Description

74 metre wave piercing catamaran

Atlantic III is designed and built by the world-renowned Incat Tasmania shipyard.

Incat Tasmania is famed for pioneering the development of the large high speed craft sector with the introduction of the innovative 74 metre wave piercing catamaran.  The first of these vessels, Hoverspeed Great Britain, won the Hales Trophy for the fastest unrefueled crossing of the North Atlantic in a passenger ship, completing the crossing in only 3 days, 7 hours and 52 minutes, at an average speed of 36.97 knots.

Atlantic III was the ninth (9^th) Incat 74 metre wave piercing catamaran to be delivered and it benefitted from many significant design improvements over earlier vessels, including:

• VIP Room
• 610 person capacity (120 First Class Seats, 87 Business Class, 403 Economy Class)
• 108 car capacity
• Luxurious interior and an impressive large central atrium feature
• Larger superstructure with 777 square metres of passenger seating areas
• Large duty free shop
• More powerful 4 x 4050kW Caterpillar engines
• Higher service speeds

Atlantic III is instantly recognizable as an Incat wave piercing catamaran from its unique combination of forward protruding catamaran demi hulls (wave piercing hulls) and the above the waterline centre bow.

Designed with fine bows, smooth hull lines and no underwater appendages, Atlantic III’s wave piercing hulls are optimized for minimal resistance and maximum efficiency.  In part, this explains Atlantic III’s very low fuel consumption at any given speed and deadweight compared to other high speed catamarans, monohulls and trimarans.

In respect to seakeeping, Atlantic III’s wave piercing hulls are designed with relatively low forward buoyancy to ensure that as the vessel encounters waves, it will tend to cut through, rather than ride over the waves, thus ensuring much higher levels of onboard comfort and safety.

If Atlantic III encounters heavier seas conditions, the centre bow is designed to facilitate clean entry into waves and to push water towards the demi hulls.  The centre bow serves as a shock absorber for the oncoming seas and when the vessel pitches into waves, the buoyancy force provided by the immersion of the centre bow acts as a huge damping system to reduce vertical accelerations, thus ensuring a much smoother ride.

Compared with conventional catamarans, wave piercing catamarans are well proven in operational service around the world to offer far superior seakeeping in head seas, greatly reduced slamming tendencies and better structural integrity.  The centre bow also provides significant reserve forward buoyancy as a safety mechanism to prevent bow diving in following and stern quartering seas.  In these heavy sea conditions, conventional catamarans are known to have suffered catastrophic damage, while monohulls and trimarans have significant directional stability challenges and high roll angles.

 Atlantic III remains in commercial year round operation on the River Plate between Argentina and Uruguay and it can be readily observed on AIS at service speeds of 33-35 knots in normal service.  At 35 knots the fuel consumption of Atlantic III averages a highly economical 74 kg per nautical mile.

Atlantic III completed its five year survey in late 2013 and the next such survey is due by the 31^st October 2018.  The vessel can be inspected by prior appointment.

Specification