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 HARTH Passenger- Cargo Ship                    Harth MSAC Carriers                                 HARTH RO-Pax Ferries

Stability and Sea Keeping When It Counts - Always

What will real Ocean Vessel Stability Mean To Ocean Surface Transport Safety?

Conventional ships have unlimited freeboard (extra tonnage and vertical size to the main deck) to accommodate the predictable hog and sag,  bow plows and deck wash in elevated sea states. The Hydro-Lance formulates this excess and therefore a lesser tonnage ship may more efficiently and safely accommodate the same mission or application.  Even the house is far above the oceans surface and is mostly rectilinear, though stream lined for aerodynamic air and wind management.  The house is designed and frequently structurally separate (intimately adjoined) to the main structural components allowing for modular construction.  One modest sized 2,000 gross metric ton Hydro-Lance vessel could carry a cargo of perhaps, 1,000 tons (that's a lot of people and baggage), while having a significantly higher interior volume of usable rectilinear space to accommodate passenger comfort,  ball rooms, state rooms, and common spaces.  This is due to the entirely different construction geometry of the Hydro Lance.  With normal speeds of 3-7 times greater than that of conventional vessels, and seven times the fuel economy, many more routes are competed in the same time period that the conventional vessel completes just one trip.  This of course, translates to revenue and economics.

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Hull Design: Conventional ocean ships of modern technology utilize a hull aspect ratio of between 1:3 and 1:10 (the width of a ship compared to it's length).  The Hydro-Lance technology utilizes an aspect ratio very much higher and of a very different design.  Normally there are two hulls designed to a Hydro-Lance ship, but in certain dedicated designs, the ship may have several hulls.  Each hull has a formulated reserve buoyancy, assuring that displacement could float the entire ship if turned up on it's side, with all of the weight displaced on just one hull.  Accordingly, there is never a negative hull buoyancy in any condition for any reason. Considering drag, these very long and narrow hulls will,  allowing for the sum calculation of both hulls, result with   total hull drag reductions reductions of  over 80%!  Unlike conventional ships with a draft (that distance from the water's surface to the bottom of the hull), which may  range from 20 feet in small vessel, to over 100 feet for the large conventional ships - just to prevent deck wash.  That deep draft assures huge amounts of drag.  The Hydro-Lance hull draws only only a fraction of that measured in inches or a few feet.  With smaller HARTH vessel designs (fast yachts, fishing and patrol vessels), the draft may be measured in only inches, and yet the hull never hydroplanes.   The Hydro Lance vessel is a displacement hull; it simply floats and never rises, lifts or hydroplanes.  Tonnage requirements is a simple calculation of weight to hull displacement.  Such invention is of course, the unexpected.

The term 'bow wave' or 'bow wake' is often lumped together with the drag calculations of conventional vessels.  While understandable, this can be a mistake.  The reason is that the cruising speed of existing conventional ships is dramatically reduced in smooth or high force sea states from bow wake alone.  The Hydro Lance has no, or negligible bow wake.  Conventional ships follow ocean contours (waves) up and over each wave.   Either that ship crashes directly into the wave (that wall of water) or it bow crashes into the trough on the down side of the wave.   That slows down conventional ship speeds dramatically - and is why the rated cruise speeds are established only in calm seas.  During passage over the crest or peak (the fulcrum) of the wave contour, today's ships experiences hog, sag and dangerous structural stresses, which has broken many large ships in half , then only  to sink in minutes or seconds.  Our research taught us that the ocean wave contours may appear to conventional ships as a "wall of water", but that is not quite true.  The ocean surface is a pattern of moguls, and the Hydro Lance's unique design formulas, average these forces of  wave contours to an approximately 'zero' influence, while penetrating each wave straight on, without experiencing heave, pitch, roll, yaw or sway.  This is true in either a heading, following, quartering or beam seas. 

The Hydro-lance ship is not a catamaran; which must also follow ocean contours and will frequently bow crash in just modestly elevated sea states of Force 5 or 6 Beaufort.  The wave fills the tunnel between hulls with water (non-compressible) resulting with dangerous structural stresses - and is certainly very uncomfortable with slamming, not to mention heave.  The hulls of large Hydro-Lance ships, may be from 60 feet to over 1,600 feet long(+).  Such larger HARTH vessels may remain smooth in Force 9 -11 Sea States (Blue Water Class), even with the ship's rated higher speeds maintained.  These HARTH vessels are first designed for the ocean, rather than for a boat slip.  The stability of the HARTH Hydro Lance ship allows it to be safely moored outside a break water and it's ability of tractor-turns with reverse thrust allows for tight harbor maneuverability and superior station keeping.  The shallow draft can allow access to  unimproved beach access ... no heave or roll to chafe the hull ... and the hull design means low or no wake and low water disturbances.

HARTH OCEAN-LINERS                                    HARTH PATROL INTERCEPTOR

Hulls are of aircraft type construction, though compartmentalized, and are foam back-filled for a safe reserve buoyancy.  Smaller  HARTH powered yacht type vessels will have hull lengths which are much shorter, depending on the customer defined mission, size and luxury features desired.   Water plowing, bow plows, wake and hull drag are reduced by over 80% due to the specialized hull designs.  View this typical hull frontal view of a HARTH MSAC Yacht.

.Wetted Drag: Surface wetted drag (friction), has troubled marine designers throughout history, as the second barrier to increased hull speed design.  Hulls sliding through the water directly interfaces the water with predictable resistance.  The Hydro-Lance  HARTH technology has overcome this, with reduced cross section, no bow wake, reduction of the Bernoulli effect and a proprietary system, that provides for an efficient micro-gaseous layer, between the hull and the water resulting in further reduced drag, higher speeds and significantly greater fuel economy. 
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Sea-State:   Every Hydro-Lance ship is designed specifically to a customer / partner designated sea-duty such as coastal waters, Northern waters, island duty, trans ocean travel, freight, yachts, passengers, coastal patrol, crew transport, livestock, medical clinics,  construction, heavy-lift , bulk, or some combination.  Each ship is designed for the worst sea-state to be encountered by the customer's mission statement.  For example,  the design of a trans-ocean transport (Blue Water Class), might be design rated for cruising in a force sea-state 8-11, with survivability capability designed in for a  Force 12-13 Sea-State.  To accomplish this, the hulls are designed with specific geometry to average wave contours to mitigate structural and hull stresses forces to a near zero influence.   Even then, the speed of each Hydro Lance is capable to circumvent or out-run the speed any known hurricane or storm.  Accordingly, there is no reason for a Hydro Lance ship to encounter such extremes of weather.
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Stability:  Less than five degrees roll, at the maximum  sea-state rated for a customer specified mission design with no heave, no pitch, yaw or sway.  These vessels are virtual stable-platforms at sea.  This is accomplished as invention, having special math and geometric formulations which allows the ship to fully average the forces of wave surface contours, to a near zero influence with up to an 83% hull drag reduction of the HARTH vessel.  Even rescues  and ocean salvage recoveries, within elevated sea-states, are now feasible - directly from a stable ship with far greater safety.
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Speed:    Normally, Hydro-Lance HARTH ships are designed for a cruising speed of between 60 and 100 Knots.  Accepting some  loss of fuel efficiency, most designs will  accommodate speeds significantly greater, depending in part on customer specification of prime power preferences.   Other design modifications, may allow hull speeds, to approach 150 knots or more, though some price is paid for fuel efficiency.   Given the difference of density between air and sea water (nearly 800 times greater), cruising at 150 knots through water is the equivalent of an airplane going many times faster through the atmosphere than today's most advanced aircraft speed capabilities!  As aircraft go faster, we see more radical aerodynamic designs to reduce drag.  Accordingly, such design logically follows for higher speed ocean vessels, as seen with the Hydro Lance HARTH technology.  These designs are logical but may give an appearance of being futuristic.  Futuristic is today, and being Hydro Lance already  demonstrated,  it is the new reality of safer, faster, stable and more responsible designs.
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Power Plant: There are many power options. Large ships may utilize oil fueled gas turbines, or large internal combustion diesel engines.  Design options include prime power to be electrically coupled with a  jet drive, cavitation screws located in each hull, direct gas turbine thrust or the newer 'green' fuel power options available.  Since vessel sizes and requirements vary greatly, there are other viable choices being explored, allowing for any given prime power application or combination.  

Gas turbine turboprop drives or direct thrust gas turbines, mounted high above the ocean surface, near the rear of the house, is becoming a desirable option.  Diesel engines with gear box drives, closed cycle systems, allowing use of bio-fuels, acetylene, LNG, CNG, hydrogen fuels, the newer SCORE direct-drive rotary diesel combustion engines, electric driven jet pumps,  gas turbines with direct thrust, and even the newest rotary any-fuel engines, just to mention a few of the customer - partner-client options available.  The Hydro Lance can utilize most all forms of prime and auxiliary power systems.  Hydro Lance Engineering considers the power-to-weight-ratio and over-all efficiencies to be particularly significant with any combination of both prime and auxiliary power options.

Ecology Advantage:  Some of these options, such as new closed cycle, totally silent, mono-tube closed cycle steam orbital piston systems can allow for the use of hydrogen fuel developments and most other available 'green fuels' leading to improved ecological benefits and any-fuel flexibility of availability.  The greater fuel savings of the HARTH reduced drag design, regardless of the fuel medium, will immediately reduce pollution vs. the conventional ship having either clean or dirty burning fuel, by seven times  - comparing the displacement ton mile or passenger mile operational  economies of like-fueled conventional ships.

Fuel Use:    Utilizing gas turbines, either JP-4, heating oil #2, or certain green fuels, such as certain vegetable oils, ethanol, acetylene and even Hydrogen, can be designed in, or even retrofitted at a later date.  Having very significant  reductions of drag, fuel consumption per ton nautical mile traveled, regardless of the power plant or fuel utilized, is reduced by up to seven times as compared with other existing powered ships, including mono-hull ships, SWATH,  tri-hull, SLICE, hydroplanes, wave-piercing, ground effect vessels, hovercraft, tri-maran or catamaran vessels.

Efficiency: Each of these other conventional vessels will  typically have deep drafts, relatively broad hull beams, bow wake and are all forced by design, to follow ocean surface contours at even a modest Force 6 Sea State.   You may also note that each of these conventional vessels have their speed ratings designated in calm water - while the Hydro Lance designated it's speed rating at 80% the  highest specific vessel design rated Sea State; which is a huge difference by itself. Those energy differences may be even greater for systems such as hydrofoils, ground-effect ships and hover-craft,  which use significant amounts of energy for lift to escape the drag of water. The Hydro-Lance ship requires no lifting energy, and has a  shallow draft, low wake, and reduced drag, 
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Space:    Unlike conventional ships, where usable passenger and cargo space must accommodate bulkheads, ribs, and  the hull's shape itself, the passenger, crew and much of the cargo area of a Hydro-Lance ship, is located  far above the ship's hulls, and far above the ocean surface in sheltered clear-span space.  The broad footprint of the hulls, provides the opportunity of unusually good space utilization and efficiency.  Above the superstructure, cargo and (or) passenger areas (the house), can even be constructed free-span, and rectilinear (this area hereafter is called the "house").  For example, a 4,000 laden metric ton vessel can generally carry approximately 4,000 metric tons of cargo and passengers (the ship then, will displace a total of 8,000 metric tons of water to the calm water float line, which then, is the total displacement design, of such a displacement ship.  If this were to be a passenger liner, and allowing 1,000 pounds (excessive) of weight, for every passenger and their bags (two persons per ton), that ship could, by displacement weight, carry roughly 8,000 persons, including the crew.  The very largest of such ships  today, carry approximately 1,500 passengers and maybe a crew of 750.   The question is where in a conventional ship would you put 8,000  people, even if they could be booked?   There is no known way for conventional ship designs, to pragmatically accommodate those kind of numbers. This becomes an issue of cost/use weight, economics, and market inefficiency ... all of which the Hydro Lance addresses competently.

Because the Hydro-Lance ship has the house separate from, and far above the displacement hulls, each component can be separately designed for the specific client mission of the ship.  The speed of the Hydro Lance with higher fuel efficiencies allows for 3-8 times the trips in given market than today's existing conventional ships, and do so even in elevated sea states.  Accordingly, the displacement tonnage can be reduced while the cabin space can be increased, for a better cost efficiency.   Constructing up to eight decks (the house) above  the vessel's superstructure can be accommodated; and these decks are big;  perhaps 100 -250 feet wide and 200-600+ feet long, depending on the ship size and mission design.  HARTH technology changes the rules of ocean transport and the design of new ships - for the better.  However, sometimes two smaller HARTH ships, for market flexibility, may be a better investment than one very large vessel .. especially if those smaller ships have greater range, economies, comfort, speed and a shallow draft.  This then, affords new and expanded market destinations and allows for port changes coincidental with dynamic market demand changes - even shallow bays and ports.
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Loading Cargo:   The decks of the house may be utilized for cargo in ways not seen by the industry.  Cargo, whether that means containers, automobiles or bails of cotton, can be directly lowered or rolled on/off (RO-RO) from sections of the ship's  decks to an awaiting dock  - or sand bar (the ship can straddle a dock or sand bar), and can do this in very shallow waters.  Likewise, an awaiting cargo 'loaded' deck section can be designed for direct lifting/lowering to the cargo deck, ready to sail....no more cargo holes, nets and slow hoists.  Larger Hydro-Lance ship designs, can also accommodate cargo containers, even within the hulls, to be rolled in and out, which can load through the bow on a rail or roll system to be very fast and efficient.  Very large cargo vessels, can be designed for for strings of railroad cars to roll directly into the  hulls, and unload in the same manner or, container barges carried and deployed locally to port from the outer bay or port - and loaded the same way.   Any Hydro-Lance ship platform is custom designed specific to the partner or licensed customer's market, and mission. New designs will mean that the cargo or container turnaround time, can now be accomplished in hours, not days.   Even smaller recreational luxury power yachts with many of these advantages, will be a wonderful experience compared to the roll, pitch, yaw, sway and heave of today's conventional boats.  The HARTH advantage can be seen in luxury power yachts, dive boats, ferries, trawlers and crew tenders.

  HARTH CONTAINER-BARGE SHIP                             HARTH HEAVY LIFT SHIPS
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Steering: Turning the Hydro-Lance vessel is accomplished from both the stern and bow (there is never a rudder, keel or protruding prop below the hull), which is different from more conventional ship vessels.  The slight horizontal angle change of the nose and/or stern vector  thrust allows the hull to track in a turning radius of two arc degrees per second at the rated cruising speed - and even faster for emergency situations.  At harbor speeds, special  thrusters accommodate a 360 degree turning radius and reverse.   HARTH sea-keeping and station-keeping is unsurpassed.

Aircraft Flight Pontoons: 

Special modifications of the proprietary HARTH hulls can allow mounting of these fast hulls to large aircraft, including large jet aircraft, for landings and take-offs in the ocean with more safety and comfort in elevated sea-state environments.  The stability and  hull speed of the HARTH pontoon system provides for these landings or take-offs up to a low Force 6 Sea-State Beaufort ...

HARTH Float-Plane Pontoons

 HARTH High-Speed Flight Pontoons       HARTH Flightless Float-Plane Ferry

Flight-Less Float Planes:

Similarly, is the re-cycle of  'retired' airline passenger-liner aircraft which may be converted to Flight-Less Float Planes ocean surface fast ferries.  These 'capital economic' conversions result in very high-speed passenger and cargo ferries capable of smooth sailing through calm or elevated sea-states - without sea-sickness, pitch. roll or heave . 

Above: HARTH Super-Sized, Ultra-Stable Ocean-Based Platforms - Shown: Stable Ocean sea-steading city and a Large LNG Terminal

Questions?

Certainly there are many more questions that you may have, or an interest to secure License,. to  purchase or to operate.  You may wish to contact Hydro Lance Corporation or Hydro Lance Engineering, Inc., which may be accessed on the " Contacting Our Offices" page link below.   Our senior staff will help with your questions, and  assess your interests feasibility to an appropriate HARTH design and the appropriate license-procurement-build procedure for licensed operational participation.  Or, you may wish to view the 'How Does It Work?' or the Site Directory pages.

And There Is So Much More ...

        Above: New markets for Retired Airliners           Fast HARTH LNG Transport Ships              HARTH Fast Pleasure Boats

 Mouse click any of the light-bars below for additional information, or any of the underlined phrases or images above - and of course, to contact any of our senior staff ...

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