Foster-Miller receives $1 million in DoD funding for Boat Trap

Published 13 December 2006

Development with Coast Guard seems to have paid off; hand-held system, launched from a helicopter, uses a ballistic net to tangle a boat’s engine; 100 percent success rate claimed; Moscow Mills Manufacturing lends a hand

And now for something completely different. Waltam, Massachusetts-based Foster-Miller, a subsidiary of QinetiQ, has received a $1 million contract from the DoD Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate to further develop its proprietary Boat Trap system. The ballistic net, when used successfully, is deployed from a helicopter and ensnarls the propeller of threatening speedboats. This is a critical technology for both the domestic security and defense markets, and one need only recall the case of the USS Cole to understand why. Just think of the Boat Trap as a spike-strip for the water.

Previous to this latest round of funding, the Boat Trap system was supported by the Coast Guard Research and Development Center in Groton, Connecticut, and it was under that branch’s auspices that it was proven useful. The system was extensively tested in 2005 at the Coast Guard Special Mission Training Center at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, at South Padre Island, Texas, and at CAPEX demonstrations in Honolulu, Hawaii. The system stopped 100 percent of its targets. Moscow, Vermont-based Moscow Mills Manufacturing is also involved in developing the technology.

-read more in this company news release