Popular Science
This fast French military boat can crawl from water to land without wheels
Meet the Iguana, an amphibious craft with deployable caterpillar treads.
By Christina Mackenzie
February 3, 2021
Those caterpillar treads fold back up into the boat for speedy travel when it's in the water.Iguana Yachts
A French amphibious boat that employs caterpillar treads instead of wheels has seduced the U.S. Navy. In late 2020 it bought two of them, called Iguana Interceptors, for shallow-water surveillance missions.
Amphibious boats are certainly not a new concept. In the 20th century, notably during World War II, the United States, Great Britain and Germany all developed versions, but they were land vehicles that could be used on water. In the 21st century a very small number of companies, including New Zealand company Sealegs, have turned that idea on its head; they have been developing fast boats that can be used on land. But, like their 20th-century ancestors, they all have wheels, generally one in the front and two in the rear.
The Iguana is the only fast boat in the world with caterpillar tracks. It was designed by a company, Iguana Yachts, founded in 2008 by Antoine Brugidou in Normandy, on France�s Atlantic coast. The coastline there sees some of the world�s biggest tidal ranges, and that was a problem for Brugidou, a boating enthusiast. If he wanted to take his pleasure boat out at low tide and come back at high tide, he couldn�t haul his boat down to the shoreline and then leave the vehicle and trailer on the beach�they�d be underwater by the time he came home.
The answer was to give the boat retractable caterpillar treads so it can rumble down the beach and into the water without needing to be towed. This solution not only does away with the need to have a dock, as the boat can be kept on dry land, but it also keeps the hull sleek. It�s like an iguana, a reptile that stays streamlined in the water by tucking its front legs under its belly when it swims.
(...SNIPPED)
