TRICKED-​​OUT CATAMARAN READY TO SAIL

High-​​tech ship to patrol the coasts: kinda cool. Tricked-​​out, ultra-​​fast, alu­minum cata­ma­ran to test out all the gear: awwwwww yeah!
This Saturday, on Whidbey Island in Washington state, the Office of Naval Research will chris­ten its “Littoral Surface Craft Experimental, or “X-​​Craft.” The 262-​​foot long ves­sel, with a crew of 16 Navy sailors and 10 Coast Guardsmen, is designed to try out the tech­nolo­gies that will be going into the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), the Navy’s shore­line fighter of the future. By check­ing out the rel­a­tively low-​​cost X-Craft’s hydro­dy­namic per­for­mance, struc­tural behav­ior, and engine effi­ciency now, the Navy hopes to save a bun­dle later when it builds the LCS.
The X-​​Craft will also be able to switch from fleet pro­tec­tion to sub-​​hunt to anti-​​mine to amphibi­ous assault mode quickly, by using a series of 16, inter­change­able “mis­sion mod­ules” — stan­dard twenty foot con­tain­ers, tucked into the X-​​Crafts climate-​​controlled mis­sion bay.
A multi-​​purpose ramp “will allow X-​​Craft to launch and recover manned and unmanned sur­face and sub-​​surface vehi­cles up to the size of an 11-​​meter Rigid-​​Hull Inflatable Boat,” accord­ing to the Navy.
“From its flight deck, X-​​Craft will be able to oper­ate with two H-​​60 type heli­copters or VTUAVs [helicopter-​​esque drones] at a time.“
The X-​​Craft, weigh­ing in a 950 met­ric tons and able to speed long the waves at up to 50 knots, will be fin­ished up this April. And then it will move down to San Diego, where the cata­ma­ran will have its home port.

February 3rd, 2005 | Ships and Subs | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.