Aries Marine,Sharjah constructed the longest steel snake boat

Aries Marine Engineering Services, claimed to be the biggest ship design and consultancy firm based in Sharjah, UAE, has come out with its new venture on fabrication of the longest 'Chundan Vallam' (Snake Boat) for tourism. The aim is to create an international market for the snake boats which will be made of steel so that it does not sink, Sohan Roy, Managing Director of Aries Marine, who is the architect of this venture, said. Also it shall enter Guinness Book of World records. Limca Book of world records has already inspected and approved it's claim for record length.

The first steel snake boat, with 155 feet length, and 130person capacity is constructed by Aries Marine on an experimental basis and if successful, the vessel will be made of aluminium and fibreglass, he said. Roy said the snake boats made of steel could make revolutionary changes in Kerala's tourism sector since the present snake boats, made of wood are used only for certain events in a year and become white elephants during the rest of the time.

On the other hand, steel snake boats will earn revenue during the idle time, he said. This boat could be connected to two small 'Odi Boats' making it stable and a platform can be assembled on top within a few minutes, and this could be used as a 'house boat' during tourist season, according to Roy. any foreigner or local with no experience in rowing snake boats can row them safely, he said.

The design beauty of “steel snake boat” is that, it's not easy to recognize it from the conventional wooden ones from the look. The construction was done under Mr.Kadan B Kainakiri who put a lot of effort to develop this feature. The design of this snake boat shall be available for construction worldwide. Once the concept gets popularized it may be even included for Olympics. A project report shall be submitted to the International Water sport Authority in this regard.

As the L/B ration is very high for this Snake boat, Conventional Design concepts and existing rule requirements can't be followed. The plate thickness is minimized to match it's weight with the existing wooden Snake boats. As the hydrodynamic properties were closely considered while finalizing the hull form after consulting with Department of Ship Technology, CUSAT's design expert Dr,Pyarilal, the designers expect better speed and stability too. The construction cost will be only 30% of wooden boats and the maintenance cost will get drastically reduced. As the seating arrangements are much better than the existing ones, it will give a better rowing effect.

Aries had recently launched the solar powered 'botel' (back water operated tourism entertainment launch), a replacement for the present house boats, Roy said. The construction of this big snake boat, which can accommodate 130 rowers commenced three months ago and intends to participate in the world renowned Nehru Trophy boat race in the Punnamada lake in Alappuzha district, which attracts thousands of domestic as well as foreign tourists.

Anticipating the win of “Steel Snake Boat” due to it's scientifically designed hull form with more speed,stability and strength features, the traditional “wooden snake boat owners” have come up with protest to ban “Steel Snake Boats” from Nehru trophy. A hot debate is going on about the issue and if it is not amicably settled the matter may reach to the high court of Kerala. As a compromise “steel snake boat may be allowed to do a single performance before the final to verify it's speed.

It took more than 3 months for its construction and the official launching shall be done on 4 th Aug. After few days of trial it will participate in the Nehru trophy scheduled for Aug12th. The famous Kainakiri boat club and the newly formed local punnamada club are trying to board the “Steel Snake Boat” this time under the sponsorship of Aries Marine. Although the competition is being done in Punnamada, their people never got a chance to perform in Nehru Trophy as they don't have their own snake boat.

Aries Marine has over 100 engineers stationed in their Dubai , Sharjah and Cochin Branches. They work as consultant for more than 500 companies worldwide and has successfully handled projects worth more than US$1 Billion. Aries Group is also into Interior Design, Material Testing, Tourism, Audio and Visual Media. Their new venture, Marine Biz.TV, an exclusive global Televeision Channel for Marine Community will start it's telecasting on Jan.1 st 2007.

NEW FRONTIERS: Snakeboats are all set to sail into global market.