The Interceptor doesn’t stop where the water ends. The new high-speed ship crawls ashore.
The Iguana Interceptor amphibious boats are designed to navigate at high speed, reaching more than 50 miles per hour.
In a matter of seconds, the ship can deploy the landing gear to allow it to crawl on land.
The French-made Iguana Interceptor is a high-speed boat. But she is also capable of deploying tank-shaped caterpillars that allow her to climb out of the water and crawl toward land.
The ships are planned to be used for shallow-water surveillance missions, where their land and sea capabilities will come in handy.
At sea, the Interceptor looks like any other ship: she has a fiberglass hull reinforced with carbon fiber; two 350-horsepower outboards; and the ability to reach up to 50 knots, or 57 miles per hour (mph) on land.
The Interceptor is generally configured with seating for five and can carry a total of 2,645 pounds.
All of those features are pretty normal for speedboats, but the Interceptor’s hull hides a nifty trick: At the helm, it hydraulically deploys a pair of tank-like rubber tracks.
Kevlar reinforced tracks allow the vehicle to crawl directly out of the water onto land at a speed of 4.3 mph. The vehicle can deploy the tracks in just 8 seconds and, on the ground, is almost 11 feet tall.
These ships seem ideal for the naval special warfare role, specifically infiltrating and exfiltrating offshore into contested or openly hostile territory. The Interceptor can approach a small island and drive inland to camouflage itself, rather than staying on the beach where it could be easily visible.
