Free Enterprises' RESEARCH website
This
location contains some of the absolute wild invention fun stuff: the
research segment of Free Enterprises. These images are of a project
that was wild at the time. . .1977 through 1982: A monohull recumbent
boat with twin screws, and made entirely up of sheet
metal.
We also can't have a research page without bringing up another image of the "Orbital " class human powered hydrofoil.We were the first ones to successfully introduce "hands" into human powered hydrofoiling. With the extra 20% or so power provided , the human powered hydrofoil "New Fisics" won the 100m sprint at the 1997 US national human powered boat championships.
Since Free Enterprises sells huge amounts of propellers & human powered boat drive units, research is very active in this area. This image is of one of our early experiments with surface piercing propellers.
The advantages of this system include all bearings above the water, Low velocity, high torque for extreme effeciency, and durability, and a human powered boat drive system with THREE MOVING PARTS! The trimaran in the image below is doing a comfortable four knots.
