139
May 2, 2001

Nichols Brothers Deliver Catalina Catamaran

The first week of May saw yet another Nichols Brothers-built and INCAT-designed catamaran leave the company yard on Whitby Island in Puget Sound. This one was headed down the coast to southern California where it will join the eight-boat fleet of Catalina Express. With a capacity for 380 passengers, the 44.27 by 10.45-metre boat has a design speed of 37 knots and touched 40 knots on sea trials. Power for the fast ferry comes from four 16-cylinder Cummins KTA50 engines rated 1875 HP (1399 Kw) each at 1950 RPM driving Hamilton model 651 water jets through ZF gears. With each hull only 2.75 metres wide the two engines in each hull are set one ahead of the other with the forward engine's drive angled through a cardon shaft.

Passenger accommodations are on two decks with a snack bar on the second deck. Seating is in airline style seats complete with trays in the seat backs and life jacket stowage underneath. Airline style storage racks are installed overhead of the seats along the windows. A large luggage room is located aft on the main deck between the port and starboard built in gangways. Bike racks on the after deck accommodate passengers who make the 24-mile passage from the mainland to Santa Catalina Island for bicycle touring. Company founder and CEO, Doug Bombard, who grew up on the island, explains that many passengers make day trips for diving and hiking the island's waters and trails. This creates challenging in scheduling, with large passenger loads outbound in the morning and light return trips with the situation reversed on afternoon runs. The four engines and jets provide redundancy so that, even with one drive down, schedules can still be maintained. The new boat did over 32 knots on three engines during sea trials.

While speed is important to maintain schedules, vessel comfort is important in the often rough waters of the channel. To aide this, a computerized ride control system from MDI has been installed. This system employs a set of interceptors aft and a set of T-foils forward. The system, which is gyro controlled, can be adjusted from the wheelhouse to suit varying sea states.

Navigation at high speed in the heavily travelled Southern California waters is also a challenge for the Catalina Express operators. The new boat, named "Jet Cat", is equipped with a pair of Furuno 96-mile 25 Kw radar. Their high speed mast heads turn at 42 RPM so that the image is rapidly updated. In addition, an infrared night vision video camera is mounted atop the wheelhouse and displays on wheelhouse monitors. The camera is normally set on a pan mode when travelling but can be focussed on an object and has both wide angle and telephoto lenses that can be selected from the wheelhouse control. To keep passengers informed of the vessel's location, nine additional monitors in the passenger areas are linked to the Northstar GPS and chart display. This system is also equipped to show a safety video and commercial televison to the passengers.

Nichols Brothers are issuing a press release with aerial photos on the "Jet Cat".

For more information:

Bryan Nichols
Nichols Brothers Boat Builders Inc.
P.O. Box 580, 5400 S. Cameron Rd. Freeland, WA98249
Phone: (360) 331-5500
E-mail: bnichols@whitbey.com

or:

Doug Bombard
CEO, Catalina Express Lines
Berth 95, San Pedro CA 90731
Phone: 310 519-7971 ext. 1009
Fax: 310 548-7389
Web page: http://www.catalinaexpress.com/

or:

John Walls
Sales Manager
Cummins Northwest Inc.
811 S.W. Grady Way Renton WA 98057-9811
Phone:1 800 274-0336 Fax: 425 545-7374
E-mail: jmwalls@cnw.cummins.com

or:

James Fenning
Naval Architect International Catamaran Designs Pty. Ltd.
1 Mafeking Ave. Lane Cove NSW 2066 Australia
Phone 61 9427 7238
E-mail: James_Fenning@incatdesigns.com.au

525-501, 500-476, 475-451, 450-426, 425-401, 400-376
375-351, 350-326, 325-301, 300-276, 275-251, 250-226, 225-201
200-176, 175-151, 150-126, 125-101, 100-76, 75-51, 50-26, 25-0