http://www.earthrace.net/view.asp?webpage=26
Saw this baby on Discovery…amazing concept. Part racing boat, part racing submarine. Good cause too. Hope they accomplish their goal.
There certainly is some odd physics going on there. It has to be planing to achieve anything like the claimed top speed, but the description makes it seem to be in displacement mode much of the time (particularly when negotiating waves). Hull speed cannot possibly be >20 knots (and that’s using a ridiculous factor based on the narrow beam). Making a sudden transition from over twice that speed in planing mode should be, ah, interesting.
-Samiam
One of our companies here Pacific Marine has been working on a series of military prototypes using these tri-cat hull design on much larger platform (50-100 ton displacement) for the Navy. Unfortunately they run on highpowered gas turbines which are used on alot of newer craft.
From my office I can watch them run their trials out in front of Sand Island to Pearl Harbor and back and it is very very fast 20 knots plus in my opinion but again this is for the Navy so why not… I’m sure the price of one of these is disgusting. But the wake is just incredible and there is no large wake wave produced.
I admire the statement they are trying to make
makes sense such thinking is coming out of New Zealand versus the US
I agree with sam though
like the Hydroplanes I use to watch on Lake Washington
at speed getting hit the wrong way with a wave could be devastating.
They should show up for the race up there this fall as a counter example of ecologically produced speed