This morning there was an article in the South China Post that spoke about a new technology that the Chinese are using to develop a new way to travel across oceans in record time.

Something called Supercavitation had been developed by the Russians a few years ago for use with torpedoes. The nose of the torpedo delivered a stream of air that covered the whole torpedo in bubbles. Since we all know why a stepped boat goes faster than a non step.....it takes less power to push something through air than through water. They developed the amount of air until they were able to cover the entire torpedo in a bubble and the speeds shot way up.

The Chinese are trying to modify that technology so they can use it on big submarines, that would carry people at super speed across the oceans. Some problems.....the submarine cannot be steered as the air covers the whole shape and doesn't allow any rudder to actually tough the water outside of the bubble. At the speed they plan to travel, anything that touched the harder water would probably break off from the force of the hit.

Sooooooo, now how do we utilize that same technology with our love of high performance boats?

route your exhaust straight through the bottom of the hull. BUBBLES!

Another story....same theory....pretty cool!

http://www.businessweek.com/articles...dot-s-dot-navy

I hope they figure it out, 3 weeks ago I flew Chicago to Beijing and Back "Coach" 13.5 hrs each way going 550mph

Perforated hull with liner. Bottom would look like an air hockey table and would have a high volume low pressure air pump. I thought of this many years ago but the concept was so simple I thought it had probably been tried.

If someone builds it, I don't want one.

http://www.julietmarine.com/

New container ships are using air injection under the hull to reduce resistance. Apparently they are seeing decent gains in economy and speed.

I read in here about some boats routing air lines with numerous holes into the step to inject air behind the step, not sure how well it worked.

they are called hovercraft

if you could make it work in a boat you wouldn't be able to turn

Didn't Bad Boy race boats have a ventilated step;
Where air was drawn from cowl area down to holes in steps?

Interesting concept I was telling glass dave something to this effect. How about some sort of air nozzle behind the step off hulls one you can turn off and on when desired!!!