Ganges water taxi

Dude !! have you ever ventured any further than your front gate and seen what floats in the water near Asian rivers and streams . everything you can think of including the odd body or two maybe . How long do you think foils would last after hitting a semi submerged Log or what ever .Even jets get a hard time with all the plastic bags, bottles, cloths and flotsum so have to have really quick clean trap doors and grills etc etc to clean and go again .

 

Those second &third gen citycats look the ants pants, so operating in displacement boat doesnt plane at all, Ithink for Ganges application application boat will need to plane and anything else it can to reduce fuel usage, gotta pay its way. Jets seem to have certain advantages, and I would hate to take out one of those Ganges dolphins with a prop. Import tax on imported vessels will be punative,Ithink ibetter talk to Indian boatbuilders, from what I have seen they do pretty rudimentry designs, not at all what I am talking about.I want something that will get up on its hind legs out of the water,where fuel and time will be on my side.Lots of people will do this trip one day wether i am there or not. Bazza.

 

Hi bazza g,

What I was implying, - Have a closer look at operating parameters would be worth your while - high speed displacement mode cats are quite fuel efficient and the wave making factor is the speed limit...I do not think "hitting a dolphin" using a 25 knot ferry would be a plausible risk... If you do your costing at say 20knots, would that work? I think you will find the "city-cat" at 20 to 25 knots - - is far more fuel efficient than a water-jet powered cat at 30 knots...

Have you checked out the navigability of the river section to which you refer? and accurately measured the distance, rate of water flow, and affirmed the reliability of such a regular boat trip? (sandbars, channel markers, floating debris?)

 

Those "city-cats" are only good in flat water. Similar designs had problems diving under wave and/or slamming really hard. Big rivers can get quite nasty.

 

Hi Gonzo,
He is operating well upstream from Kolkata (as spelt on Google Earth), West Bengal, India for 90 miles? no oceanic swells there but quite a bit of river traffic at 8 knots by the looks... Similar to what may be expected in the significantly smaller, but regularly dredged, Brisbane River...
From post #1....
"That project is to obtain,either new or used a water taxi to run a daily tourist ride from Calcutta to the town of Mayapura a distance of aproximatly 90 miles"

Approximately 108 Nautical Miles gets one upstream as far as Katwa at the junction of the Ajay/Ajoy river and the Ganges west-most delta flow at 23.65 degrees N and 88.13 degrees W... Google cannot find Mayapura...

 

I have run into five foot chop far up in rivers. For example, in the Uruguay river about 250 miles from the ocean, the Mississippi at 1300 miles from the ocean, and the St. Lawrence at 250 miles from the ocean. If the wind blows along the course of a river, it can create a dangerous chop.

 

True, 20+knots only needs a 2 mile fetch/reach to be uncomfortable, particularly if against the flow......

 

Google " NQEA ultra-low wash River Runners". Bigger craft than required maybe, but the speed and wash requirement met, maybe ?

 

http://www.aimtek.com.au/river_runner_development.htm

http://www.aimtek.com.au/specialty_ships.htm - - - go to the bottom 4 images... (including hovercraft)...
http://www.hovercraft-museum.org/ap1-88.html - - bottom of the page for some useful specifications on the hovercraft BHC AP1-88...

 

ganges ?

Hi Masali ,leave off the "a" at the end, comes up as Mayapur Goshala, dunno why as a Goshala is a Diary? onthe other side of the river is the town of Navadwipa close by a larger town called Krsnagar, my spelling of Indian place names not what it should be. Katwa is quite a bit further along.Kolkata is some distance inland ofthe bay of begal,but still a busy water port. Always seem to be plenty of river traffic, mostly very traditional craft up to 60 foot or so and lots sail powered also plenty of ferrys with slow revving diesels. all heavy timber craft decked but without a deckhouse.They haul anything they can. the sailors have very rudimentary sails often cobbled together from whatever is at hand, and 4 sided a kind of sprit rig, helped along by men punting these things close ashore with baamboo poles.I have seen some large barge like ships with double decker accomadation for local tourists or pilgrims.Not at all what you might see around Sydney or anywhere western.