The Baltictech Group has completed the construction of a new, specially designed exploration vessel – Espace.

A beautiful sunny Saturday, June 3, was the perfect day for diving, and certainly, many people eagerly took advantage of it. Meanwhile, a small ceremony was held in Leba, which at first glance had little to do with diving. However, as is often the case, appearances can be misleading…

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A long road full of adventures

People passionate about wreck diving and searching for shipwrecks are certainly well aware that there must be something more behind the launch of the Baltictech Group’s new vessel, and it undoubtedly has something to do with diving. Moreover, diving in a scale that is available to few, but which is enjoyed by almost the entire diving community.

After all, Baltictech’s expeditions, discoveries, and successes a statistical diver can list without a single stammer. In past years, as we have repeatedly reported on our website, there was a lot of it.

The search for and discovery of wrecks, recovery of various artifacts that had enriched the collection of the National Maritime Museum in Gdansk, documentation of the most important wrecks in the Polish part of the Baltic Sea, production of TV series, documentaries, and movies, activities to make Baltic wrecks accessible to the general diving community, as well as Tomasz Stachura’s publication familiarizing the public with Operation Hannibal and the wrecks of ships sunk as part of these activities, or the Baltictech conference, which to some extent perfectly summarizes all of the mentioned above.

The Passion

The list of accomplishments and achievements is quite long, and the ones I’ve mentioned represent only a portion that I could quickly recall from my memory. Nevertheless, it’s hard not to be impressed, especially when we realize that the group’s activities are a hobby on which they spend a huge amount of their private funds.

Someone could say that it was supposed to be about a new boat, and what came out was a tribute to Baltictech. Nonetheless, for the full significance of the construction of the Espace catamaran to resonate, it was first necessary to give to the emperor what belongs to the emperor. Especially considering that the list of the above achievements provided us all with a mass of incredible thrills, great pride, as well as entertainment. And, after all, this is not the end…

We can say just the opposite, as the Baltictech team seems to be rapidly accelerating in recent years. The formation is growing, the scope and fields of operations are expanding and, of course, the needs are growing. That’s why a specially designed Espace boat has emerged on the horizon. A vessel built to make the group’s next efforts as efficient as possible.

I imported the Enduro (the previous boat) in 2014 and quickly realized that the range and potential use of this vessel were limited. That’s why, after a few years, I decided to build a boat from scratch that would better fit our needs. Espace is ideally designed for couple-day cruises on the Baltic Sea as far as Finland and the Åland Islands – said, Tomasz Stachura.

Launching of Espace

The launching ceremony held in Leba, which is the vessel’s home port, was attended by representatives of local authorities and people associated with the Baltictech group and guests. Everyone was in excellent moods and had a great time during the private ceremony. Tomasz Stachura’s wife Barbara became the godmother of the unit. The traditional boat consecration ceremony was conducted by Rev. Krzysztof Czaja, a great enthusiast who is a great supporter of the search for the wreck of the ORP Eagle submarine and is present at many meetings and lectures.

Before I get into the technical details, I must point out that this is the only vessel known (at least to me) in our region that has been designed and built from scratch for diving purposes.

Baltictech’s new catamaran measures 14 meters in length and has a two-story superstructure. Inside it, 10 divers and 2 boat crew can work and sleep in comfort. On a full tank equipped with two Iveco 560 hp engines, the vessel can cover 600 miles (3x more than the Enduro). At the same time, a supply of drinking water allows one to carry out operations on the sea for 2-3 days without turning back to port.

In addition to standard features such as an elevator for divers and places to gear up, Espace has a very modern search and survey instrumentation. A side-scan sonar is permanently built into the bottom of the boat, and soon (also permanently) a multibeam will be mounted. Moreover, the catamaran is equipped with 3 anchors, which makes it possible to stand over the wreck in a very stable way. This will make it easy to lower the ROV with which the operator will perform the inspection. And while we’re at it, a special ROV and multibeam station has been designed just for the surveyor. So, as you can see, the character of the Espace is outstandingly exploratory. The cherry on the top of the cake is a high-end thermal vision camera for traveling at night. This is an extremely modern and rare piece of equipment that makes sailing very easy.

The Baltictech group will set sail on its first cruise in early September, and the destination is likely to be Bornholm. Certainly, during this cruise, there will be many opportunities to test and examine the boat’s equipment.

I don’t know what you wish for new boats, but I wish the Baltictech lads a whole lot of great discoveries. I hope they will take full advantage of the Espace catamaran’s capabilities and soon we will be able to write about their next successes.