The SeaPhantom - helicopter speed, powerboat price
from On the Water (257 articles)
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Image Gallery ( 30 images )February 14, 2007 As a leap forward in the capability of watercraft, the SeaPhantom is landmark. The company’s catchcry “Helicopter speed, powerboat price” explains how effective it is, but the devil is in the detail and this toy is a combination of several technologies, each of them adding a significant dimension to the capabilities. At low speeds, it’s just like a boat, then as it transitions to medium speeds, it lifts out of the water on proprietary shock dampened 'foils' which are outboard on each side and are the marine equivalent of a desert race car suspension – long travel and capable of withstanding massive impacts. This is a very serious suspension system with non-corrosive fiberglass leaf springs and billet-aluminum airbags tested to 60,000 pounds for dampening the wave impacts. At these speeds SeaPhantom is like a trike with two wheels (the foils) at the front and one driving wheel – in this case a 625hp Ilmor V-10 running through a propulsion system adapted from an offshore race boat. Once there’s clear water in front of it, tweak the speed and the lifting-body airfoil design picks it off the water in ground effect, radically reducing hydrodynamic drag. Without all that resistance of the water to contend with, the SeaPhantom can rocket along at 120 mph using just a fraction of the V-10’s 625 horsepower with radically-improved fuel consumption.
The biggest advantage of the ground effect is that it’s infinitely smoother than being pounded into the face of every wave, so passengers do not experience the cruelness of the ocean.
The number one long-term concern of the US Navy SEAL operative during small boat insertion operations is the accumulative effect of the constant pounding on his body. The average SEAL will complete his career one inch shorter than his enlistment height, due solely to the endless wave impact loads on his spine. Many admirable approaches have been made to mitigate shock loads to small boat combatants at the seat base, but the more logical approach would be to intercept the problem at its source: the sea-surface interaction zone. The SeaPhantom does this.
Water transportation built the foundations of the modern world but its sedate pace has seen it sidelined as a serious transport alternative for anything but vacations and as a short haul ferry.
The SeaPhantom is considerably faster than an automobile, making it a viable transportation alternative particularly suitable as a watertaxi with a viable range of several hundred kilometres, for police and emergency response teams, and of course, many military applications.
It’s the military potential of the SeaPhantom that makes it very likely to attract investment. For starts, without a brutal battering by the waves, servicemen will be in far better shape to perform their duties.
One example of the potential of the SeaPhantom as a Future Force Multiplier is on the company’s web site. Scaled up and armed with ship-to-ship, surface-to-surface, and surface-to-air systems, plus six, internally deployable, 85-knot similarly armed drone craft. All this in a ship that can cruise at 150 knots.
The acquisition cost of two such systems would be similar to that of a Blackhawk helicopter but would yield a force multiplier factor of 30+. A Blackhawk goes home after 2 hours, or it will run out of fuel, whereas the indefinite loiter capability of the SeaPhantom puts it on station for twelve hours with the unmanned drones capable of loitering indefinitely. Such an investment could secure a major harbor for the price of a Blackhawk.
Borman is adamant that the SeaPhantom offers remarkable stealth and agility qualities make it an impossible target to hit.
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