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Hydrofoils is another way. https://vimeo.com/358872215 https://vimeo.com/358872215

dredmorbius 6y ago
Hydrofoiling most cargo vessels tends to be impractical. Bubble systems can (in theory) be applied to any existing design.
Cactus2018 6y ago
Speaking of foils, there is active development in commercial and DIY personal electric foil boards. Check YouTube or a build forum like https://foil.zone/ https://foil.zone/
Someone1234 6y ago
Hydrofoils cannot deal with rough weather/strong winds, what shipping routes is this practical for (where it is far enough to compete with air, but short enough to not have weather conditions)? Plus that video seemed very disingenuous, given the lack of hard data/facts and instead just vagueness on top of vagueness and a shiny demo. I wouldn't touch that company.
- JeremyPOsborne 6y ago
  Jeremy here from that Boundary Layer Technologies. That company building hydrofoil cargo ships. Hydrofoils are not new and have been working for half a century in harsh weather conditions. Please look up the Pegasus class ships from the US navy. Technology has changed in the last 50 years which means we can greatly improve efficiency and practicality of foiling ships especially in the world of airfreight. Foiling vessels can be built to handle any weather condition of a buoyancy based ship. And because we're at sea for no more than 6 days we have a much greater weather prediction to avoid storm swells compared to a tradition ship who might be at see for more than 30 days and cannot go around the storm. For 99% of the time, the ocean is pretty flat so we can still have 99% on time delivery. LOL, I appreciate your words about vagueness. We have not been specific about how we will achieve our goals, but watch out of the coming months for a lot more details. I do love a good hater, it's a promising sign.
  - Balgair 6y ago
    Hey, thanks for coming on HN and commenting! Especially on a Sat. afternoon. That's really cool of you. Good luck on the business and thanks for putting all the hard work and effort in to all of it. Keep being awesome.
  - Someone1234 6y ago
    > I do love a good hater, it's a promising sign. I'm not sure regurgitating well known limitations of Hydrofoils (vis-a-vis strong winds), and asking questions about the only presentation a startup asking for money has felt the need to release qualifies as hating. It didn't go unnoticed that you didn't actually answer any of the questions, and instead doubled down on vagueness. Also pulling out the Pegasus-class really shows how little research has been done (a petrol boat class of ships specifically not designed for deep ocean that was retired early due to the limitations naturally inherent in Hydrofoils!).

Hydrofoiling most cargo vessels tends to be impractical. Bubble systems can (in theory) be applied to any existing design.

Cactus2018 6y ago

Speaking of foils, there is active development in commercial and DIY personal electric foil boards. Check YouTube or a build forum like https://foil.zone/ https://foil.zone/

Someone1234 6y ago

Hydrofoils cannot deal with rough weather/strong winds, what shipping routes is this practical for (where it is far enough to compete with air, but short enough to not have weather conditions)? Plus that video seemed very disingenuous, given the lack of hard data/facts and instead just vagueness on top of vagueness and a shiny demo. I wouldn't touch that company.

JeremyPOsborne 6y ago
Jeremy here from that Boundary Layer Technologies. That company building hydrofoil cargo ships. Hydrofoils are not new and have been working for half a century in harsh weather conditions. Please look up the Pegasus class ships from the US navy. Technology has changed in the last 50 years which means we can greatly improve efficiency and practicality of foiling ships especially in the world of airfreight. Foiling vessels can be built to handle any weather condition of a buoyancy based ship. And because we're at sea for no more than 6 days we have a much greater weather prediction to avoid storm swells compared to a tradition ship who might be at see for more than 30 days and cannot go around the storm. For 99% of the time, the ocean is pretty flat so we can still have 99% on time delivery. LOL, I appreciate your words about vagueness. We have not been specific about how we will achieve our goals, but watch out of the coming months for a lot more details. I do love a good hater, it's a promising sign.
- Balgair 6y ago
  Hey, thanks for coming on HN and commenting! Especially on a Sat. afternoon. That's really cool of you. Good luck on the business and thanks for putting all the hard work and effort in to all of it. Keep being awesome.
- Someone1234 6y ago
  > I do love a good hater, it's a promising sign. I'm not sure regurgitating well known limitations of Hydrofoils (vis-a-vis strong winds), and asking questions about the only presentation a startup asking for money has felt the need to release qualifies as hating. It didn't go unnoticed that you didn't actually answer any of the questions, and instead doubled down on vagueness. Also pulling out the Pegasus-class really shows how little research has been done (a petrol boat class of ships specifically not designed for deep ocean that was retired early due to the limitations naturally inherent in Hydrofoils!).