A French amphibious boat that employs caterpillar treads instead of wheels has seduced the U.S. Navy. In late 2020 it bought two of them, called Iguana Interceptors, for shallow-water surveillance missions.
The Iguana is the only fast boat in the world with caterpillar tracks. It was designed by a company, Iguana Yachts, founded in 2008 by Antoine Brugidou in Normandy, on France’s Atlantic coast. The coastline there sees some of the world’s biggest tidal ranges, and that was a problem for Brugidou, a boating enthusiast. If he wanted to take his pleasure boat out at low tide and come back at high tide, he couldn’t haul his boat down to the shoreline and then leave the vehicle and trailer on the beach-they’d be underwater by the time he came home.
The answer was to give the boat retractable caterpillar treads so it can rumble down the beach and into the water without needing to be towed. This solution not only does away with the need to have a dock, as the boat can be kept on dry land, but it also keeps the hull sleek. It’s like an iguana, a reptile that stays streamlined in the water by tucking its front legs under its belly when it swims.
When aluminum arms lower the kevlar and rubber caterpillar tracks to the ground, the 30-foot-long, 10.5-foot-wide, 4.4-ton vessel lifts about three feet off the ground. A retractable ladder at the back allows access on and off the boat. The craft may appear to be unstable, but Poirier said 11 people, each weighing some 176 pounds, can stand in it while it was on its caterpillar tracks and it remains “extremely stable.” Once the boat has trundled down into a minimum of 1.8 feet of water, the tracks fold flush back into the hull without compromising its hydrodynamic properties-you’d never guess there was anything unusual about it.
Music:
"Homeworld Collapse” by Arthur Vyncke
| / arthurvost
Music promoted by www.free-stock-music.com
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Concept Boat
barco de concepto
barco conceito
barca di concetto
Konzeptboot
概念船
コンセプトボート
अवधारणा नाव
konsept tekne
Amazing boat
tolles Boot
barco incrível
barca incredibile
barco asombroso
geweldige boot
很棒的船
素晴らしいボート
अद्भुत नाव
muhteşem tekne
electric boat
barco elétrico
barca elettrica
elektrische boot
elektrisk båt
perahu listrik
bateau électrique
elektrisk båd
Elektroboot
電動船
電気ボート
elektrikli tekne
बिजली की नाव
Torqeedo
Solar watercraft
Solar boat
barco solar
barca solare
solbåd
zonne-boot
Solarboot
perahu surya
bateau solaire
güneş teknesi
ソーラーボート
太陽能船
सौर नाव