Lotus Shipyard lays keel for second ‘Golden Ring’ type river cruise ship
Narimanov, Astrakhan region based Lotos Shipyard (part of CNRG Group, a division of United Shipbuilding Corp.) on June 21 hosted an official keel-laying ceremony for second in a series of two “Golden Ring” type river cruise ships (Project PKC-180), the shipbuilder said in a media release.
The ceremony was attended by Yury Kazantsev, chief expert of the civil shipbuilding department of USC, Igor Sadovnichy, interim CEO of Lotos Shipyard, Dmitry Galkin, CEO of Gama Group, Victor Lishchuk, general director of Nizhny-Volzhsky branch of Russian River Register, and representatives of the Astrakhan region administration.
Earlier this year, the shipyard laid down first ship of the series. The river cruise ships are being built within the USC leasing program for sea-going and river civil boats. The Customer is Goznak Leasing (also member of USC), the shipowners and operator: Volgaservis LLC and Rechservis LLC (members of Gama Group).
Igor Sadovnichy commented,"Since the first vessel of Project PKS-180 was laid down, our shipyard has performed a great deal of preparatory and organizational work. Today we have started assembling the hull blocks. There are prefabricated 3rd and 5th bottom blocks being assembled on the slipway, the 2nd and 6th blocks are waiting for their turn. Work is underway to fabricate blocks of main deck, bulkheads and wings. We kicked off assembling a forward end of the 1st block. We have also started steel cutting for the second order. I hope, based on the first ship experience the second one construction could progress faster."
Key particulars of the ship: LOA – 81.6 m, BOA – 13.83 m, main diesel-generator capacity - 3 х 315 kW, deepwater cruising speed – 18 km/h, propulsion/steering unit – paddled, propulsion shaft drive - electromechanical.
With a draught of 1.2 and height of 8.6 m passenger ships of Golden Ring design are able to sail safely along shallow rivers and under bridges as well as to approach undeveloped beaches, that will let expand the geography of river cruises both in the European part of Russia and in Siberia/Far East regions.
JSC Shipbuilding Plant "Lotos", one of the largest companies of the Astrakhan Region and the Southern region of Russia, has qualified staff and great technical capabilities, has certificates of the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping, Russian River Register, GL, Rostechnadzor. Lotos shipyard is an anchor resident of the special economic zone “Lotus”.
United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC OJSC) is the largest shipbuilding company in Russia. It was set up in 2007 with 100% federal ownership. The holding comprises 40 companies and organizations (major shipbuilding and shiprepairing companies as well as leading design bureaus). Currently, USC consolidates the bulk of the domestic shipbuilding complex. The Russian market is the main focus of the state corporation though it also exports its products to 20 countries worldwide.
