Water Jet Fast Attack Craft review

Bow to stern (or front to rear to us land-lubbers), the Cankarso is purpose-built. The first few compartments in the bow consist of the boatswain’s storage, the ammunition room, the pump room (that houses bilge pumps in case the ship is taking on water), a desalination plant and a reverse osmosis plant that can convert sea water into drinking water. That’s if the ship’s 10,000-litre fresh water tank runs dry.

Behind this is the crew’s quarters and the two engine rooms – the forward engine room for the port and starboard engines and the aft engine room for the centre engine. This configuration is important to keep the boat well balanced. Even in ships, it is important to get as close to the 50:50 front-rear weight distribution as possible.

The rearmost compartment, as you can guess, houses the three massive Hamilton water jets. Every one of the ship’s compartments is watertight, and that means if a part of the hull gets holed under attack, you can seal that particular room off and the ship will stay afloat.

There are three levels of watertightness as well. You have the basic ‘X’ level for all rooms below  deck, ‘Y’ for all compartments on deck (used in medium-rough seas) and ‘Z’ where the superstructure is secured (used when Poseidon is in a foul mood).

The Cankaro’s bridge has one captain’s chair, but it is very unlike the ones found on an Innova. Set high, so the captain has a good overview of all that he oversees, it also gives him a top view of where the ship is going. 

His ‘dashboard’ from left to right consists of a radar screen, steering, compass and a moving, GPS-like map with additional info like depth and the position of nearby ships. Controls for the engine and water jets sit to the right of these, and further right are the remote controls for that 30mm cannon.

There’s plenty of headroom and legroom too; in fact, the INS Cankarso has accommodation for four officers and 45 sailors. The officers’ quarters are in the superstructure while the sailors are all housed below deck. Navy ships ◊ ∆ are designed to have flexible accommodation and it is the same here – if there are fewer sailors on board, bunks can be removed easily to improve space in the living quarters.

By warship standards, equipment levels are pretty good – the Cankarso is centrally air-conditioned with two air-con plants that keep the crew cool, there’s Tata Sky to keep the crew entertained and informed, and build quality is as tough as a battleship.

You can’t opt for airbags or a sunroof, however, and basic safety gear like seatbelts are missing on the bridge.