EU-Supported Technology Development at Lake Balaton

The mechanical and navigational system and other equipment developed by a consortium of Balaton Dock Ltd. and Előny Ltd. with EU funding is already being put to good use in making the summer Balaton shipping season safer.

The consortium won HUF 364 million in EU funding, for which it had to provide HUF 231 million in own resources, the managing director of Balaton Dock Ltd., Márton Deák told the state news agency MTI.

He said that there are not enough berths on Lake Balaton, but at the same time there are more and more sailors with little experience. For this reason, it was important to make the mooring of boats safer and to save space in the marinas.

One of their improvements, he said, was to replace the installation of stern piles with so-called fingers or branch pontoons, which branch off the main jetty on both sides of the vessels in the harbor. “These pontoons, based on the principles of flexible energy dissipation and anchoring, ensure damage-free berthing even in the event of mis-steering or crosswinds. As soon as a vessel reaches its designated berth, the newly developed devices virtually guide it into its parking space," he explained. The mooring points can be adapted to the width of a single vessel, which allows for easier and safer mooring and the reception of more vessels in the berths, he added.

Another development by the consortium, according to the CEO, is a navigation system for boatmen that works in a similar way to a reversing radar on a car, showing graphically how to get a boat in and out of a given place. The development of the telemetry and information technology system – software and hardware tools – based on a mechanical and positioning transponder for docking in ports was funded by the consortium under the EU Ginop program, a project that started in 2017 and ended last autumn.

As part of the project, the developments were tested and commissioned at the Fenyves Yacht Club in Balatonfenyves, operated and owned by Balaton Dock Ltd., and the Alsóörs Marina in Alsóörs.