Hero is Bill Shuman's dream boat, a superb 64-foot power catamaran that he built himself over several years and now cruises in the warm waters of Florida. Last we heard, Hero and Bill were in Key West.
Believe it or not, the awesome photo of Hero was not taken from a helicopter but from a flying camera mounted on a quadcopter drone. Check out the video clip which also includes interior shots of Hero.
Malcolm Tennant designed the hull and rudders. "The rest was done in-house," Bill says. Construction is Corecell foam/epoxy/glass. Here are basic specs:
- LOA 63.5 feet
- LWL 58 feet
- Beam 24.75 feet
- Draft 4feet
- Displacement 60,000
- Fuel capacity 2,500 U.S. gallons
- Water capacity 800 U.S. gallons
- Power 2 x Cummins QSB5.9 rated medium continuous
- Range @ 10 knots is fuel capacity divided by 5 gallons per hour, ie, about 500 nautical miles.
Visit the Hero blog for more photos.
Bill has other projects in mind, thus, Hero is for sale, asking price $1.5-million. For more information and to arrange a viewing, email Bill at [email protected] or telephone 954.257.9603.
The camera drone is a DJI Phantom 2 Vision.
"My friend Brooke was the owner/pilot of the quadcopter," says Bill. "It was interesting for us all. At one point we lost it, had to turn the boat around and chase it down to get it back in the range of control. It will return to launch site via GPS and for some reason it still had its last 'home base'. When it got out of range it tried to return to a previous 'home'. Thinking about this now, it may have tried to return to where we launched from a moving boat. Also, it was only capable of about 20 knots. The boat outran the drone until we turned downwind and then it could keep pace."
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