Picture a super-streamlined ship gliding up a canal. Underwater thrusters ease the ship to a stop at the cargo dock and machines approach the vessel to off-load merchandise and materials. Instead of using cranes to haul off containers, however, whole sections of the ship disengage and move up conveyors to land-based transportation systems. If there isn’t new cargo to haul, the ship shrinks to a quarter of its original size and sails away. Sound farfetched? Actually, the concept was conceived decades ago by a Florida designer named Jacque Fresco. 

Working within an organization known as The Venus Project, based in Venus, Florida, Fresco and his partner, Roxanne Meadows, have spent their lives engineering a worldwide future designed to work much smoother, more efficiently, and, in a word, better than anything built today. Transportation, in general, and boating in particular, is a big part of that equation.

Instead of rejecting an idea as impossible, Fresco recommends asking, “How might that be accomplished?” This way of approaching problems has led the scientist to many innovative breakthroughs in the boating world.

For instance, one problem encountered by watercraft is drag, the friction created when a boat moves through water and air. To make boats of the future faster and more energy efficient, Fresco has created ultra-sleek designs that cruise the sea with minimal effort. He incorporated many of the design characteristics from his observations of slippery marine life such as dolphins, sea lions, and squid. Also, because water’s surface tension works against a ship as it’s underway, Fresco’s boats use a device mounted underwater in the bow that blasts the water with micro-bubbles to reduce that tension as the boat sails along.

Other experiments have shown that water flow can be manipulated by using electro-static devices. Fresco demonstrates this principle by bending a stream of water as it flows from the kitchen faucet, using a strip of plastic that has been charged with static electricity. Amazingly, he is able to move the water without touching it. Fresco says that in the future, ships and boats may be propelled through the seas using the same principle, squirting forward as a static charge draws water from the front and pulls it back towards the stern. He says it’s like a banana slipping out of the peel as a person squeezes it, only continually.

Fresco has gone so far as to design whole cities at sea, both above and below the surface. As the human population continues to explode, he contends that the oceans will become more and more important not only for additional food and resources, but also as a place to live. In that context, boating may evolve from a hobby to a necessity.