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Toys Technology

Spider-Like Catamaran Travels 5,000 Miles On One Tank 196

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the doing-whatever-a-spider-boat-does dept.
Lucas123 writes "Proteus, a Wave Adaptive Modular Vessel that looks like a spider, is so fuel efficient that it can travel 5,000 miles on one load of diesel fuel. The 100-foot-long, 50-foot-wide boat rides on metal and fabric pontoons that have hinges and shock absorbers to flex with the motion of the waves, which helps it to skim over the water at a max speed of 30 knots. It made its debut yesterday in New York harbor."
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Spider-Like Catamaran Travels 5,000 Miles On One Tank More

Spider-Like Catamaran Travels 5,000 Miles On One Tank

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  • Yeah but, (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mrbill1234 ( 715607 ) on Friday September 07, 2007 @05:25PM (#20514421)
    How big is the tank?

  • How big is "a load" of diesel?

    I mean, honestly, how many ships these days have to refuel for transatlantic trips?

    • Re:Absolutely useless reporting (Score:5, Funny)

      by jdray ( 645332 ) on Friday September 07, 2007 @05:37PM (#20514605) Homepage Journal

      How big is "a load" of diesel?

      It can carry a shipload of the stuff.

    • Re:Absolutely useless reporting (Score:4, Informative)

      by Hamster Lover ( 558288 ) * on Friday September 07, 2007 @05:40PM (#20514647) Journal
      My grandfather was a stevedore (longshoreman) and I actually phoned and asked him. He said smaller coastal ships could go about 2,000 to 2,500 nautical miles, while larger cargo and container ships could go 5,000 NM or more, depending on how much fuel they took on. Obviously, transatlantic container and cargo ships have to hold enough fuel to get themselves across the Atlantic.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Chris Oz ( 684680 )
        Just what I was thinking. They never say how big the tank is. The boat could be very efficient or it could be the equivalent of a super tanker. Actually super tankers are not to bad on the efficiency stakes, long water lines, but I think the point still stands. Really it is a case of bad reporting. It is like my friend who is working on quantum teleportation at ANU. Every couple of months the local news will pick up a story about something they will do and somehow spin it that we will be tele-porting a

        • Re:Absolutely useless reporting (Score:5, Funny)

          by vux984 ( 928602 ) on Friday September 07, 2007 @06:04PM (#20514963)
          it will work great as long as you don't mind being ripped into your component particles and then having 50% of them left behind in the process

          Oh, so its a weight loss program too? Gad, is there anything quantum physics can't do!!!11

        • Re:Absolutely useless reporting (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 07, 2007 @06:47PM (#20515457)
          Large cargo ships are incredibly efficient at moving stuff around. The fuel costs are essentially zero to move a pound of stuff from China to here in a container. A vague ballparky number that'll get you in the area is 40 gallons per TEU per 1000 miles. That's 40 gallons of bunker fuel to more one 20 foot container 1000 miles, and that with a smaller ship.

          It's all the everything else that costs money and fuel.

          This thing sounds sort of crummy in terms of efficiency, which isn't too surprising. It's small, it's got a lot of stuff up in the air, relative to its size. It's probably moving pretty fast. At 12 tons all up, and 2 tons of cargo capacity, it's in the same ballpark as say a 40 foot sailboat (which happen to have easily-driven hulls, so the fact that it has sails is irrelevant), and a 40 footer will drink maybe 1 gallon per hour at 6 knots. That would take her 12,000 miles on the same 2000 gallons.

          Note, however, your 40 foot sailboat wouldn't have anything like 2000 gallons on board. More like 50 to 100.

          I'm having a littke trouble buying the 2000 gallon tank, on this thing, since that would run about 6 or 7 tons right there, which seems all out of proportion to the rest of the boat.

          Finally, Ugo Conti is the inventor, but Jim Antrim from the bay area actually did the design work and the engineering. I think it was built up in Washington (Anacortes, maybe?)

          The article sucks.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AJWM ( 19027 )
        What? You mean there are no refuelling stops in the middle of the ocean? Who'd have thought it?

        (Actually the support ships in nuclear carrier groups often refuel from fuel the carrier um, carries.)

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Hadlock ( 143607 )
          Most people refuel in Bermuda and the Canary islands when sailing across the Atlantic. That's pretty close to the middle of the ocean. Nuclear powered aircraft carriers go 20 years on a fillup.
    • About 2 cubic LOC ( library of Congress ).

  • A PROTESS ship in New York Harbor? (Score:5, Funny)

    by xxxJonBoyxxx ( 565205 ) on Friday September 07, 2007 @05:26PM (#20514439)
    A PROTESS ship in New York Harbor? Surely, the Zerg can't be far behind...

  • More info from the manufacturer (Score:5, Informative)

    by arsheive ( 609065 ) on Friday September 07, 2007 @05:30PM (#20514483)
    http://www.wam-v.com/ [wam-v.com]

    with some stats:
    http://www.wam-v.com/characteristics.htm [wam-v.com]

    still didn't see tank size though...

  • LOAD = (Score:5, Informative)

    by chkMINUS ( 910577 ) on Friday September 07, 2007 @05:30PM (#20514495)
    According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proteus_(WAM-V) [wikipedia.org] a "load" for this boat is 2,000 gallons.

    • Re:LOAD = (Score:4, Informative)

      by God'sDuck ( 837829 ) on Friday September 07, 2007 @05:40PM (#20514643)
      Hooray! 2.5 MPG! Global warming is like totally history!

      • For a non-nuclear, non-military research and/or search and rescue vessel capable of open ocean travel and very specific tasking, 2.5 miles per gallon is actually pretty damned good. Certainly much better than converted fishing vessels running 600RPM 9 litre diesels that might burn 2.5 gallons per mile.

        I can't believe that got modded insightful.

        • Why can't you believe that? The summary (and presumably the article, though I was far too lazy to actually read it) says that the boat is super efficient. Now to me, super efficient means better than 2 mpg. Even if 2 mpg is great for the boating world the article should be written for those outside that world (the majority) and so should say something like 'The catamaran, extremely efficient for a ship at sea, can go almost 5,000 mi on a single tank, or about 2 mpg.' Not saying the mpg and claiming to be su
          • Just because you're too lazy or dumb to figure out what "efficient" is for a 12 ton water-borne vehicle doesn't mean everyone is. What, you expect us to feel sorry for you or nod in agreement that 2mpg is horrible just because you can only look at efficiency in relation to a car? I can't believe that the majority of people NEED that kind of crap to tell them how to think.

          • Re:LOAD = (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Hadlock ( 143607 ) on Friday September 07, 2007 @10:38PM (#20517201) Homepage Journal
            Sailboats get infinite miles to the gallon, can go three times around the globe without stopping to restock on food, and the technology's been avalible for over a thousand years. As late as the 80's people were circumnavigating the globe in wooden boats without engines (see the book Cruising in Seraphim).
        • Most of those commercial fishing vessels around 100' LOA are ~100 tons displacement. This vessel is only 12 tons displacement (6.8 tons of which is fuel if my calculations are correct). With that much difference in mass, the commercial vessel would actually be more efficient burning 3 gal/mile, the primary limitation being range due to capacity. I suspect the point of this vessel is more platform stability and high speed capability in heavy seas without adversely affecting range.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by aaarrrgggh ( 9205 )
        Fuel efficiency for a boat is roughly proportional to its speed cubed for a displacement hull. 30 Knots is pretty fast at sea, so an operation that only needs to go a more common 10 knots should be fairly fuel efficient.

        Would think that a planing design or hydrofoil would be much more efficient for high-speed craft.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Prune ( 557140 )
        Mod parent, a cretinous imbecile, down. This is quite good for a vessel this size.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by XaXXon ( 202882 )
      That wikipedia article sucks. The part where it's talking about it's range and fuel load isn't even correct english (at the time I read it).

      I'm guessing it does better than 2.5 mpg..

  • Big deal! (Score:5, Funny)

    by the_humeister ( 922869 ) on Friday September 07, 2007 @05:32PM (#20514537)
    My sailboat (and galley of rowing slaves) can travel an infinite number of miles on a tank of diesel!

  • I mis-read that as a caravan of spiders.. (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I mis-read that as a caravan of spiders.. hitching a ride on a military tank for 5000 miles.
  • At first, I thought this thing was Australian made...but on further reading, I realized it was designed [and probably built] in San Fransisco. After a long time, being frustrated by America's out-sourcing of US manufacturing, I am happy I am American once again.

    What we now need, is to recapture the electronics and auto manufacturing leads from Japan, China and South Korea.

  • That kind of reminds me of the stealth ship in James Bond, Tomorrow Never Dies. Looks quite similar, though it's smaller.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Bazards ( 1081167 )
      ever seen this before? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Shadow_(IX-529) [wikipedia.org]
      • From the article you linked to.

        The villain's ship in the 1997 James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies was based on Sea Shadow although the movie version of the ship had geometric features that would make it non-stealthy. The ship in the movie also appeared to have an interior larger than its exterior. Due to its shape, the Sea Shadow's interior is actually rather small and cramped compared to the size of the ship.

        That just really made me laugh. The kind of thing that makes wikipedia much better than any o

  • How big of waves can it handle? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by schwit1 ( 797399 ) on Friday September 07, 2007 @05:45PM (#20514723)
    The North Atlantic is not a nice place to be in a storm.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by arthurpaliden ( 939626 )
      Its a great place to be in a storm. Beats midway rides all to heck. Especially if you are on a large enough ship. Been they and done it many times.

  • Payload 4000 lb. In this prototype, the payload is a boat with berthing for 4 and independent propulsion.
    This is nothing more than a nautical wheelbarrow. Even coke smugglers need a bigger payload.
  • ...so is 2.5 miles/gallon for a lightweight water spider thingy really that great?
    • ``...so is 2.5 miles/gallon for a lightweight water spider thingy really that great?''

      Not by a long stretch.

  • Recent, More Efficient Invention (Score:5, Funny)

    by aldheorte ( 162967 ) on Friday September 07, 2007 @06:05PM (#20514975)
    Ship builders around the world have recently stumbled upon an amazingly efficient design for ocean travel. The breakthrough came when builders realized they could put large poles on the middle mass of a boat. This gave them a platform on which to mount large sheets of material. At first decorative in nature, on some trial runs, the first users reported that some mysterious force was moving the boat even when the engines were off!

    A crack team of scientists determined that this force was a result of changing relative atmospheric pressures resulting in a large amount of mostly nitrogen gas moving in one direction or the other. When they encountered the sheets of material builders had mounted on the boat poles, they exerted pressure on them in parallel with the direction of flow. As a result, ships tended to move in that direction, subject to hull shape. Some very enterprising inventors have recently created sheets of materials and ways of attaching them to the poles that allows ships with oblong hull shapes to even move *towards* the direction of the flow, albeit with some zig zagging back and forth.

    This revelation is even more astonishing in light of estimates on efficiency. Apparently, ships built in this manner can go virtually an unlimited distance entirely by using these flows. In fact, the limits of their range are basically the decay rate of the materials employed for the flow catch sheets. We are truly in a new age that will allow worldwide commerce, exploration, and research.
  • Looks like it might run on dilithium crystals instead.

  • Feel good stories (Score:5, Informative)

    by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Friday September 07, 2007 @06:19PM (#20515121) Journal
    These "feel good" kind of stories are really annoying, because they leave out so many details that most people end up with a completely skewed perception of the facts.
    I did a quick search to get an idea if 2.5 MPG was good for a boat. Here's an article [boatinglife.com] that tested the fuel efficiency of some standard boats - ie boats with normal hulls that sit down in the water, with regular screw propeller propulsion. So they should be pretty poor compared to many other style hulls, etc.

    One particular boat has a V8 350 cubic inch engine that can do 51 MPH. So that's pretty fast. At that speed the boat gets 2.4 MPG, which is basically the same as the boat in the story. At a slower speed of 26.9 MPH it gets 3.6 MPG, which is almost 50% better than the "spider boat". Now obviously the range of these boats are vastly reduced - it's like rocketry, where the more fuel you carry to gain distance, the more weight you have to haul, so the actual gain in distance is only small (or perhaps even negative). So these boats can't begin to touch 5000 miles on one tank.

    So perhaps the significance of this story is ratio of the range to fuel efficiency? If so, it would have been nice if the author would have simply said that.

    Dan East

    • Re:Feel good stories (Score:4, Informative)

      by badboy_tw2002 ( 524611 ) on Friday September 07, 2007 @07:06PM (#20515649)
      Those are tiny runabouts, try crossing the Atlantic even when there's not a storm and you're going to have a problem. Most _ocean_ fairing vessels (that is, cruise ships, tankers, cutters, etc) cut through the water, not ride on top. There are traditional vessels that do this, but its a very very rough ride and you're not carrying much cargo.

      You also have to factor in the loaded weight, range, and payload, and cruising speed. That's what's important here - the fact that you can get a stable ride, rest outside of the water while carrying some payload (for comparison, this boat can almost carry the boats you mentioned on top of the framework).
      • Don't you mean *under* the framework in this case? It appears to me that the widely-spaced pontoons combined with a lower centre of gravity when carrying a load is a good idea. I also wonder if the load is suspended flexibly and can act as a pendulum if the craft is hit by large waves. I'm no naval architect though.

        It's sea-faring, by the way.
    • It's also important to consider how much payload the boat can carry at that efficiency.

    • At a slower speed of 26.9 MPH it gets 3.6 MPG, which is almost 50% better than the "spider boat".

      Congratulations. You've discovered that slower speeds require less power to sustain. I can't wait to see your 500MPG car that goes a max speed of 2MPH.

      Now obviously the range of these boats are vastly reduced - it's like rocketry, where the more fuel you carry to gain distance, the more weight you have to haul, so the actual gain in distance is only small (or perhaps even negative).

      Err, no. Boats need a certa

  • Many have noted that crossing the Atlantic with "one load" of fuel is not a new accomplishment, that ships do it every day.

    The interesting bit here is that you have a small craft making 30 knots crossing on 2,000 gallons; this presumably is out of the norm.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by J_Omega ( 709711 )
      I had no idea that there are ships able to cross the entire Atlantic ocean in a single day? Whoa!

      /sarcasm off
  • I've been seeing pictures of that thing for a year or two. It was built in Longview, Washington or thereabouts and people 'round here kept posting snapshots of it on their blogs with titles like "What the hell is this thing?"
  • Isn't that kind of dangerous for a vessel marketed for long-distance ocean travel?

  • Yawn. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ErikZ ( 55491 ) * on Friday September 07, 2007 @09:11PM (#20516603)
    "Proteus, a Wave Adaptive Modular Vessel that looks like a spider, is so fuel efficient that it can travel 5,000 miles on one load of diesel fuel.

    Feh. Big deal. A 747 can go 7,260 nautical miles on one load of fuel.

    The Space Shuttle can get into ORBIT on one load of fuel.

  • Ummm,,, SWATHs, anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Slugster ( 635830 ) on Saturday September 08, 2007 @06:08AM (#20519313)
    Seems like a SWATH could do something close to this (cruise rough seas) without all the active mumbo-jumbo (whatever it is).
    On the one hand, a SWATH has more hull-surface drag - but on the other hand, the greater submerged hull volume means more fuel storage.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Waterplane_Area _Twin_Hull [wikipedia.org]

    I especially like this line from the story:

    "...Ugo Conti, an Italian-born engineer and oceanographer who designed Proteus, was aboard a chartered harbor cruise boat during his creation's star turn on Thursday. ...."
    Not aboard for the maiden press voyage? Hmmm,,,,,
    ~

  • Columbus set the MPG record (Score:4, Funny)

    by Ancient_Hacker ( 751168 ) on Saturday September 08, 2007 @02:46PM (#20522331)
    Columbus got over 2,000 miles per galleon.....

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