Runners, walkers, and bikers stopped along Alki for a while this morning to try to figure out what Martin Garthwaite and Alex Miller were doing in that human-powered watercraft going back and forth along the boardwalk seawall. They weren’t rowing, and they weren’t pedaling. They were using the fishBOOT, which “swims like a marine mammal,” as its inventor Garthwaite explained, and as could be seen once it was out of the water – one moving part, a flexible hull, and “a big flipper”:
The fishBOOT is a means to an end – call it a small fish in a big project. Garthwaite is using it to research the principles behind what he calls the fishBOAT. That would be an unmanned vessel – a waterborne drone – with many possible uses and benefits including using less fuel. He explained some of it to us as he and Miller came back to the beach:
Miller has his own track record with unmanned watercraft, as a member of a team we’ve reported on here before, AMNO & CO, award-winning ROV competitors. He said the difference between that work and this project involves many factors, from water flow to math. We hope to follow up on where this project goes!
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