Maine institutions collaborating to build a greener lobster boat
Students at the Landing School have built nearly 400 boats since the school was founded in 1978. But nothing quite like the one the school is about to start on, a 21-foot, ocean-ready test model called a “proof of concept” for what the engineers call a “low-impact commercial trimaran” but which is known colloquially as a “green lobster boat.” “It’s like a skiff on top of a canoe, with two small canoes at the back of the skiff,” said Richard Schuhmann, the president of the Landing School. “It looks like a Batmobile in a way.” That’s the view from bow or stern. In the water and viewed from the side, it will look fairly similar to a classic lobster boat, a shape that conjures up Maine as neatly as a L.L. Bean hunting shoe and, the hope is, meets the desire expressed by many of the lobstermen consulted: that it be “pretty.” From design to materials, this boat is intended to have a smaller carbon footprint, burning less fuel than the busy lobster boats already working in Maine’s waters. click here to read the story, view 8 images 09:34
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