The design:
The tri-hull design evolved from attempting to make a slender hulled catamaran design break waves without burying its nose in large waves and to have some inboard heel as apposed to the standard catamaran outboard heel in a turn. A craft with the high stability and low frictional drag of a CAT but with the turning and wave breaking capability of a vee hulled craft. With some serious help from some friends Reflex was born. The craft was called Reflex because it was originally hoped the craft would replace the Zodiac as a quick response search and rescue boat. (i.e. “quick reflex”)
The two outer hulls or sponsons are deeper than the center hull. This allows the center hull to fly clear of the surface at high speed (in calm conditions) thus reducing drag. The center hull projects further forward than the outer sponsons and is designed as a wave breaker and buoyancy maker. The aft end extends to the transom and sometimes further which works to break or soften the landing of smaller Reflex hulls by splitting and driving the water into the tunnels. (A flat section here could mean a belly-flop landing!)
The center hull has other benefits. It provides extra buoyancy at slow speeds and at rest thus keeping the hull draft to a minimum. It can also provide internal headroom and storage areas in larger designs.
The two tunnels created between the hulls are specifically designed to create ram lift. Air is captured forward in two funnel shapes created between the hulls and is driven aft as the craft accelerates. The air is increasingly restricted as it moves aft compacting it toward the stern. Escaping air through the restricted tunnel openings at the transom results in the hull being it lifted higher in the water, thus reducing the wetted surface and therefore, drag.
In a turn the center hull seems to capture water in the tunnels creating a quasi vee hull scenario. In trials with both our 40 ft test craft and 28 ft craft model we have measured positive heel up to approx 20 degrees.
The hull shape is easily expanded. Tooling of 33 ft x 12 ft craft can produce craft up to 45 ft x 14 ft. This can dramatically reduce tooling requirement and therefore costs.
In the beginning:
In 1990 and 1991 the initial Reflex™ tri-hull design needed to be evaluated and compared to existing designs. We spoke to the University of British Columbia (UBC) who had another designer’s craft ready to test in the University test-tank.
The plan was to test the two competitive 22 ft hull models against each other and compare the results.
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Reflex™ patent holder, Ian Taylor
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With UBC’s help we built a fibreglass hull, ballasted it and prepared it for the trial. Unfortunately (or fortunately) the other designer took one look at our radically different craft and said he was unable to get his model ready in time and pulled out of the trial. This left us with no project. Fortunately, someone knew an officer at the local Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) station on the BC coast that operated Zodiacs who said he would be willing to test our craft against their current Zodiac if we could put some sort of deck on our hull. UBC built a very crude plywood deck for our existing fibreglass hull, installed steering and seats and we borrowed two identical outboard engines as fitted to the Zodiac. With the help of funding from the Canadian Government we enlisted ‘Offshore Research,’ (OSR) an independent testing agency, to carry out the in-water trials off the coast of Vancouver.
First problem: The max design displacement of our Reflex™ craft was 5,000lbs. The operational displacement of the Zodiac was 6,000 lbs. In a vain attempt to make the trials as fair as possible, OSR added several heavy ship batteries to the Reflex™ bilge as ballast until a similar 6,000 lb displacement was obtained. (This of course meant that the craft was now 1,000 lbs overweight.) At this point we felt there was little hope for us.
Second problem: The crews (who were switched from craft to craft regularly) complained of getting very wet crashing through waves with the overloaded Reflex™ tri-hull which tended to run flatter than the nose-up Zodiac. The central hull of our craft, which was to fly clear of the water at high speed, could not fully break free of the surface because the craft was too heavy.
OSR and CCG continued to test both craft head-to-head for 2 weeks and a full report was published. We were reluctant to view it as we were sure our craft could not have performed well so overloaded. But to our surprise we had beaten the ‘proven’ Zodiac in almost 90% of the trails. This included stability, manoeuvrability, speed and fuel economy. For the same weight and horsepower we were 16% faster and used only 47% of the fuel the Zodiac used in the 2 weeks of trials. The report cited the Reflex™ tri-hulled craft as “……..a major breakthrough in fast marine hullforms…....“
Based on the overwhelming success of these trials Reflex Advanced Marine Corp. (RAM) was born, funds were raised and a long development phase began. This included design improvements, modification, further models and tank testing and scale-up trials at the National Research Centre in St John’s, Newfoundland which all resulted in an extensive, multi-innovation US patent in 2003 and a similar Canadian patent in 2006. Trademarks for RAM™, Reflex™ and Stalker™ (stealth design) have been secured and others will follow.
RAM is a Canadian Incorporated privately held Company with currently approx 48 shareholders. Reflex Advanced Marine Inc (USA) is a wholly owned subsidiary of RAM Canada used for the purposes of bidding, securing and managing US projects. RAM has Canadian Status B security clearance, NATO procurement numbers and an ISO 9000 quality program. Many design proposals and bids have been completed, a 40 ft test craft has been built and is continuing a full design shake down. Production tooling for a 33 ft craft has also been manufactured.
RAM has designed, developed and tested its own advanced composite construction methods and materials (contained in the patents) using Kevlar and all craft are based on the extensive design and construction experience of the company’s principles.
RAM is currently working on securing several marine projects including Fast Passenger Ferries, RIB’s, Patrol Boats, Stealth Craft and Bass boats all based on the unique attributes of the Reflex hull form.
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