Query: Hydrofoil designs of the late 50s/early 60s

Graham1973

ACCESS: Top Secret
Senior Member
Joined
16 December 2010
Messages
3,283
Reaction score
2,979
I'm currently reading a 1964 action novel (Set roughly contemporaneously to the release year.), which features hydrofoil gunboats and torpedo boats, unfortunately attempts to find a possible inspiration for these seems to have hit a brick wall (The only Russian classes appeared in the 1970s and 'Thunderball' came out a year after the novel was released.).

Any help would be appreciated.
 
Possibly USS High Point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_High_Point_(PCH-1); Laid down in '61.
 
Jane's did yearbooks in the 60's thru the 90's.

Jane's Surface Skimmers: Hovercraft and Hydrofoils. Probably best choice for the craft you're looking for.

Jane's High Speed Marine Craft.

Very comprehensive, as you might expect.
 
Thanks to everyone who's responded so far. I've already spotted a Soviet candidate for one of the hydrofoils, even if it dates from 4 years after the book came out...
 
Is it a European book? I ask because in the early 1960s, there were a bunch of hydrofoil ferries (mostly designed by Supramar AG) operating in Italy and Switzerland that might have inspired the author.
 
During the fifties, the Soviet Unions's Krasnoye Sormovo shipyard started production of hydrofoil ferries. Chief designer Rostislav Alexeyev, who later worked on Ekranoplans.
1957-1970s: Raketa, exported to Austria, Cambodia, Finland, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, etc.
1973-onwards: Voskhod, exported to, among other countries, the Netherlands. I once visited Amsterdam with my mum and one of my brothers, making the round trip from IJmuiden where mum used to live. The first image, from Wiki, shows the Amsterdam ferry.
The second Wiki-image shows Raketa 234 on the Volga River, 2004
 

Attachments

  • Karla.jpg
    Karla.jpg
    141.7 KB · Views: 206
  • Raketa_234.jpg
    Raketa_234.jpg
    67.3 KB · Views: 199
I don't think Jane's had started doing Surface Skimmers as a separate book yet.

The 1965-66 Fighting Ships mentions a Soviet "P 12" or "PA 6" hydrofoil torpedo boat. I think this is more properly the P 8, a developed P 6 with hydrofoils.

Edit: The P 8 was also built in China as the Type 025, some with hydrofoils and some without.
 
First Jane's Surface Skimmers was the 67-68 edition.

It may have included vessels from prior years.
 

Similar threads

Please donate to support the forum.

Back
Top Bottom