Fully recyclable police boat

A new article from Seawork

link - Fully recyclable police boat (seawork.com)

Seawork has been celebrating another ground-breaking launch this week at the Ultimate Boat stand with the world’s first fully recyclable police boat taking centre stage.

Providing a pathway for the next generation in the industry and showing what recycling efficiencies can look like, the 11m ‘Police Boat’ has been attracting a lot of attention at Seawork, both with its striking look but, perhaps more importantly its forward thinking design prowess.

Ultimate Boats is owned by ExoTechnologies, the market leading maritime green technologies start-up, which is behind producing the first fully recyclable, high-performance workboat range.

The Police Scotland deal represents the culmination of a £7million investment in research and development by ExoTechnologies. The boat is the first of a new range being built at Ultimate Boats, with plans to create 300 jobs at its yard in Clyde within five years. ExoTechnologies approached Police Scotland in July 2020 with an opportunity to co-design a purpose-built boat which would be offered on a research and development loan for operational use. It will be loaned to Police Scotland for a three-year period with an agreement in place which covers the cost of insurance, maintenance and servicing.

Ultimate Boats produce what they describe as the next generation of Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat (RHIB or rib boat) by sourcing the best multinational talent, components, and industry-leading techniques. From its patented John Moxham Hull to the innovative introduction of DANU™ (a fully-circular high-strength material revolutionizing the lifespan and sustainability of a hull), all Ultimate’s ribs are produced in-house by a team of highly talented craftsmen, engineers, and technicians. The new police vessel is built from this fully recyclable DANUTM composite material technology, which ExoTechnologies cite as being the most resource-efficient composite material on the planet. The Police Scotland boat has a top speed of 50 knots and operating range of 400 nautical miles.

ExoTechnologies CEO, Shane Mugan was at Seawork and explained, “Police Scotland’s boat marks a significant breakthrough in transforming boat building, as our fully recyclable DANUTM composite material technology of superior mechanical strength has replaced fibreglass entirely, currently the most common form of boat building substance.

“The design takes a lot of shock mitigation out and doesn’t slam as much as other boats. It is very smooth in the way it turns and also has speed if required in operation. From a police perspective they require stability in diving operations and, due to way the hull is shaped, means it doesn’t heel over as much. The police are very keen around their ethos of next generation materials and recyclability, so the composite material used is also fundamental. This completely replaces fibreglass and at the end of its life we can repurpose it and make another boat and another boat and so on. Circular design is no a longer talking point but a necessity and what we are keen to do is help show a pathway for the marine industry to follow. The idea moving forwards is to improve capability and improve the materials."

Renowned designer John Moxley has also been at Seawork this week and commented, “I’ve been designing boats since the 70s and my love is fast boats because before the boats it was the aircraft industry. I love aerodynamics and was lucky to go in a wind tunnel which taught me a great deal. If air flow is swirling around on an aircraft it will swirl the same on a boat, so many of the same principles are involved. Everything is done by hand, as there was no such thing as computers when I started!” At this point Mugan explained that when one of John’s hand drawn designs was given to a naval architect for six months to work on it digitally, they didn’t come up with a single adjustment!

Concluding with why Mugan came to Seawork this week he explained, “Seawork is a fantastic show and it’s the third time we’ve been. It’s the only show in Europe that we can get to easily where all your key customers and key stakeholders are. It provides a great opportunity to demonstrate where the UK marine industry is going to and allows us to share ideas with the industry.”