Flying boats homing in on the Panhandle

Southeast Alaskans looking out onto Lynn Canal this summer might wonder what is hovering over the water.

• Photos

Anchorage businessman Linus Romey, president of Pacific Seaflight, said the new vessels his company is bringing to the panhandle are called wing-in-ground-effect vehicles and operate much like a hydrofoil.

He said Pacific Seaflight will operate two ships out of Juneau this spring and two more out of Ketchikan in 2005. It will mark the first use of the wing-in-ground-effect ships in the United States.

During the summer, the eight-passenger ships will make four daily runs from Juneau to Haines and Skagway and five daily runs to Hoonah, he said.

Trips up Lynn Canal will take about an hour and cost $60 one way, and trips to Hoonah will take just over a half-hour and cost $38 one way.

The ship, a Flightship FS8 Dragon Commuter, rides on a cushion of air about six to eight feet above the water. But instead of using noisy fans to lift the vessel like a hydrofoil, the cushion is created and maintained by the forward motion of the ship.

It runs on a Chevy V8 motor and travels at speeds of up to 85 knots - about 100 mph - on 16 gallons of gasoline an hour, Romey said.

He said unlike typical marine vessels that pull in sea water that is later pumped out, the Seaflight ships do not take in any water.

"It's very quiet and there's no exchange of fluid with the marine environment," Romey said. "This is a big environmental issue."

The ships create 75 decibels of noise from a distance of about 100 yards, and because they travel above the surface of the water there is a significantly reduced chance of the vessels colliding with whales or other marine wildlife, he said.

The ships will depart from downtown Juneau, Romey said.

Lt. Dan Buchsbaum of the U.S. Coast Guard said that before the vessel is allowed to operate in Alaska waters it must undergo a plan review by marine engineers and naval architects to make sure the technology is sound.

"That's standard for any type of new vessel," Buchsbaum said.

The Coast Guard also will conduct fire drills and other safety drills to make sure the vessels are operating properly.

Romey said the ships will not travel when seas are at 12 feet or higher.

The Australian-based Flightship Ground Effect Pty. Ltd. is the parent company for Pacific Seaflight. Romey said Flightship is putting the vessels into service in Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines.

It costs Flightship about $800,000 to build each ship, which it will lease to Pacific Seaflight, Romey said. In July, he put together a business plan for the fledgling company and contributed $10,000 of his own money. Another investor has put up $30,000, but Pacific Seaflight needs about $500,000 to begin operations, Romey said.

He said the U.S. Small Business Administration will guarantee his company an 80 percent loan for the startup. But he noted that securing 20 percent of the startup costs will not be a problem even if he doesn't find other investors.

"If we had to, we could go to a bank and get a loan," he said, adding that he has several interested investors. "This is going to happen one way or another."

Pacific Seaflight also recently took second place in the Fourth Annual Alaska Business Plan Competition, sponsored by universities and businesses in Anchorage.

• Timothy Inklebarger can be reached at timothyi@juneauempire.com.