I decided to continue the topic at the request of the readers. The name of Rostislav Alekseev is on a par with the outstanding Soviet designers Korolev and Tupolev. But the fate of this bright man, like the fate of his ideas, is dramatic. Although initially everything went just fine.
Alekseev, already in his third year, began to think about unbeaten paths in shipbuilding science. And he found a new idea that inspired him and inspired him with dreams in an old patent.
Russian inventor D'Alembert received a patent in France for the idea of using hydrofoils for ships. D'Alembert proceeded from the fact that when the ship moves on the wings, the lifting force of the liquid pushes the ship's hull out of the water. The ship flies, as it were, on wings submerged in the water. Later it became known that, since water is eight hundred times denser than air, then the wing of a ship is capable of carrying eight hundred times more load than an aircraft wing at the same speed.
That was the idea behind this old patent, seemingly so obvious and promising. However, neither D'Alembert himself, nor all those who after him in different countries were engaged in this idea, have not achieved practical success. And Alekseev, of course, knew about it.
He imagined the constructive difficulties, the complications that he would meet on the way to create such a ship. The application is still just a correctly guessed thought. The application is not yet a theoretical basis. The science of a new principle of movement on water did not exist. And yet the student made up his mind. Alekseev built a remote-controlled model. It was up to him.
Alekseev's comrades said that he had been "handy" since childhood. There were four of them in the family - two brothers and two sisters, then one brother died at the front. Everyone, except him, was taught music in childhood, and his mother considered incapable. He got angry and made himself a balalaika, inferior, of course, then a violin. And, being proud of this, he began to study music himself. The character was felt in him even then.
“Since childhood, my family has been considered a loser,” Alekseev told friends. “All his life, Slava has been doing only what he wants,” my mother used to say. She, it seems, was not mistaken.
He knew how to do a lot with his hands. Alekseev knew how to tailor his pants, once he made them from canvas, surprisingly to his wife and mother-in-law. He could build a yacht and sew sails, make boots, in the war he sewed his felt boots, could assemble a motor, once assembled a passenger car and a motorcycle from old parts.
Together with his fellow student Popov, Zaitsev and Erlykin, he is fond of sailing, yacht racing, which for the first time made them feel all the sweetness and rapture of speed.
He builds yachts himself, participates in races and receives prizes from his idol - Valery Chkalov.
In a small sports team, Rostislav was not only a captain, but also a recognized authority. The comrades knew: no matter what he undertook, he did everything with enthusiasm and seriousness. At times frivolity is characteristic of youth, a quick change of desires and impulses. Rostislav did not recognize unfinished business, actions that he had not thought out in a strict logical sequence.
Their first yacht "Rebus", belonging to the parsuna section of the student sports club and equipped with the hands of the students themselves, made long trips along the Volga. Raising all her sails, the graceful, light, white-hulled yacht rushed along the river, leaning slightly to starboard. Dressed in light linen tracksuits, the friends not only pulled up or lowered the sails, but also watched how a half-meter wooden cigar-shaped model of a small ship flies along the crests of the waves on a long steel rigid cable.
A model of a winged motor ship was worn along the Volga. Alekseev could control her wings from the yacht, give them a certain tilt, and then the model of the ship easily came out of the water. Each time, the students were overwhelmed by the feeling of stormy joy of seekers who were convinced with their own eyes that their dreams were real.
The model towed by the yacht turned easily, and the students saw this as a guarantee of good seaworthiness of future cruise ships. But this, unfortunately, limited the experimental capabilities of the small model. There were no instruments on it. There was no engine. We could not figure out the power consumption per unit of weight. All this was said only in the theoretical calculations of the project.
So, behind the brilliant defense of the graduation project, the war, hundreds of variants of the project, the implementation of which began in Gorky.
The Alekseevsky experimental shop was located on the territory of the Sormovsky plant in Gorky. The rooms of the design bureau itself were on the second floor. Their only convenience was the proximity to production aisles. A designer with a sketch sketched on paper could go down to the machines, and if not immediately make some detail, then, in any case, consult.
The rest of the room was not well suited for serious creative work. There are many tables in the main drawing room, very crowded. The desks of the heads of departments stood right there, in a common line, designers were always grouping around them with drawings to be signed, and this even created some commotion in the hall, where silence is needed for concentrated work. Leonid Sergeevich Popov worked here. He was separated from Rostislav Evgenievich only for two years when he went to the front, and when he returned, he found Nikolai Zaitsev in a small group of experimenters, who by that time had graduated from the institute.
Interestingly, the designers at this time themselves forbade the production of final drawings until certain parts of the ship were tested at least on models. They went down to the shop from the design bureau only with sketches in their hands. There was a general discussion here. It also happened that one part was taken out and another was put on, not because the first was bad, but because the second turned out to be better.
“If you are dealing with water, measure not seven, but ten times before you come to a solution,” the designers said.
“We tested the first, smallest models in the pool,” recalled Leonid Sergeevich Popov. - Rather, it was a long, several tens of meters rectangular bathroom filled with water. Its surface shone with some kind of metallic sheen, perhaps because it was not too light in the workshop and electric bulbs were on. Ropes stretched over the water. It was they who promoted models that quickly picked up speed. Already a few meters after the start of the movement, the models jumped out of the water, climbing on the wings. At the other end of the pool, winches and gauges ticked muffledly. Several employees of the hydrodynamic department followed the flight of the model. The hydraulic laboratory was located in the far right wing of the workshop. In its left wing there were two rows of lathes, milling machines, stands where electric welding flashed with blue fire, and even further on a special stand stood a handsome hydrofoil, almost finished, painted in bright colors”.
The passion for water sports almost ended tragically. Popov also talked about this.
Students Alekseev, Popov, Zaitsev were fond of racing on yachts. Having become the creators of winged ships, they have not forgotten about their hobby. Over time, they not only did not lose their taste for sports, but also tried to captivate their younger comrades with it. Rostislav Evgenievich himself often organized summer trips on yachts. Once they walked up the Volga for about thirty kilometers, landed in a cozy place near a pine forest, caught fish, cooked fish soup.
And when we sailed on the way back, the weather quickly deteriorated, a squall wind blew. The captain on one yacht was Alekseev, on the other Popov. Popov's yacht went ahead. From a strong gust of wind, Rostislav Evgenievich's yacht capsized.
It was mid-May, and the water was still cold - plus fifteen degrees. They haven't started swimming in Gorky yet.
Eleven people, having fallen overboard, instantly froze and did not dare to swim to the shore. Everyone held on to the keel of the overturned yacht. But the yacht was about to sink to the bottom.
And then Alekseev ordered everyone to follow him to a small island. Two men were fishing there, and they were incredibly surprised by the appearance of people in such an abandoned place. They made a fire, dried themselves. To laughter and jokes, half-naked designers jumped around the fire: after all, they were sunbathing on a yacht, and their things were washed away by water. One by one, the fishermen ferried the travelers ashore. From there they got to the city by passing cars.
Rostislav Evgenievich cheered his comrades all the time, joked and entertained discouraged women. Everyone, of course, was scared, but then there was something to remember, especially since everything ended well: after taking a cold Volga bath, no one got sick.
The stories about this swimming in the stormy Volga were heard for a whole week in the hall of the design bureau and served as the subject of endless jokes and practical jokes.
Among the victims of the "shipwreck" there was not a single alarmist, everyone cared about each other - this brought the team of designers closer and even more friendly.
Usually, Alekseev was the first to come to work.
Rostislav Evgenievich got up at six in the morning, the central design bureau rang the bell at half past seven, half an hour later than the factory siren. What can normalize the chief designer's time is only the supply of his energy, his passion for creativity.
True, in recent years he could no longer sleep only four to five hours a day, he had to add himself another two hours to sleep. He became more attentive to his health. Nevertheless, on rare days he came home before eleven o'clock in the evening. Rostislav Evgenievich was extremely tired of such a life, but it suited him. His wife Marina Mikhailovna - no. And he knew about it.
Once Marina Mikhailovna told her husband that she was ashamed to learn about her husband's successes not from himself, but from the newspapers.
Rostislav Evgenievich shrugged his shoulders - work. There is so much of it.
Marina Mikhailovna did not take offense at his constant concentration for a long time, firstly, because she was used to it, and secondly, because it was useless. The husband's employment turned into his complete unpretentiousness in everyday life. He ate everything that was served to him, and sometimes did not even notice what it was, dressed modestly, brought all the money to the family. All his thoughts are ships.
By this time, the serial production of "Rockets" was launched at several factories. From the "Rocket" passed to the "Meteor". This was a new period of searching. And two years later - a new ship. The new ship "Meteor" was laid down at the stands in January 1959. The assembly went quickly. The experience of "Rocket" has affected. Yet one day a moment came when almost all the designers were thrown into the work teams.
Someone jokingly pinned an announcement to the door: "The bureau has closed, everyone has gone to the shop!"
But no matter how the designers were in a hurry, and when hydrodynamics unexpectedly proposed to revise the wing scheme, Alekseev and Zaitsev stopped the assembly of the hull, which was in full swing.
Research, experiments began again. The wing got a larger span. And as a result, as a reward for the most intense weeks of labor, the speed of the ship increased by several kilometers per hour.
But not only the geometry of the wings, but the entire architecture of the new ship caused heated disputes among designers and a long search for the best shape.
“We were very much interested in the aesthetics of the ship, its architecture,” said Leonid Sergeevich. - The ship, as it were, connects with its hull two environments: air and water - hence all the difficulties. We encountered this on the Raketa as well. But the Meteor is larger, and its body rises higher above the river.
The designers of the design bureau made the first sketches of the general appearance of the ship and in order to more clearly feel them in volume, they immediately sculpted models of future ships from plasticine.
There were often heated disputes around these models, and if the verbal arguments seemed to someone already unconvincing, plasticine was used again.
“We could not follow the path of complete analogy with aviation,” said Leonid Sergeevich. - And so our river captains grabbed their heads when they saw the destruction of age-old traditions in ship architecture. A ship, even when flying through water, is not like an air liner. Don't forget that there are banks on the river. And then, until our ship comes out on the wings, it floats along the river, like an ordinary motor ship. And yet the winged ships began to resemble air ships rather than river ships. That is why new, difficult and not yet fully investigated problems arose. And above all, this is the problem of strength. Strength with increasing speed and length of the vessel.
In the fall of 1959, Rostislav Evgenievich began sea trials of his new winged motor ship, called the sonorous space name "Meteor". Alekseev was the first to take this ship out to sea. Using the last days of navigation, Alekseev intended to lead the ship to Volgograd, from there along the Volga-Don channel to the Don, then descend into the Azov Sea, and from it into the Black Sea.
Rostislav Evgenievich himself was at the helm. And who could deprive him of the pleasure of taking out his new brainchild on a long campaign!
Having safely passed the Volga and Don, the ship sailed across the Azov Sea and there it got into its first storm, which was remembered for a long time by everyone on board.
- As I see now, we were then in the Sea of Azov, we left Rostov, heading for Kerch, at first we went well, pleasantly, but the weather soon deteriorated, - said Popov, - we overtook a heavy self-propelled barge, how cumbersome it looked, and it swayed so that it began to flood with a wave. It shook us with a storm great, and, most importantly, for a long time. To others it seemed from fear that the body itself crackled, experiencing strong tension. It seemed. However, the recorders showed that everything was going well.
