First Coast Man Plans Commute Of The Future -- On A Hovercraft
 
|
By
Grayson Kamm
First Coast News
GREEN COVE SPRINGS, FL -- Your daily commute could soon change in a big way. Instead of waiting on backed-up bridges, a First Coast inventor wants to take you underneath them.
The bumper-to-bumper traffic you deal with could one day be someone else's problem.
A Clay County man is building a ferry that would let folks enjoy a relaxing trip to and from work each day -- and they don't have to leave their cars behind.
His solution is a hovercraft.
It may sound wild, but it's based on real technology.
Each one would hold up to a dozen cars, and carry them right along the St. Johns River.
Commuters like Melissa Venis can't count how many frustrated minutes they spend every morning just sitting on the Buckman Bridge.
"It just takes so much more time... sometimes the traffic's okay, and sometimes it's really bad," Venis says, as she watches for other drivers on her side of the eight-lane bridge.
"People aren't very generous... everybody's aggressive," she says.
Inventor Kurt Peterson would love to take Venis and her car on the morning commute from Clay County, even Palatka, to Jacksonville. He would carry them both down the St. Johns River on board a 100-foot-long hovercraft.
"This is actually a radio-controlled model of the hovercraft that we're building," says Peterson, the president of Atlas Hovercraft, as he walks through his warehouse-turned-factory.
He pats his hand on a mammoth plywood construction that measures about ten feet on each side.
"This is gonna be the master that we make the mold from for one of our thrusters," he says.
He's already taken the first steps to manufacture his hovercraft in Green Cove Springs.
"This, when completed, will be the largest hovercraft ever constructed in the Western Hemisphere," he says, waving his hand over black and white blueprints on a drafting table.
Peterson says his Atlas Hovercraft company's already sold at least one of the soon-to-be-built ships to a buyer in Chicago.
"We design and manufacture most of the craft in-house," he says.
The boats won't be built with metal -- they'll be made out of super-strong composite fabrics. They're wrapped around a dense foam material, then coated with resin. He pounds one of the panel with a hammer to show off its strength.
"In addition, steel and aluminum sinks. This material floats. Now, do you want to be in a boat that floats, or one that sinks?" he asks.
But actually floating in the water is only for emergencies.
When it's running right, the craft glides well above the waterline.
"The bottom of the hull is actually eight feet off land and water when the craft is in operation," Peterson says.
Hovercraft have to follow the same laws as boats.
But Peterson claims they're safe for manatees because the propulsion system stays above water.
He promises a ride several times quieter than military hovercraft models, explaining that those giant craft, used by Marines and others, are made mostly with noisy airplane equipment.
He says his will be much more quiet, but still with a top speed of around 85 miles an hour.
"One-hundred-and-twenty mile-per-hour wind gusts are standard out of a thruster like this. And this provides the propulsion for the hovercraft," Peterson says, looking into the framework of what will become a giant engine part.
Assuming his bank account holds together, it'll all come together in and around a sleepy Green Cove Springs warehouse on the grounds of Reynolds Industrial Park.
The factory's not far from where Melissa Venis is creeping along and daydreaming about a cool new way to commute.
"Just the fact that I didn't have to drive would be awesome," she says.
A full-fledged ferry system like the one Peterson proposes is still a ways off here on the First Coast.
But the company plans to float its first hovercraft out of the factory -- bound for its Chicago client -- early next year.
It's too early to figure out just what a hovercraft ferry ride down the St. Johns would cost, but the company says each of the boats will cost about $6 million.
First Coast News
GREEN COVE SPRINGS, FL -- Your daily commute could soon change in a big way. Instead of waiting on backed-up bridges, a First Coast inventor wants to take you underneath them.
The bumper-to-bumper traffic you deal with could one day be someone else's problem.
A Clay County man is building a ferry that would let folks enjoy a relaxing trip to and from work each day -- and they don't have to leave their cars behind.
His solution is a hovercraft.
It may sound wild, but it's based on real technology.
Each one would hold up to a dozen cars, and carry them right along the St. Johns River.
Commuters like Melissa Venis can't count how many frustrated minutes they spend every morning just sitting on the Buckman Bridge.
"It just takes so much more time... sometimes the traffic's okay, and sometimes it's really bad," Venis says, as she watches for other drivers on her side of the eight-lane bridge.
"People aren't very generous... everybody's aggressive," she says.
Inventor Kurt Peterson would love to take Venis and her car on the morning commute from Clay County, even Palatka, to Jacksonville. He would carry them both down the St. Johns River on board a 100-foot-long hovercraft.
"This is actually a radio-controlled model of the hovercraft that we're building," says Peterson, the president of Atlas Hovercraft, as he walks through his warehouse-turned-factory.
He pats his hand on a mammoth plywood construction that measures about ten feet on each side.
"This is gonna be the master that we make the mold from for one of our thrusters," he says.
He's already taken the first steps to manufacture his hovercraft in Green Cove Springs.
"This, when completed, will be the largest hovercraft ever constructed in the Western Hemisphere," he says, waving his hand over black and white blueprints on a drafting table.
Peterson says his Atlas Hovercraft company's already sold at least one of the soon-to-be-built ships to a buyer in Chicago.
"We design and manufacture most of the craft in-house," he says.
The boats won't be built with metal -- they'll be made out of super-strong composite fabrics. They're wrapped around a dense foam material, then coated with resin. He pounds one of the panel with a hammer to show off its strength.
"In addition, steel and aluminum sinks. This material floats. Now, do you want to be in a boat that floats, or one that sinks?" he asks.
But actually floating in the water is only for emergencies.
When it's running right, the craft glides well above the waterline.
"The bottom of the hull is actually eight feet off land and water when the craft is in operation," Peterson says.
Hovercraft have to follow the same laws as boats.
But Peterson claims they're safe for manatees because the propulsion system stays above water.
He promises a ride several times quieter than military hovercraft models, explaining that those giant craft, used by Marines and others, are made mostly with noisy airplane equipment.
He says his will be much more quiet, but still with a top speed of around 85 miles an hour.
"One-hundred-and-twenty mile-per-hour wind gusts are standard out of a thruster like this. And this provides the propulsion for the hovercraft," Peterson says, looking into the framework of what will become a giant engine part.
Assuming his bank account holds together, it'll all come together in and around a sleepy Green Cove Springs warehouse on the grounds of Reynolds Industrial Park.
The factory's not far from where Melissa Venis is creeping along and daydreaming about a cool new way to commute.
"Just the fact that I didn't have to drive would be awesome," she says.
A full-fledged ferry system like the one Peterson proposes is still a ways off here on the First Coast.
But the company plans to float its first hovercraft out of the factory -- bound for its Chicago client -- early next year.
It's too early to figure out just what a hovercraft ferry ride down the St. Johns would cost, but the company says each of the boats will cost about $6 million.
First Coast News
http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/spotlight/news-article.aspx?storyid=45759