Ferry on Skis

When an odd-looking craft called the H. S. Denison slipped down the ways into Long Island's Oyster Bay last week, it was a big event in the U.S. shipping world.

The Denison, built by Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corp. for the U.S. Maritime Administration, is the U.S.'s first high speed hydrofoil ferryboat. But in Italy, hydrofoil ferries are old hat. Neapolitans scarcely spare a glance any more for the sleek, 140-passenger aliscafi (winged hulls) that skim out across the Bay of Naples four times a day on the tourist run to Capri 18 miles away.

The man who put the Italians comfortably out in front in commerical hydrofoil development is Carlo Rodriquez, 51, a tall, reticent Sicilian engineer whose Spanish ancestors settled in Italy 150 years ago. Since 1958 Rodriquez has turned out 42 hydrofoil ferries at his 500-man Messina shipyard. Today, his aliscafi wing between Venice and Trieste, thread the fjords of Norway, link Caribbean islands, and are about to begin regular service between Montevideo and Buenos Aires. Last year Rodriquez sold $3,100,000 worth of hydrofoils; this year, with $1,800,000 in sales so far, he expects to do substantially better.

Legacy from Adolf. A trip in a Rodriquez hydrofoil is like water-skiing in a bus. Projecting down from the ferry's trim speedboat hull are legs with winglike metal skis on the end. As the ship picks up speed, the hull rises out of the water and skims along on its skis. Because it has only the drag of the skis, a Rodriquez hydrofoil needs only half the power of a conventional boat to achieve the same speed. More important, its top speed is three times that of the average conventional ferryboat--which means that it can move three times as many passengers in a day.

Rodriquez' aliscafi come in two models: the 72-passenger PT 20, which is driven by a 1,350-h.p. Daimler-Benz V12 engine and will make up to 40 knots, and the 140-passenger PT 50. which has two V-12s and does 37 knots. Both were designed by Austrian Engineer Friedrich Lobau, who built his first hydrofoil for Hitler's navy and his second as a prisoner of war in Russia. (The Russian model, he now says.

he carefully constructed in such a way that it sank the first time he demonstrated it to Soviet naval officers.) After the war, Lobau ran out of funds trying to develop a commercial hydrofoil in Switzerland.

Rodriquez, anxious to expand his family's 61-year-old shipyard, bought Lobau out and has kept him at work in Messina ever since.

Volga Boatmen. Rodriquez' success has spawned numerous competitors. The Russians, despite Lobau, now have a 150-passenger hydrofoil plying the Volga.

Grumman's Denison, which is 32 tons heavier than the PT 50 and designed to go twice as fast, is expected to be the forerunner of 80-knot hydrofoils capable of coping with open ocean. This August Boeing will launch a hydrofoil subchaser for the U.S. Navy.

Rodriquez--a skilled engineer himself--has no intention of falling behind. With a dedication rare in southern Italian businessmen, he is at his workbench from 8 a.m. till late at night. He has already pushed experimental models of his hydrofoil up to 65 knots; now he is seeking a way to keep a hydrofoil hull stabilized even in the roughest seas and thus eliminate the stomach-flipping bounce that is the chief remaining drawback to all aliscafo trip over the ocean waves.

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