Excerpt from article by marine photographer and writer, Alan Haig-Brown
“The people at Diamond Services Corporation, based in Morgan City Louisiana, like powerful boats and they like to test the limits with new technology. They are also prepared to shop around for engines and propulsion systems.”
“With two new 170×30-foot crew boats currently under construction at Swift Ships in Morgan City, Diamond Services, a subsidiary of the Carline Corporation, is becoming well established as an operator of the new generation large crew boats. They launched the first of this class, the ‘Paula Kay’, in May of 1997 with four Cummins KTA38-M1 main engines with a rating of 1000 HP each. The engines drove Hamilton HM571 waterjets to give the boat a light speed of 29 knots or 28 knots with 64 passengers, crew, ship’s fuel, water and a 30 ton deck cargo.”
“In a subsequent boat, the185-foot ‘Kristin Grace’, the firm tried another manufacturer’s engines. But for the currently building 170-footers they have returned to the Cummins KTA38 base. “We have a lot of hours on the “Paula Kay’s” KTA38-M1 engines,” says Diamond Services Mike Swiber, “and we like the service and support that we have had.”