Courtesy of a link at Dark Roasted Blend, I was intrigued to find this video clip of the French CMN Ocean Eagle 43 patrol craft in rough seas. Its trimaran hull is not dissimilar to the Independence class Littoral Combat Ships of the US Navy. Note how smoothly it cuts through the disturbed water.
Mozambique is buying three of these vessels to patrol its coastline. Knowing the waters there from past experience, I'll be interested to see how these patrol boats handle the tropical cyclones ("hurricanes" to US readers) that sometimes sweep down the Mozambique Channel between Africa and Madagascar. The Ocean Eagle's hull design will certainly be tested to its limits in such weather!
Peter
5 comments:
Boats and ships are not made for cyclones or hurricanes. They run away if at all possible. I was on a 75 ft. boat in a tropical storms and it was not fun.
Gerry
Stunning lack of anyplace to put a weapons mount anywhere forward. In fact, one dare not put much of anything at all forward of the helm, you know, people, tools, ammo, fuel, consumables.
That looks more like a ship with two outriggers rather than a full trimaran.
BTW there does appear to be a weapons mount for a gun on the front of the central hull - look for the circular patch. I'm guessing that the gun would be hidden in normal use to protect it from the sea.
Judging by the way it buries its bow it will not handle cyclones at all well. Especially with any weight forward that thing looks born to pitchpole.
Photos on the site show a 20mm autocannon mounted ABOVE the bridge.
I'm thinking that's a sign of desperation in trying to mount a significant weapon on that thing. Would have made more sense to put a 37 or 40mm autocannon on the rear main deck. That, or put a cannon where the bridge is located, and put the bridge at the stern. The only reason not to put the crew at the stern is if they anticipate mounting some sort of missile launch system. Don't want crew positions behind THAT, what with toxic exhaust and smoke.
Also shows two single .50bmg M2's mounted just behind the cabin on the main deck, one per side.
No guns shown mounted on that fore end.
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