NORTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. \u2014 The winged passenger ferry gliding over the surface of Narragansett Bay could be a new method of coastal transportation or a new kind of warship.<\/p>\n
Its maker, Regent Craft, is betting on both.<\/p>\n
Twelve quietly buzzing propellers line the 65-foot wingspan of Paladin, a sleek ship with an airplane\u2019s nose. It looks nothing like the sailboats and fishing trawlers it speeds past through New England\u2019s largest estuary.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had this vision five years ago for a seaglider \u2014 something that is as fast as an aircraft and as easy to drive as a boat,\u201d said CEO Billy Thalheimer, jubilant after an hours-long test run of the new vessel.<\/p>\n
On a cloudy August morning, Thalheimer sat in the Paladin\u2019s cockpit and, for the first time, took control of his company\u2019s prototype craft to test its hydrofoils. The electric-powered watercraft has three modes \u2014 float, foil and fly.<\/p>\n From the dock, it sets off like any motorized boat. Farther away from land, it rises up on hydrofoils \u2014 the same kind used by sailing ships that compete in America\u2019s Cup. The foils enable it to travel more than 50 miles per hour \u2014 and about a person\u2019s height \u2014 above the bay.<\/p>\n What makes this vessel so unusual is that it\u2019s designed to soar about 30 feet above the water at up to 180 miles per hour \u2014 a feat that hasn\u2019t quite happened yet, with the first trial flights off Rhode Island\u2019s seacoast planned for the end of summer or early fall.<\/p>\n If successful, the Paladin will coast on a cushion of air over Rhode Island Sound, lifting with the same \u201cground effect\u201d that pelicans, cormorants and other birds use to conserve energy as they swiftly glide over the sea. It could zoom to New York City \u2014 which takes at least three hours by train and longer on traffic-clogged freeways \u2014 in just an hour.<\/p>\n As it works to prove its seaworthiness to the U.S. Coast Guard and other regulators around the world, Regent is already lining up future customers for commercial ferry routes around Florida, Hawaii, Japan and the Persian Gulf.<\/p>\n Regent is also working with the U.S. Marines to repurpose the same vessels for island-hopping troops in the Pacific. Those vessels would likely trade electric battery power for jet fuel to cover longer journeys.<\/p>\n With backing from influential investors including Peter Thiel and Mark Cuban, Thalheimer says he\u2019s trying to use new technology to revive the \u201ccomfort and refined nature\u201d of 1930s-era flying boats that were popular in aviation\u2019s golden age before they were eclipsed by commercial airlines.<\/p>\n This time, Thalheimer added, they\u2019re safer, quieter and emission-free.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought they made travel easier in a way that made total sense to me,\u201d Cuban said by email this week. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to travel around water for short distances. It\u2019s expensive and a hassle. Regent can solve this problem and make that travel fun, easy and efficient.\u201d<\/p>\n Co-founders and friends Thalheimer, a skilled sailor, and chief technology officer Mike Klinker, who grew up lobster fishing, met while both were freshmen at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and later worked together at Boeing. They started Regent in 2020.<\/p>\n They\u2019ve already tested and flown a smaller model. But the much bigger, 12-passenger Paladin \u2014 prototype of a product line called Viceroy \u2014 began foil testing this summer after years of engineering research and development. A manufacturing facility is under construction nearby, with the vessels set to carry passengers by 2027.<\/p>\n The International Maritime Organization classifies \u201cwing-in-ground-effect\u201d vehicles such as Regent\u2019s as ships, not aircraft. But a database of civilian ships kept by the London-based organization lists only six around the world, all of them built before it issued new safety guidance on such craft in 2018 following revisions sought by China, France and Russia.<\/p>\n The IMO says it treats them as marine vessels because they operate in the vicinity of other watercraft and must use the same rules for avoiding collisions. The Coast Guard takes a similar approach.<\/p>\n \u201cYou drive it like a boat,\u201d Thalheimer said. \u201cIf there\u2019s any traffic on the harbor, you\u2019ll see it on the screen. If you see a boat, you\u2019d go around it. We\u2019re never flying over boats or anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the biggest technical challenges in Regent\u2019s design is the shift from foiling to flying. Hydrofoils are fast for a seafaring vessel, but far slower than the speeds needed to lift a conventional airplane from a runway.<\/p>\n That\u2019s where air blown by the 12 propellers comes in, effectively tricking the wing into generating high lift at low speeds.<\/p>\n All of this has worked perfectly on the computer simulations at Regent\u2019s headquarters in North Kingstown, Rhode Island. The next step is testing it over the water.<\/p>\n For decades, the only warship known to mimic such a ground-effect design was the Soviet Union\u2019s hulking ekranoplan, which was built to fly under radar detection but never widely used. Recently, however, social media images of an apparent Chinese military ekranoplan have caught the attention of naval experts amid increasingly tense international disputes in the South China Sea.<\/p>\n Regent has capitalized on those concerns, pitching its gliders to the U.S. government as a new method for carrying troops and cargo across island chains in the Indo-Pacific region. It could also do clandestine intelligence collection, anti-submarine warfare and be a \u201cmothership\u201d for small drones, autonomous watercraft or medical evacuations, said Tom Huntley, head of Regent\u2019s government relations and defense division.<\/p>\n They fly below radar and above sonar, which makes them \u201creally hard to see,\u201d Huntley said.<\/p>\n While the U.S. military has shown increasing interest, questions remain about their detectability, as well as their stability in various sea states and wind conditions, and their \u201ccost at scale beyond a few prototypes and maintainability,\u201d said retired U.S. Navy Capt. Paul S. Schmitt, an associate research professor at the Naval War College, across the bay in Newport, Rhode Island.<\/p>\n Schmitt, who has seen Paladin from afar while sailing, said he also has questions about what kind of military mission would fit Regent\u2019s \u201crelatively short range and small transport capacity.\u201d<\/p>\n The possibilities that most excite Cuban and other Regent backers are commercial.<\/p>\n Driving Interstate 95 through all the cities that span Florida\u2019s Atlantic Coast can take the better part of a day, which is one reason why Regent is pitching Miami as a hub for its coastal ferry trips.<\/p>\n The Viceroy seagliders can already carry more passengers than the typical seaplane or helicopter, but a growing number of electric hydrofoil startups, such as Sweden\u2019s Candela and California-based Navier, are trying to stake out ferry routes around the world.<\/p>\n Thalheimer sees his vehicles as more of a complement than a competitor to electric hydrofoils that can\u2019t travel as fast, since they will all use the same docks and charging infrastructure but could specialize in different trip lengths.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NORTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. \u2014 The winged passenger ferry gliding over the surface of Narragansett Bay could be a new method of coastal transportation or a new kind of warship. Its maker, Regent Craft, is betting on both. Twelve quietly buzzing propellers line the 65-foot wingspan of Paladin, a sleek ship with an airplane\u2019s nose. 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