PORT ANGELES — It doesn’t belong to the U.S. Navy.
It isn’t a U.S. Coast Guard vessel.
It isn’t a research ship operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
It’s an experimental watercraft that rides above the waves at high speed.
It was designed in the Bay Area and built in Anacortes for a California oceanographer and adventurer.
The strange vessel created a stir when it showed up in Sequim Bay on Monday and Port Angeles Harbor on Wednesday.
Nobody knew what the insectlike ship was — or what it was for.
Speculation ran the gamut from a research vessel to a U.S. Navy experiment to a rich eccentric’s plaything.
Experimental craft
The vessel has a pair of flexible inflatable hulls attached to a “cabin” between and above the hulls that allows the hulls to independently follow the surface of the water.
Outboard engines are hinged to the back of the hulls.
This allows the vessel to continue moving through the water even if the stern of one or both hulls lifts out of the water when crossing swells.
The U.S. patent for the experimental 100-foot inflatable powerboat was assigned to Marine Advanced Research of El Cerrito, Calif. on April 5, 2005.
