The Spider Boat, also known as Proteus or the Wave Adaptive Modular Vessel created by Ugo Conti, represents a new generation of ultra-light, highly-customizable watercraft featuring breakthrough technology and fuel-efficiency that made international headlines when it debuted at the Cannes Festival in 2007.
In the same year, The Spider Boat visited Italian marine protected areas and United States’ underwater counterparts to build international alliances and strengthen ties between marine protected areas while raising awareness about ocean conservation.
Unlike conventional boats that force water to conform to the hull, The Spider Boat adjusts to the surface of the water. Its innovative superstructure is flexibly connected to specially designed pontoons to support the vessel and dramatically minimize stresses to structure, payload and crew. Proteus does not pierce the waves; it skims across them, dramatically reducing fuel consumption. By spreading the load over multiple points and reducing the depth incursion into the water, there is less wake disturbance and hence lower drag.
Ugo Conti’s Spider Boat, a 9 minute film Chris Bauer & Joan Johnson, recently debuted at the San Francisco Ocean Film Festival on February 19-22, 2009. The film describes the innovations of The Spider Boat’s creator and how by thinking out of the box he was able to create a revolutionary form of fuel-efficient water transport.
Resources
Wave Adaptive Modular Vessel: http://wam-v.com/
Quest: http://www.kqed.org/
Ocean Film Festival: http://www.oceanfilmfest.org/
Via Treehugger.com
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