Here is a watercraft that literally crawls itself to shore. A boat by Hard Drive Marine out of Bellingham, Washington, offers a landing craft with a mechanical claw that lets the skipper crawl onto the beach.
It’s sort of like kedging in reverse; kedging being the practice of using an anchor and rode to pull a ship off a lee shore.
These crafts are designed for extended stays and heavy work, with a cargo bay and ramp to carry vehicles up to 59″ wide. It also features a hydraulically articulating spikes on the door allowing for tide adjustments by wireless remote from up to 200 feet away.
The boat has a length of 31 feet, a beam of 10 feet, and a twin outboard Honda Marine 225 HP engines.
Of course, if General Douglas MacArthur had one of these landing crafts, his return to the Philippines would have been much less dramatic than it was. But that’s neither here nor there:
None of us are MacArthur, and anyway, a ridiculous pipe would be required to pull it off. For that and other reasons, the hydraulically actuated landing craft is inspired.
Photo credit: Youtube
