A ROCKET-PROPELLED dragnet that slows drug smugglers鈥� boats and subdues the
crew with tear gas may sound like something out of a James Bond movie, but it鈥檚
actually the latest idea from the US Navy.
Tired of watching drug smugglers escape, the Navy and its coastguard
colleagues want an effective non-lethal weapon. Since October, the US Coast
Guard has seized over 5 tonnes of cocaine in US waters, but estimates suggest
that may be only 10 per cent of what gets through.
In key smuggling regions like the Bahamas, the Coast Guard has helicopters
that can intercept speeding boats鈥� providing they can get them to stop.
Coast Guard pursuit boats are only capable of speeds up to 35 knots (65
kilometres per hour), whereas drug-running boats often reach 40 knots, says
Coast Guard spokesman Greg Warm.
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So Dick Cavanagh and his team at the US Naval Surface Warfare Center in
Panama City, Florida, are trying a new tack鈥攂ased on an idea for clearing
sea mines. 鈥淭he mine-clearer is a net with two rockets on the front to deploy it
and a couple of parachutes at the back to help spread it out,鈥� says Cavanagh.
When explosives attached to the net are detonated, any mines beneath it explode
too. He wondered if the rocket-assisted net could be adapted to trap
speedboats.
Cavanagh says that if the Coast Guard pursuit boat fires off a big enough
net, some of it will drag in the water when it is fired over the drug smugglers鈥�
boat. Adding weights to the edge of the net draws the parachutes at the back
under water, creating heavy drag that slows the boat.
The net could also be modified to subdue those on board. By rigging a
tear-gas canister to a tension sensor built into the net, a gas cloud would
envelope the boat as soon as the net starts dragging in the water. To prevent
smugglers cutting the net free, the Navy says you could run electrified wires
inside the netting fibres鈥攕o cutting the net with a knife would expose the
wires and give the smuggler an electric shock.
Cavanagh is now looking for investors who might be interested in developing a
prototype, and eventually a full-scale product if it works.
