SSTH ''Ocean Arrow'' is a super slender twin hull (SSTH) car ferry operating in Japan. Prof. Hideaki Miyata at

Tokyo University , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...

developed the SSTH, a high-speed catamaran-hulled boat, as a joint work with

IHI Corporation , formerly known as , is a Japanese engineering corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan that produces and offers ships, space launch vehicles, aircraft engines, marine diesel engines, gas turbines, gas engines, railway systems, turbochargers ...

. It entered service in 1998 between

Kumamoto is the capital city of Kumamoto Prefecture on the island of Kyushu, Japan. , the city has an estimated population of 738,907 and a population density of 1,893 people per km2. The total area is 390.32 km2. had a population of 1,461,0 ...

and Shimabara. The trip takes about 30 minutes, or about half the time that it had previously taken. Despite their prevalence in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

, previous attempts to bring a fast ferry to Japan had failed due to wake wash and wave damage in the Japanese coastal areas. In

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

, a swimmer was drowned in one instance which was thought to be caused by wake wash from a fast-moving ferry.

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External links

* * * * Ferries of Japan IHI Corporation 1998 ships {{ferry-stub