Juliet Marine Systems and its Ghost attack boat platform truly brings forth the next generation of Marine technology.
According to Business Week:
Matte gray, with the chiseled angles of a Nighthawk stealth aircraft, Ghost doesn’t look like a boat. Its 38-foot main hull is designed to travel above the water’s surface, propped up by two narrow struts, both 12 feet long and razor-sharp at the front so they can cut through ocean debris. Underwater, each strut is attached to a 62-foot-long tube that contains a gas turbine engine. Hinges allow the struts to move up and down like wings. While parked, or traveling through shallow waters, they can be extended to the side. In deeper waters, at speeds of eight knots or higher, they can rotate downward to lift the hull into the air, eliminating the jarring impact of waves.
Four propellers positioned at the front of the tubes are powered by the two 2,000-horsepower engines. They pull the craft and, with the help of air funneling down through the struts, create a gas bubble around each tube—an effect known as supercavitation that can reduce drag by a factor of 900. In short, Ghost makes a bubble and flies through it.
“We expect to be breaking the speed record for SWATHs—Small Waterplane Area Twin Hulls—by the end of the season,” Rear Admiral Thomas Richards. “The Navy has nothing like this.”
For more on the Ghost, please visit JulietMarine.com.
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