Design student puts sealegs to powerful use

Matt Gibson's 88km/h Anaconda. Picture / Brett Phibbs

A student who found his sealegs yachting on a South Island hydro lake is conquering the City of Sails with a state-of-the-art design for a jet-powered amphibious boat.

Matt Gibson's Anaconda is one of six transport projects on display at the Vero Centre in central Auckland this week to showcase the achievements of Massey University's top design students.

All the exhibits have been designed for potential production, but Mr Gibson has the head-start of having been sponsored by North Shore boat-builder Sealegs, which in June broke a record for crossing the English Channel with an inflatable amphibious craft.

The 21-year-old transport design graduate emphasises that it is entirely up to the company, which has been employing him part-time, to decide whether to take his one-to-six scale proof of concept any further.

Sealegs, which says it has sold more than 50 amphibious craft in 18 months, is busy making a new aluminium version of the inflatable that crossed the channel in 43m 12s in June.

That was less than half the record, set by Sir Richard Branson last year, in one of New Zealand entrepreneur Alan Gibbs' Aquada cars.

But Mr Gibson says Sealegs has already patented his design, which he developed according to company specifications, and he is confident a 240-horsepower jet engine would allow a 5.6m production version to travel one-and-a-half times faster than the record-breaker.

The Anaconda is designed to barrel over the water at up to 88km/h before coming ashore, when its three retractable wheels could carry it across land at 15km/h.

"It could be used for anything from commuting to sight-seeing and picnicking," said Mr Gibson, who overcame his land-locked Central Otago origins by sailing as a youth on Lake Dunstan.

Sealegs managing director David McKee Wright said the company was impressed with how the model was developed from computer software, which enabled its dynamics to be worked out before the hull was built.

The model was fabricated by a computer-cutting machine, saving money compared with traditional boat-building and giving the company confidence in testing the market for future products.