Updated August 05, 2000
Web Posted September 23, 1998

Participants in this VDC were required to design one speedboat equal to or less than $60,000 to be used for Coast Guard duties such as anti-smuggling, water rescue and coastal defense tasks. Design requirements are located in CWIN 01.04.

CWIN is asking for its subscribers to vote for the best vehicle. Please use the following point scale to evaluate each vehicle. Partial credit for each area may be given. The names of the creators of the designs are kept confidential at the request of many participants in these contests.

Mail your ballots and submissions for other VDCs to either of these elmay addresses.

CWIN Vehicle Design Competitions
owemp@hotmail.com

Special Abilities = 25
5 for Marine Research, Storm Tracking
10 for Coastal Defense/Anti-Smuggling
10 for Water Rescue

Defensive Capability = 15
3 for Frame Armor
3 for Accessory Armor
3 for Tires
3 for Weapons
3 for Accessories

Offensive Capability = 20
5 for Weapons and Damage Potential
5 for Special Abilities (Incendiary, Indirect-Fire, Tire Sniper, Etc.)
5 for Firing Arcs Covered
5 for Accessories

Driving Pleasure = 15
5 for Acceleration, Top Speed and HC
5 for Accessories, Personal Equipment
5 for Vehicle Range

Cost = 5
Lowest Price (Bonus for every $1,000 below required Division)

Analysis/Background = 20
20 for Verbal Description

Total Score = 100

WATERSPIDER SPEEDBOAT AND STINGRAY ROWBOAT

24 JUNE 2048
0320 HOURS
MIAMI VICE / FL COAST GUARD STING OPERATION

Capt. Suzanne Oren is on stakeout. Patiently she watches her infrared monitor.  On the screen looms a sleek, heavily armed and armored cruiser. This early morning sting will hopefully cumulate in the arrest of one Juan Santillan, drug and arms smuggler wanted by customs agents for years now on a myriad of charges including the recent murder of three undercover customs agents.

Capt. Oren notes the IR pulse signal from the Miami vice land units signifying that the loading of contraband is nearly complete. She relays the signal to the other speedboat hidden on the far bank much like she is . . . buried in cattails that tower over her armored turret. That industrial waste was not poisonous to everything evidently. She also passes the signal on to mission commander Capt. James Mitchell who picks up the IR pulse with his goggles. She doesn't envy his command this mission. He is hunkered down just outside the breakwater inside a Waterspider . . . a lightly armored but extremely fast and nimble rowboat. His job is to provide something for the deadly cruiser to shoot at while our cruiser the "Devilkin" arrives from it's offshore post . . . anywhere closer and it would be impossible to avoid detection.

She scans her display once again as the cruiser slips silently from the dock. Quickly she warms up the targeting computers, checks the traverse on her turreted pulse laser, and deploys the targeting laser's pop-down underwater turret since the drag won't affect her short sprint into the bay. As she is arming her torpedoes, a large explosion rips through the night air and one of the vehicles on the dock as the Miami vice units roll in. The drug lord's cruiser "Nighthawk" roars to life, lifting up and out of the water, all attempts at stealth cast aside. Incredibly Mitchell is already around the breakwater and halfway into the bay. "Damn those things are fast!" she thinks as she fires her motor and prepares to join the fray. Three-hundred-fifty cubes of Detroit muscle and twin props puree the cattails into mush and cast up an enormous rooster tail of water as Capt. Oren's 'Stingray' attempts to maintain her position along the port side of the smuggler's cruiser. Capt. Mitchell is hailing the crew and telling them to prepare for boarding by the Florida Coast Guard.

The cruiser responds by opening up on him with an RFTG. Quick and nimble, the tiny watercraft avoids shell after shell. The sonar bleeps a quick warning, confirming Oren's fears about torpedoes, the screen showing several of them heading for the Waterspider. Her underwater targeting laser is already tracking, painting the hull and waiting for lock on the big boat. The cruiser's gunners have noticed her as well and send a line of VMG slugs her way to chop into the water in front of her, a few rounds stitching into the starboard side of her craft. Retaliation comes from the pulsed blue-green light that scores a hit among the scampering smugglers on deck. Taking out one of the pintle-mounted VMGs in the process.

An explosion to port diverts her attention back to watch the frail Waterspider lifted up and out of the water to come crashing down into the water at speed, breaking apart on impact. Must have cut too close to a proximity-fused torpedo. Her sonar beeping frantically announces another salvo of torpedoes . . . this time heading for her. Launching a Foxer, she grins as she sees the three blips turn to follow the decoy buoy.  She rounds hard to starboard to face the cruiser again as a lance of light outlined by the thin morning mist paints a red skull outline on her bridge. Muttering expletives, she thumbs the smoke projectors and dodges to port just in front of a six-rocket salvo. "Where do they have the space to haul the drugs?" she wonders.

"Okay, playtime's over." Careful to stay behind the smoke, Capt. Oren glances to her displays and lines up the underwater turret on the hull of the "Nighthawk." She radios Juarez in the other speedboat to do the same. "Aim for the front half of the hull" she says. "Way ahead of you Oren, waiting for your mark." Juarez replies quickly. "Now" says Oren, and four armor-piercing, laser-guided torpedoes slip from their tubes and streak out into the bay toward the cruiser. The REWPs automatically drop from the sides of her boat into the bay, to be recovered at a later time. No longer needing them, her boat is now faster and completely shielded from radar . . . aside from the score marks left by the VMG.

Keeping the laser on target, Oren guns the engine and pulls out from behind the smoke. The remaining VMG gunner sees the torpedoes, and manages to take one out. The other three manage to slip by and impact resoundingly on the front portion of the cruiser's hull. An answering blast from the other side tells her that Juarez has finally started attending target practice on a regular basis. A rebel yell and a cry of "Let's light 'em up!" come over the radio. The scarlet skull searches for her again, but this time she is ready. Before they can get a lock, she sends her own lance of pulsing blue-green light to sear across the rear turret on "Nighthawk." Juarez's light show cuts through the spray of a missed shell and eighty-sixes the turret. Oren is very glad the Guard spent the money for the specially tuned lasers. How else were they to consistently hit something in the middle of a storm with waves cresting everywhere but where you want them?

The cruiser, listing badly to starboard, begins a hard turn to port to allow the RFTG gunner a shot at her. Time is not a luxury that Oren has a lot of right now.  Stabbing out again with her turret, Oren wreaks havoc all over the deck again, this time searing a line across their bridge. The bow continues to turn, rotating ever closer to the point where Oren would be vulnerable to that big gun. Determined to keep the cruiser busy until the Devilkin arrives, she lines up another shot as a shriek splits the morning air. It sounds like a railroad boxcar coming in sideways. A column of water erupts next to the cruiser setting the deck awash in seawater. "Round short!  Round short! Twenty meters!" screams Oren into her com as the cruiser completes its rotation.

Now it is her turn for an impromptu bath as the gunner sends shell after shell raining down around her, firing blindly in panic. Grimly realizing the next one could be it, Oren takes a portion of comfort in the fact that the cruiser will not be able to turn back to attack the Devilkin because of its preoccupation with her. Another scream from the 105mm howitzer on the Devilkin as another shell pays a visit. The bridge vaporizes and the boat settles back into the water, all power and controls out. A distress flare arcs out from the smoking wreck to announce surrender. The Devlin stays outside the breakwater to foil any last second torpedo mischief, and sending a launch to sweep the cruiser. Oren and Juarez take up flanking positions to char anything that looks twitchy.

Oren's IR bleeps once, showing a man in the water very close to her boat. She thumbs the canopy release and slaps nylon, coming up with a Charter Arms 10mm hand-cannon. The figure reaches her boat, taking no notice of the heavy automatic pointed at his head, and climbs onto her deck. "Did you have to use all four torpedoes? You nearly blew my ears out down there!" says the grinning face of Capt. Mitchell from his position on her deck. "I though it was all over when that torp' went off. Hydrofoil must have taken the brunt of the charge. Hitting the water at 120 mph was definitely not what I would routinely call fun." Patting the remains of his armored wetsuit, Mitchell asks, "Got a stick of gum?  It will be awhile before they get through sweeping the boat. You did good kid, real good. I'm buyin' when we get back. You wanna maybe stop pointing that thing at me and put it away now?"
 

Stingray -- Speedboat with twin hull and boat top, x-hvy. chassis, 350 ci ICE (with laser battery, 2 large propellers and 15-gallon racing fuel tank), boat pilot right-front, 2 AP torpedoes aimed front on ejectable rocket EWP right, 2 AP torpedoes aimed front on ejectable capable rocket EWP left, pulse BG laser in universal 2-space turret top, BG TL in waterproof 0-space pop-down turret under, hot smoke projector left, 2 foxers back, LD radio, HRSWC (boat pilot and pulse BG laser), SWC (boat pilot and BG TL), sonar, IRSS, 2-rocket LGL (TL tuned, four AP torpedoes tuned, TL-4 torpedo link), 2 left torpedo-right torpedo links, 4-torpedo link, personal equipment (see below). Cargo capacity: 2 spaces, 200 lbs. (1 space, 110 lbs. with personal equipment). StealthKote/plastic armor: (6 points/174 points), two 10-pt. plastic propeller guards. Acceleration 10, Top speed 180 (200 with EWPs ejected and pop-down turret retracted), Cruise speed 107.5 (120 with EWPs ejected and pop-down turret retracted), Power 5,000, 18 MPG, Cruise range 270 miles, HC 4; 8,400 lbs. (with PE). $59,953.50 (with PE).

Stingray Personal Equipment -- Armored wetsuit with air tank, life raft, waterproof heavy pistol (with HP ammo), diving knife, binoculars, 2 foam grenades, waterproof assault rifle (with folding stock and HP ammo), duelist shades.
 

Waterspider -- Rowboat (with CA frame, boat top and plastic hydrofoils), std. chassis, small marine PP (with PlatCats, SuperCons and 2 small propellers), boat pilot center (in front of PP), personal equipment (see below). StealthKote/plastic armor: (6 points/32 points). Acceleration 20, Top speed 182.5, Cruise speed 107.5, Power 1,700, HC 4 (5 at 35 mph); 798 lbs., $6,980.

Waterspider Personal Equipment -- Armored wetsuit without air tank, waterproof assault rifle (with folding stock and HP ammo).