US-based marine technology company Juliet Marine Systems, claims it has solved the technical challenge of controlling small waterplane area twin hull (SWATH) vessels at high speed.
The company says its Ghost demonstration vessel has shown the ability to safely and smoothly transport personnel and payloads through heavy seas at over 30 knots. These capabilities protect personnel and improve their ability to function in challenging missions. With Ghost, JMS says it will raise the bar for patrol boat capability.
JMS says it has ‘perfected patented SWATH control and is refining active drag reduction technologies that independent expert studies have shown will increase performance significantly in next generation offerings’.
The submerged, torpedo-shaped twin hulls appear to use traction propellers at their forward bows. The engines also exhaust their spent gasses somewhere behind these propellers so that the submerged hulls are largely running in a mass of bubbles to reduce drag.
An additional development that this vessel displays is that the angle at which the twin hulls are supported is adjustable by a hydraulic system. This means the vessel’s main hull can be carried high to better clear waves or the vessel can be hunkered down closer to the water with its cat hulls far apart for maximum stability.
JMS technologies are suitable for applications in defence, commercial and recreational applications and in surface and subsea, manned and unmanned systems.
By Jake Frith
