Castoldi announced on 2 September that it has registered an Indian subsidiary. The Italian waterjet and jet tender maker, based at Albairate outside Milan, set up Castoldi India to service the systems it already has in the water there and to become eligible for Indian government tenders under Make in India, the policy that favours local companies by tying public procurement to progressively more manufacturing and sourcing inside the country. Its waterjets move a boat with a pump instead of a propeller, pushing water out through a nozzle under the hull. From 2013 they went into 80 patrol boats built for the Indian Navy. The company gave no investment figure.
Eighty boats for the Indian Navy were built with Castoldi jets
The Indian Navy's Fast Interceptor Craft programme put Castoldi waterjets on 80 patrol boats, the first of them delivered in March 2013. Solas Marine Lanka built the hulls at Wattala, near Colombo in Sri Lanka, under a contract worth ₹3 billion, about US$32 million at the time, signed in September 2011, according to naval references. Deliveries ran to 2017. The same references put 76 of the 80 boats in Indian Navy service, with four handed to the Mozambique Navy.
"We believe strongly in the partnership between Italy and India," said Giacomo Castoldi, the company's chief executive, of the new subsidiary. "India is a country with enormous potential for waterjet propulsion technology — in both the commercial and defence sectors — and this step reflects our long-term commitment to this market."
Seattle in 2022, India in 2026
Castoldi USA Inc. opened in Seattle in October 2022 under James Langner, the company's American sales representative, covering fishing boats, workboats, fast ferries, high-speed craft and military work. Seattle was a sales office. The Indian one adds tender access on top of the service work.
The Albairate plant occupies 18,000 square metres, of which 8,000 are production sheds and offices, with a water basin on site for testing jets and boats. Maritime Journal puts the installed fleet at more than 40,000 waterjet units worldwide. The catalogue runs to fourteen jet tenders, from the Jet Tender 14 up to the JT 34 Limo, and nine Turbodrive waterjet models.
Photo: Castoldi. Source: Marine Industry News, Maritime Journal, Castoldi.
