IT LOOKS like a cross between a submarine and a chisel—but French naval
architects say their bizarre new design for a lifeboat will halve the time it
takes to reach a ship in trouble. Using wave-piercing technology more common to
high-speed catamaran ferries, the 22-metre-long craft will have a top
speed of 55 knots (100 kilometres per hour). Currently, the fastest lifeboats
plying Britain’s coastal waters have a top speed of 25 knots.
“The bow will cut through the waves like a blade,” says Gildas Plessis, one
of the boat’s designers at Plessis Marin, based in Machecoul, near…
