A Swiss Army Knife can give you a sense of preparedness and confidence — an “I can do anything” attitude.
The above video provides that same sense of readiness. “We want to be the Swiss Army Knife of boats,” said Jason Wolfe, Director of Engineering and Operations at Hard Drive Marine, Bellingham, Wash. “Our hulls are multifunction business tools packed into a small semi-amphibious, high performance marine platform.”
Landing Craft have been around since WW II, but Hard Drive Marine landing craft have changed the paradigm. Lightweight aluminum construction, high horsepower to weight ratios, planing hulls and crawling MaxGate™ bow doors are just a few of the radical improvements to this field-tested design.
At the heart of HDM’s transformative offering is its suite of deck modifications. D-Mods are interchangeable deck pods for passengers, EMS, fire, mining, oil & gas, etc. that can be craned or rolled onto the vessel to update its operational capability within minutes.
The flagship self-propelled D-Mod, the JaxCab, can be repositioned automatically. The vessel can go from an aft cabin layout to a forward cabin in just minutes using push-button hydraulic activation.
The Hydraulic MaxGate™ bow door gives the Hard Drive Marine landing craft semi-amphibious operation, able to crawl out and back into the water. Landing has always been easy, it’s getting off the beach that’s no longer a problem. The MaxGate also provides critical load holding capability. Once you set the door on the beach, the vessel is locked in place while you move cargo. Cable drawn doors are a thing of the past.
Hard Drive Marine’s oil and gas offering is accented by their patented hydraulic boom cleaner, which shaves thousands off the budget for maintaining contractor boom, an expensive “by hand” process that drives up L&I budget.
“We build out of passion here,” Hard Drive Marine owner Tom Day told Workboat.com. “What really gets us out of bed in the morning are conversations with our customers that begin with, ‘so I’ve got this problem.’ Our focus is around customizing and building something that is going to solve a unique problem. We really enjoy solving these industrial assembly challenges in the marine environment. That's who we really want to be as a company.”
