Canton of Schwyz police boat
Replacement
Starting point
Police boat P 11 of the Schwyz canton police department on Lake Zurich was outdated having been constructed in 1980 and needed to be replaced. In terms of construction, motorisation and handling, this required a boat based on the ‘P12’ task boat like the ones in service on Lake Lucerne. The special conditions of Lake Zurich (shallow water) had to be taken into consideration during the basic design and construction phases. The boat had to be seaworthy and suitable for the following uses in particular:
Control routes and surveillance, search operations, dive operations, evacuations (transporting people and materials), operations in the most adverse conditions incl. the presence of driftwood, extreme rough water conditions, etc., rescuing stranded, stuck and capsized ships, storm warning operations / distress or rescue missions, damage control operations and factual reports.
Challenges
To design a task boat that unconditionally fulfils the requirements (aluminium boat with iron reinforcement, lightning protection system, tank design for an operational period of 16 hours, outboard engines with guard bracket and simultaneous towing equipment for ships of up to 15 tonnes, joystick control and autopilot function, integral diesel extinguishing pump with a capacity of 1,000 litres/minute and side access openings for divers) without the requirements affecting one another. During the course of the project, the guidelines of the SUVA and the customer’s specific generator requirement came into conflict. This conflict was resolved by using a generator lifting table that was specially constructed and manufactured by Shiptec AG.
The rescue and patrol boat was designed as a working boat, fully compliant with the European Recreational Craft Directive (EU RL 2013/53/EU), design category B.
