the lecture; it included discussion about design principles, approaches to design stages, role of the normative documentation about module shipbuilding approaches and innovative decisions, such as perspective vessels' usage of gas fuel and creation of "electro vessels" that are going to use electric batteries.