Candy is Dandy

As is the case all along the Gulf coast, the pressure on at Swift ships in Morgan City. One of the new crew boats building at Swift Ship is for Kenny Nelkin's Candy Fleet. Kenny bought the company from his dad in 1984, toughed it through the lean years and now business is booming. Nelkin has spent a good deal of time debating the relative merits of jets and props with others in the crew boat business. While most of his compeditors have opted either for jets or props, he is staying with a series of boats that combines the best of both forms of propulsion.

The 145-foot Candy Store represents this concept. With four KTA19 engines rated at 700 hp turning props and a single 1000 hp KTA38 driving a straight jet with no reversing or steering buckets, he is achieving excellent results. Candy Fleet port Captain Steve Marcrum explains that with out the jet providing extra boost, the four KTA19 engines would support props of 38X38-inches. With the extra thrust from the jet, they can overwheel the boat with 39X41 or even 39X42 props. The jet takes the load off the engines so increases their efficiency and allows a light boat speed of 26 knots that is reduced by only one or two knots with a 70 ton cargo.

The hull's ability to plane when loaded is given a boost by the addition of extra sponsons built out from the chine. Tapering to the bow they extend out several inches at the stern. These sponsons, or lift chines, add to the hull's bottom area to create lift while slowing the boat's roll in seas.

The boat has two engine rooms, right at the stern is the KTA38 with a short drive and the jet pump set right against the transom and protected by being just up in a short square box as there is no bucket or steering mechanism to protrude out beyond the transom. Forward of this engine room is one containing the four KTA 19 engines, with the two inboard engines set further forward than the two outboard engines. Under the hull, the two inboard props, without rudders, are well ahead of the ruddered outboard props. The outboard port prop rotates right hand, the inboard prop has a left rotation. The starboard inside wheel turns right and the outboard turns left. This provides stable steering with the outboard props and rudders while allowing the props to work against each other for pivoting.

"You pivot with the inboard props and walk with the outboard props and rudders," explains Candy Store captain Danny Miller who has operated the boat since its January 1997 delivery, adding, "It's a Louisiana thing."

Miller has been on crew boats for eleven years and is more than pleased to show off his latest charge. It has a number of innovative features like the three video cameras that allow him to monitor the engine rooms, passenger areas and cargo deck from the wheel house. He is also keen about the single jet which can, in shallow water or heavy drift wood conditions, push the boat on its own at eight knots. One trip that he makes takes him 480 miles with up to 16 stops to pick-up or drop off oil rig crews. If all the stops turn quickly he can make the complete round trip in just 25 hours. For those of us who started on old nine knot displacement hulls and spent endless hours on getting from point A to point B, this seems like the way to go. For young deckhand Jamerson Williams, who completed his first stint on the Candy Store this last April, there is the usual pride in not having got seasick, but even more important there is the satisfaction of being on a boat that is setting a new standard in the Gulf.

(PHOTO CAPS)

1. Call Kenny Nelkin, Candy Fleet president (504) 384-5835 or A.J. Blanchard marketing manager at Swift Ships (504) 384-1700, for running shot of Candy Store or sister ship.

2. Swiftship adds a "lift chine" to their hulls as can be seen on the chine here. Note the big jet drive and the four prop arrangement with two rudders.

3. Capt. Danny Miller in the wheelhouse of the Candy Store.

4. Young deckhands like the horsepower represented by four Cummins KTA-19m3 at 700 hp each that drive the props on the Candy Store while a KTA38M pushes 1000 hp to the Hamilton jet.

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