New Lifeboat Design Borrows Catamaran Technology
It looks like a cross between a submarine and a chisel-but French naval architects say their bizarre new design for a lifeboat will halve the time it takes to reach a ship in trouble. Using wave-piercing technology more common to high-speed catamaran ferries, the 22-metre-long craft will have a top speed of 55 knots (100 kilometres per hour). Currently, the fastest lifeboats plying Britain's coastal waters have a top speed of 25 knots.
"The bow will cut through the waves like a blade," says Gildas Plessis, one of the boat's designers at Plessis Marin, based in Machecoul, near Nantes. Just like a fast ferry, the lifeboat will be propelled by two powerful water jets. Plessis anticipates that in rough seas the vessel could be submerged by up to 5 metres as it travels under the crest of a wave before re-emerging in the trough. The lifeboat would have a crew of four and be able to rescue up to a dozen people at a time. In calmer seas, rescuers could leave the craft's rear on jet skis towing floating stretchers, say the designers.
The vessel's lightweight hull will be built from a sandwich of glass fibre and PVC bonded with epoxy resin. Plessis aims to test a model in a tank within the next year. "If the tests are OK, we hope to see our first wave-piercer built in 2002 or 2003," he told New Scientist.
The company is also working on a military version which could be used as a landing craft. In this case, Plessis says, the hull would be reinforced with Kevlar-which is used in bulletproof vests-and carbon fibre to help protect the craft against gunfire.
Author: Mick Hamer
New Scientist issue 17 February 2001