The shipping company "Neva Travel" has launched a winter excursion route on hovercraft in St. Petersburg. The vessels will move on the ice of the Neva River.
The issue of year-round excursion navigation in St. Petersburg has been discussed for many years. As soon as we announced the preparation for the launch of the new service, the interest from passengers, partners and the media turned out to be very high.
According to him, traveling on hovercraft is a unique experience. He emphasized that hovercraft are better at navigating ice hummocks, their cabins are quieter than other amphibious vessels, and the view is better.
Excursions will depart from the "Frigate Blagodat" pier, and the duration of each walk will be 25-30 minutes. The company plans that the hovercraft navigation on the Neva will last until March 2025.
Three new vessels, named "Snezhok-1", "Snezhok-2" and "Snezhok-3", were built by the Nizhny Novgorod enterprise "SVP Service" according to the "Sputnik 12" project. The length of each vessel is 8.9 meters, the width is 3.1 meters.
The 130 hp diesel engine allows it to reach speeds of up to 50 km/h on water and up to 70 km/h on snow. The cruising range is 250 km, with the possibility of increasing it to 400 km with additional tanks.
The vessels have already entered pilot navigation. They will operate six flights a day, but technically each vessel is capable of operating 12 short flights. "Snezhki" can accommodate a captain and nine passengers. Each vessel costs about 10 million rubles.
Read more on the topic:
TsMKB "Almaz" presented a project of a cargo hovercraft
Russia's largest civilian hovercraft "Khaska-10" has begun testing
"Bober" hovercraft: military technologies have come to the "civilian" sector