With its long coastline (more than 110 thousand kilometers), Russia cannot exist without a large fleet. The Russian Navy is traditionally considered one of the most powerful in the world, second only to the American fleet and the increasingly powerful Chinese fleet in terms of combat capabilities. Any large fleet is also a great responsibility, as well as concern for the safety of ships and crews. It is impossible to imagine a modern fleet without rescue vessels, they are also part of the Russian fleet. The smallest rescuer in the Russian Navy is the Project 23040 integrated rescue boat.
Rescue boat - project 23040
The Project 23040 rescue boat is also called a harbor diving boat. A small ship with a displacement of about 118 tons was built in a fairly large series and was sold to all fleets. "Little rescuer" can be found today in the Black Sea and Baltic Fleets, the Northern and Pacific Fleets, as well as in the Caspian Naval Flotilla. The contract for the construction of 16 offshore rescue boats of project 23040 was signed between the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and OJSC “Nizhegorodsky Teplokhod Plant” on March 29, 2013, later the ordered series was increased to 22 units. The first series was planned to be delivered to the fleet in the period from 2013 to 2015, the second of six units - from 2016 to 2018.
The first boat of the new project was laid down on July 27, 2013; on September 17 of the same year, the ship was launched. And in February 2014, the boat was handed over to naval sailors, replenishing the forces of the Novorossiysk naval base of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. The raid diving boats transferred to the Novorossiysk naval base have already earned a reputation as real hard workers. Despite the design features and small size, which limit the water area for the use of boats in the area near naval bases, small vessels successfully cope with tasks in the area of responsibility of the entire fleet - from the Sea of Azov to Adler. As the captain of the 2nd rank Denis Mayorov, the commander of the emergency rescue squad of the Black Sea Fleet, told the journalists of the television channel Zvezda, the greatest efficiency of the "rescue babies" is ensured by the presence on board of a small uninhabited remote-controlled underwater robot Video Rey. This underwater drone is used to survey the seabed and search for various objects. Also, the boat received a towed sonar, which allows the team of a small rescuer to find sunken objects at a depth of 150 meters, and the search for people overboard is greatly facilitated by the onboard thermal night vision system. A feature of the boats of the project 23040 is also the presence of a joystick control system, on ships of this type such a system is used for the first time.
Project boat 23040, render
Rescue boats of project 23040 are relatives of a series of 10 offshore diving boats of project A160, which were also laid in the city of Bor at the Nizhegorodsky Teplokhod plant in 2010-2012 and were built for the needs of the Federal State Institution “Gosmorspasluzhba of Russia”. From their predecessors, which were created for civilian services, the new boats inherited all the best. Also, the relatives of the project 23040 rescue boats have another diving boat of the ZT28D project, also created by the engineers of the design department of the Nizhegorodsky Teplokhod Plant. Compared with the projects listed above, as well as the previously widely known and massively used in the USSR service and auxiliary boats "Flamingo" of project 1415 and boats of project 14157, the new offshore diving boats of project 23040 are large and have an increased displacement. In addition, the new miniature rescuers differ from their predecessors in better power-to-weight ratio and ice-class certification. These circumstances contribute to the fact that small boats with a total displacement of 118 tons are able to successfully operate not only on outer roadsteads and in the areas of bases, but also outside them, with a distance of 50 nautical miles from the places of deployment.
The main tasks that the rescue boat of project 23040 is designed to solve, experts include:
- Carrying out underwater technical works with the involvement of divers at depths of up to 60 meters with sea waves up to three points;
- implementation of diving operations with simultaneous immersion of two divers to a depth of 60 meters with an air flow rate of up to 120 liters per minute;
- carrying out work on decompression, as well as providing oxygen, helium and air modes of therapeutic recompression;
- work in hydraulic engineering and ship lifting operations, participation in emergency rescue operations at sea;
- Carrying out a survey of the seabed, search for sunken objects, inspection of various structures for hydraulic engineering purposes;
- pumping out water from the damaged vessel;
- fighting fires on board other ships, as well as floating and coastal infrastructure facilities, the height of which does not exceed 30 meters;
- delivery of electrical energy to the board of the damaged vessel or object.
Technical characteristics of boats of project 23040
Outwardly, the new Russian rescue boat is a single-deck ship with an ice-strengthened steel hull. The deckhouse of the boat of project 23040 (superstructure) was designed as a single-deck, made of aluminum. The heart of the boat is a modern twin-shaft diesel power plant, which works together with two fixed-pitch propellers, additionally there is a bow thruster on the boat. The power of the main power plant is 2x441 kW (2x600 hp). In addition to the main diesel engine, the boat has a 2x80 kW (109 hp) diesel generator and a 20 kW (27 hp) emergency parking diesel generator. The power of the power plant is sufficient to provide the boat with a maximum speed of 13.7 knots (25 km / h).
The total displacement of the Project 23040 raid diving boat is approximately 118 tons, for comparison, the Project A160 raid diving boats, which were built at the same plant in the Nizhny Novgorod region, but for the needs of the State Marine Rescue Service, the total displacement did not exceed 92.7 tons. The average draft of the rescue boat is 1.5 meters, which allows it to operate effectively in coastal areas. The total length of the boat of project 23040 is 28.09 meters, the maximum width is 5.56 meters.
The crew of the harbor diving boat is three people, five more people can go aboard as a diving group, the maximum capacity is 8 people. At the same time, the crew and divers have at their disposal a wardroom that is large enough for a small vessel and comfortable double cabins. The autonomy of the ship is calculated precisely from the maximum capacity of 8 people. In terms of provisions on board and fresh water, it is estimated at five days. The maximum cruising range while maintaining a speed of 10 knots is estimated at 200 nautical miles (370 km). At the same time, eight people can always be accommodated on board the boat with the maximum possible comfort, in addition three more people can be taken on board, but this is already a short-term accommodation (no more than a day).
One of the important features of the technical support of the Project 23040 rescue boats is the presence on board of the Navis JP4000 joystick control system, unique for such Russian-made equipment, which was used on domestic boats of this type for the first time. The joystick system, according to the boat's developer company, allows a small ship to provide both a simple movement process and work that requires the boat and its crew to perform very precise maneuvers in a confined space. Thanks to the joystick control system, the offshore diving boat is easier to keep in a given point and to fully control the course of the vessel during diving operations, which is very important for their successful completion and the safety of the divers themselves. Also, ease and accuracy of control is very important when working with the Video Rey unmanned underwater vehicle on board the boat. The Navis JP4000 joystick control system provides a small rescue vessel with precise control of the set speed and course of the ship, as well as automatic control of the course and speed of the boat during hydrographic work.
The fact that the project of the boat was recognized as successful is evidenced by the fact that on its basis one more vessel has already been developed for the needs of the Navy. We are talking about a large hydrographic boat of project 23040G. The laying of the first large hydrographic boat for the Russian Navy took place in the town of Bor near Nizhny Novgorod on May 17, 2018. The first boat of the series was named "Georgy Zima". The new ship differs from its rescue counterparts in increased dimensions. Its length has grown to 33 meters, and its total displacement has reached 192, 7 tons. Thanks to the equipment installed on board, a large hydrographic boat of project 23040G will be able to survey the seabed relief with a single-beam echo sounder at depths of up to two thousand meters, as well as to carry out high-precision areal surveys of the seabed relief at depths of up to 400 meters.
