Tag: BOAT

What's better than a machine gun-equipped military boat? A machine gun-equipped military boat that flies, of course -- and, apparently, Iran now has one. As part of the country's Sacred Week of Defense, which commemorates its eight-year war with Iraq, Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps unveiled three squadrons of new flying boats yesterday to the delight of the handful of people who actually ...

A boat constructed from thousands of plastic bottles has completed its journey across the Pacific Ocean, from San Francisco to Sydney Harbor. According to Popular Science, the Plastiki, which is a catamaran made from about 12,500 plastic bottles, sailed more than 9,000 miles in four months to raise awareness of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch -- a pile of waste the size of Texas that's floating ...

A Florida police officer recently used Google Earth to track down the person who had illegally dumped an old boat into an undeveloped subdivision about 15 miles from Pensacola. According to the Pensacola News Journal, after discovering the 18-foot boat, Deputy Gregory Barnes scoured fuzzy satellite images of nearby neighborhoods on Google Earth. Barnes noticed a large boat sitting in the driveway ...

People are starting to look to the oceans to produce clean energy, and a couple of Korean researchers have come up with a unique way to harvest power from the high seas. According to Wired, Park Chul and Kim Jongchul recently wrote a proposal that envisions using a giant kite to tow a large ship with a hydroelectric turbine attached to its hull. Essentially, the system would create a floating ...

By sea, by air or by land, no terrain is out of the question for a New Zealand inventor's do-all vehicle. According to a Reuters video (watch below), Rudy Heedman has built a homemade hovercraft that uses a set of detachable wings to take flight when it reaches 44 mph. It's a child's (or adrenaline junkie's) dream come true. Once he leaves the water for the sky, Heedman is protected from death or ...

Couch potatoes aren't known for having an adventurous streak. But that might change with the debut of a new ocean vessel. According to Marine Business World, a zero-emissions "sofa boat" that's powered by an electric engine was a hit at the recent Abu Dhabi Yacht Show. Designed and built by Abra Marine, the 11-foot "green" boat has a comfy couch that'll seat three passengers and is covered by a ...

We've seen everything from solar-powered speedboats to passenger ferries cruising the waters, but never have we seen a solar-fueled vessel in the same ballpark of the mass of the PlanetSolar. The Huffington Post reports that the world's largest solar-powered yacht, measuring 102 feet long and 50 feet wide, was unveiled yesterday in Kiel, Germany. Covered with 5,382 square feet of solar panels, ...

Hybrid automobiles may be the future of mass terrestrial transport, but their vanilla styling and performance simply do not compare to the sheer awesomeness of one new aquatic counterpart. Put it this way, we just don't see James Bond tearing through a foreign metropolis in a Prius. Put Bond in a boat/submarine hybrid in a Venice canal, however, and he looks right at home. The Scubacraft is ...

Recession? What recession? California-based company WaterCar has recently launched the Python, a sybaritic combination of hot rod and speed boat that costs upwards of $200,000. And for all those clams you won't be disappointed; as the fastest amphibious car on the market, the Python reaches speeds of up to 60 mph in the water (or 52 knots, for those of us more nautically inclined) and can top ...

In an effort to cut carbon-dioxide emissions, China is taking the fight against global warming to the water. Come November, solar-powered boats that look like a cross between a shark and something from 'Star Wars' will ferry folks across Hong Kong's harbor. According to Bloomberg, the four solar-powered ferries will use about three-quarters solar power and one-quarter liquid petroleum gas (half ...

Once again, a team of well-meaning scientists is giving an intelligent, autonomous robotic vessel everything it needs to take over the world. Sigh... According to CNN, eight third-year engineering students from the university ETH Zurich in Switzerland have created a four-meter-long, carbon-fiber yacht potentially capable of piloting itself across the Atlantic Ocean. Avalon, as its creators like ...

A group of engineers, scientists and sailors have banded together to form a team they call Solar Planet. The group is now building a 98-foot-long solar-powered boat for the express purpose of sailing all the way around the world using nothing but the delicious power of the sun. The $13 million dollar vessel -- which is currently in construction in Kiel, Germany -- will have 5,059 square feet of ...

There are many ways that boats can get themselves through the water, but the vast majority rely on things that move. Whether they be fluttering sails or spinning propellers powered by solar panels, some sort of motion is required to get the boat headed in the right direction. But, that's not the case in a prototype boat developed at the University of Pittsburgh, which has no moving parts at all ...

Yachts are usually pretty environmentally unsound, so the DSe Hybrid just debuted by Island Pilot at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show should be a real breath of fresh air (literally) if green is your thing. And apparently it's really about as eco-friendly as it gets -- using a combination of diesel, solar and electric power (when it goes into commercial production it will also boast ...

If you had any urge whatsoever to try to your hand at drug trafficking over water while these "weird" economic times sort themselves out, uh, you may want to reevaluate your options. The ever-so-stealthy Stiletto has come to life after tracking down a remarkably quick drug-running boat near Florida; the bad guys were cruising at 42 knots, but that comic book-esque thing you're undoubtedly ...