FastShip, Inc. was a company that proposed a new seaborne intermodal cargo service in the 1990s and filed for

bankruptcy reorganization Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code (Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, wheth ...

in 2012. FastShip's predecessor company, Thornycroft, Giles & Co. was awarded several patents for designs of fast,

monohull image:monohull.svg, right A monohull is a type of boat having only one hull (watercraft), hull, unlike multihulled boats which can have two or more individual hulls connected to one another. Fundamental concept Among the earliest hulls were simple ...

ships in the early 1990s. FastShip Atlantic, Inc. was incorporated in 1992 to commercialize Thornycroft, Giles' design. FastShip, Inc. was incorporated in Delaware in October 1997, and in the same month, founder David L. Giles described an improved logistics process in ''Scientific American''. FastShip Atlantic, Inc. specifically proposed to cross the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

in less than 95 hours, compared with 160 hours on conventional

container ships A container ship (also called boxship or spelled containership) is a cargo ship that carries all of its load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. Container ships are a common means of commercial intermodal ...

, and to load and unload

intermodal containers An intermodal container, often called a shipping container, is a large standardized shipping container, designed and built for intermodal freight transport, meaning these containers can be used across different modes of transport – from ship ...

in less than six hours on each end, compared to conventional times of 48 hours. In all, the company proposed to cut terminal-to-terminal times from 256 hours to 107 hours. The transit time would be seven days between major industrial centers of

Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...

and the East and Midwest of the United States. FastShip Atlantic proposed using the

Port of Philadelphia The Port of Philadelphia is located on the Delaware River in Philadelphia in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Generally the term applies to the publicly owned marine terminals located within Philadelphia city limits along west bank of the river. Th ...

as its western terminus and

Cherbourg Cherbourg (; , , ), nrf, Chèrbourg, ) is a former commune and subprefecture located at the northern end of the Cotentin peninsula in the northwestern French department of Manche. It was merged into the commune of Cherbourg-Octeville on 28 Feb ...

, France, as its eastern terminus. A FastShip TG770 could carry 1432 TEUs ( twenty-foot equivalent containers), loaded on two levels. The ship's hull in principle is a semi-displacement V steel, having a length of 265 meters, a width of 40 meters and a draft of 10.50 meters. The propulsion system comprised 5 jet turbines, each operating a

water jet Water jet may refer to: * A jet of water under pressure, like in an ornamental fountain * Pump-jet, a marine propulsion mechanism for jetskis and other types of boats * Water jet cutter, a tool for cutting and the machining of engineering material ...

. FastShip, Inc., FastShip Atlantic, Inc., and Thornycroft, Giles & Co. filed for bankruptcy together in Delaware in March, 2012, and was discharged in September 2012.

References

American companies established in 1997 {{US-shipping-company-stub