The design and construction of aluminum Fast Ferries has been for many years the core business of Rodriquez Cantieri Navali (merged in Intermarine in 2013), that has built a significant number of Fast Ferries in the range from 30 to 115 meters for operators from all over the world. Today the production of fast ferries is focused on vessels of smaller size, ranging from 40 to 70 meters, with different types of hulls: monohull, catamaran, wave-piercing catamaran and hydrofoil, all highly technological, where speed, reduced consumption and comfort outline their hallmarks. The technical office is focused on solutions to reduce the fuel consumption and the environmental impact, always taking into consideration the increase of passengers comfort, also in adverse sea conditions.
Amazing results in terms of comfort and fuel consumptions are achieved with the wave-piercing catamarans, whose very high-performance hulls pierce the waves instead of following their motion, and also with the new type of fully-submerged-wings hydrofoils, capable of comfortably sailing at 40 knots even in rough sea conditions. All Fast Ferries are equipped with stabilization systems developed and patented by Intermarine, which complete the technological features of these vessels.
Intermarine, under the Rodriquez brand, built also catamarans, that are a valid solution to sail safely, carrying a large number of passengers and taking up as little space as possible in length: they are able to carry from 200 to 1500 passengers (and in many versions also cars and trucks) with a speed from 20 to 40 knots.
The advent of the hydrofoil was an important innovation in the field of passenger transport and today this kind of vessel continues to be regarded as one of the most economical vessels to operate, thanks above all, to its speed-to-power ratio (speed up to 40 knots with only 4000 kW installed power).
In the mid '90 Intermarine, under the Rodriquez brand, revolutionized the market introducing the "Guizzo", a 100m, 47 knots Monohull Fast Ferry for the transport of passengers and vehicles, the first of the so-called TMV series.