ARKUP - Solar yacht that becomes a house on stilts

A new type of all-electric sustainable yacht has been developed by two French engineers, and the key USP is its ability to lift itself up out of the water on stilts. The pinning of a vessel to the seabed instead of shoal-water anchoring has been around for decades, usually in the dredging world where the retractable piles, known as spuds, are far more effective at locking the hull into a specific position. A Dutch superyacht builder also briefly flirted with the concept of spuds for shallow water cruising in the Caribbean and Bahamas, but the idea was never adopted.

That has all changed with the ARKUP, which uses four self-deploying piles that make contact with the seabed and then ratchet the entire hull clear of the water. The yacht then becomes a ‘house on stilts’ preventing the occupants from suffering from seasickness. The Liveable Yachts are fully solar powered and electrically propelled, and designers Arnaud Luget and Nicholas Derouin describe them as ‘futureproof.’

The first ARKUP appeared in 2019, a 75ft (22.8m) version, but the smaller ARKUP 40 is proving far more popular with a dozen orders currently on the books. The hulls are made of composite using Gurit’s Corecell 1 foam to combine rigidity with light weight, and the boats are currently being built in the US state of Indiana.

The concept is being rolled out to include entire resorts on stilts and is also being promoted as a solution to global warming. As sea levels rise, so does the boat. A major boost to the company occurred in September last year when Miami Dade County declared the ARKUP 75 anchored off the exclusive Star Island as a yacht, therefore exempting the owner from property tax. However, how other coastal authorities will view this ‘yacht’ that can suddenly - and permanently - become real estate off some of the most scenic beaches in the world remains to be seen.

Source: IBI News