Rheinjet, Germany

The “Rheinjet” for the Koln-Dusseldorf operator “kD”is a fast river ferry for touristic transport with extended site seeing tours on the river Rhein in Germany and Holland. The ship can carry 70 passenfers at 40 knots. The propulsion system consists of 2x500kW MAN Diesel engines driving Servo Gear controlable pitch propellers on inclined shafts. The propellers are arranges in propeller-half-tunnels for low draft requirements (see Photo!). Low wake formation at high speed was a design request. The ship was built by the Henze Shipyard in Bremerhafen, Germany in 1994 with the hull lines and general ship design including poering and the development of the propeller-hull-tunnels with conceptual engine arrangements conducted by Dr. Hoppe (now FASTcc). The hydrofoil-assisted-system consisting of two full beam hydrofoils in tandem arrangement (see Photo) was developed by Dr. Hoppe and included the detail foil design concerning hydrodynamic optomisation of shape and settings, cavitating free operation to 45knots and the detailed streangth analysis. The hull was built of carbon-fibre-GRP-mix with honeycomb of kevlar (re-jects by air industry!) in a special system not requiring mould and allowed the low total weight of 28t for the fully loaded ship. A top speed of 42 knots was reached after the propelle blade tips had been trimmed in Holland. The craft reached one of the lowest power ratios ep=0.169 at a Froude displacement number of FnD=3.96 and is one of the most efficient Hysucats build so far. The Rheinjet is operating now in Holland.

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