A team of maritime engineering students from the Australian Maritime College at the University of Tasmania have had their boat design skills recognised for the second year running at the HYDROcontest in Lake Geneva, Switzerland.

The event saw 150 students from 16 universities around the world vie for the title of fastest and most energy efficient boat.

The countries represented were France, Switzerland, Brazil, Sri Lanka, United Kingdom, Malaysia, Colombia and Australia.

Although the eight-member AMC crew did not make it through to finals, they were pleased to achieve a podium finish with the best boat design.

“Unfortunately we didn’t make the finals due to endless various electronic issues, but we were recognised by the officials for our efficient and aggressive design which achieved the highest recorded speed of 25.4km per hour,” team leader Mitchell Pearson said.

Team AMC receive the Best Boat Design award at the 2015 HYDROcontest in Switzerland (from L-R) James Wilkes, Reuben Kent, Mitchell Pearson, Will Innis, Sam Smith, Alex Waterhouse, Dave Carlsson and Sam Hunnibell.

Team AMC receive the Best Boat Design award at the 2015 HYDROcontest in Switzerland (from L-R) James Wilkes, Reuben Kent, Mitchell Pearson, Will Innis, Sam Smith, Alex Waterhouse, Dave Carlsson and Sam Hunnibell

“This is exciting for us as we believe that it is capable of going even faster with a bit of fine tuning. We’ve built a boat that is capable of competing at the top level of the contest for years to come. It’s been an amazing competition and all those involved have had an absolute blast.”

Team AMC competed in both the lightweight and heavyweight divisions using an innovative two-in-one design concept that used the same hull with different underwater kits to suit the respective categories.

The lightweight boat was a foiling catamaran and the heavyweight boat used a SWATH (small water plane area twin hull) set-up, with two submarines joined together like a catamaran.

This year’s outcome builds upon the success of the inaugural team who were awarded the best technology prize and came second in the long distance race at last year’s HYDROcontest.

The race is run by the HYDROS Foundation and focuses on the development of technologies that increase the energy efficiency of the vessels of tomorrow and reduces dependence on fossil fuels. It aims to showcase research and innovation in the area of maritime transport through a series of three challenges: a heavyweight transport vessel that must race with 200kg of cargo, a lightweight vessel racing with a load of 20kg, and a long distance race to determine the most energy efficient vessel design.