Spider-Like Catamaran Travels 5,000 Miles On One Tank 196
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."
Yeah but, (Score:5, Insightful)
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Bzzzt... *Maybe* 4000 gallons (Score:2)
Re:Bzzzt... *Maybe* 4000 gallons (Score:4, Informative)
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Doesn't sound that great even with a crew of 10 a 747 gets better milage per seat.
Re:Bzzzt... *Maybe* 4000 gallons (Score:5, Informative)
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So going 4000 miles using 2000 gallons isn't much of an accomplish
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I'm not sure what mid-range planet you are from, but I'm on a yacht right now. It cost me about $19k and is 31 feet long. For US mpg under engine, I would get about 10 (it drinks about 2litres per hour making 4-5 knots). I sailed across the atlantic a few years ago (~4000 miles) and only used about
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Seriously, a diesel-fueled catamaran ? why would it be more efficient than a single-hull vessel ?
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Re:baptism (Score:2, Funny)
Re:baptism (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bzzzt... *Maybe* 4000 gallons (Score:5, Funny)
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Exactly my thought. That's a non-sensical statement in the article - cargo ships can cross the Atlantic on a single tank of fuel. Fuel efficiency is the more relivant statistic if you want to impress.
However looking at the vessil, it looks fairly small, so perhaps it is a note-worthy accomplishment, we'll never know until the numbers are released.
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Re:Yeah but, (Score:4, Informative)
Approximate fuel consumption numbers are (from various sources):
Inland Waterways: approx 500 ton-miles/gallon
Rail: 70-200 ton-miles/gallon
Interstate Trucking: 40-100 ton-miles/gallon
Airfreight: 5-35 ton-miles/gallon
My carrier could go 15,000 miles on a tank (Score:2)
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-
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For a boat? Yes, it is.... (Score:2)
Absolutely useless reporting (Score:2)
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)
How big is "a load" of diesel?
It can carry a shipload of the stuff.
conversion please? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Absolutely useless reporting (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Absolutely useless reporting (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, so its a weight loss program too? Gad, is there anything quantum physics can't do!!!11
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Re:Absolutely useless reporting (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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(Actually the support ships in nuclear carrier groups often refuel from fuel the carrier um, carries.)
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Re:7 loads = 1 shitload (Score:5, Funny)
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A PROTESS ship in New York Harbor? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A PROTESS ship in New York Harbor? (Score:5, Funny)
Your geek badge has been revoked. Please hand it over to the receptionist on your way out.
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More info from the manufacturer (Score:5, Informative)
with some stats:
http://www.wam-v.com/characteristics.htm [wam-v.com]
still didn't see tank size though...
LOAD = (Score:5, Informative)
Re:LOAD = (Score:4, Informative)
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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.
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Re:LOAD = (Score:5, Insightful)
Depends on displacement (Score:2)
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Would think that a planing design or hydrofoil would be much more efficient for high-speed craft.
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I'm guessing it does better than 2.5 mpg..
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070907/ap_on_sc/stra
Which does say 5000 miles on 2000 gallons. Apparently it has a maximum speed of 30 knots.
Big deal! (Score:5, Funny)
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no, it is not more efficient (Score:5, Funny)
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The article said Diesel.
Not Vin Diesel.
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I mis-read that as a caravan of spiders.. (Score:2, Funny)
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After a long time, I'm proud of the USA (Score:2)
What we now need, is to recapture the electronics and auto manufacturing leads from Japan, China and South Korea.
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"Designed in
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What we now need, is to recapture the electronics and auto manufacturing leads from Japan, China and South Korea.''
Why?
Also, what would you be willing to sacrifice?
Re:After a long time, I'm proud of the USA (Score:4, Funny)
boy, are you easy to please.
Reminds me of (Score:2)
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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)
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How efficient? (Score:2)
5000 mile range on a 2000 gallon tank (Score:2)
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Not by a long stretch.
Recent, More Efficient Invention (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:Recent, More Efficient Invention (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Recent, More Efficient Invention (Score:4, Funny)
Diesel? (Score:2)
Feel good stories (Score:5, Informative)
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)
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).
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It's sea-faring, by the way.
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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.
Err, no. Boats need a certa
Fuel efficiency (Score:2)
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.
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Introduced?! (Score:2)
Inflatable soft hulls? Like a zodiac boat? (Score:2)
Yawn. (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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_Are
I especially like this line from the story:
Not aboard for the maiden press voyage? Hmmm,,,,,
~
Columbus set the MPG record (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Miles per gallon? (Score:5, Funny)
lightweight cars a great idea? (Score:2, Informative)
And no, I didn't catch the answer to your question, I just love watching that car crumple in such amazing ways.
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Re:Miles per gallon? (Score:4, Interesting)
MPG is not really a super-relevant metric for cargo-hauling vehicles. A 747 gets a few feet per gallon, but it can transport about 10x as many people a given distance for a given amount of fuel burnt than a Cessna 152, getting about 17 miles per gallon. Gallon burnt, per pound moved a mile, or something like it, is much more useful. Airplanes are rated in gallons-per-seat-per-mile, basically, and it gives you a much better idea of what the machine's efficiency can be if fully loaded.
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If you have two heavy vehicles that collide head-on, there's a lot more energy being dissipated in the collision than two light vehicles. Think two train locomotives vs. two bicycles.
It's true that generally speaking a collision between a light vehicle and a heavy vehicle generally results in more damage to the light vehicle...but that could just as easily be seen as a reason to get the h
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I'll take the light one (Score:4, Insightful)
Mass is a penalty in almost every situation, the only exception I can think of being impact with a less heavy vehicle. It's unfortunate that some think this outweighs all the other benefits to low mass vehicles.
I dream of a day when I can buy a sporty 2000lb or less car that's not an Elise or a homebuilt.
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Didn't that used to be the CRX? I owned two of them; neat, nimble little cars.
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At 1000 rpm (cruising) it does 9 knots which gives it 12000 miles range on
10,000 US gallon tanks or 1.23 gallons per mile. However my payload is 10 people
and 25 tons of equipment.
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