EnTrends

You are sitting in packed bleachers
overlooking the glistening waters off
the coast of San Diego. The sun is
radiating overhead while an oceanic
breeze cools you. The conversations
of hundreds of anxious spectators
and the laughter of excited children
surround you. The smell of food
wafts by. For the past few hours, you
have been watching some of the top
international competitors race high-
tech watercraft along the shore in
front of you. You can't remember the
last time you had this much fun.

Now, boats that have been streaking
through the water all day pull in
close to the shore. An announcer
comes over the loud speaker and
diverts your attention to the endless
blue horizon in front of you. The
crowd around you begins to settle
and becomes quiet.

In the distance, you hear the sound
of a powerful jet engine ignite and
begin to grow louder and louder.
This is what you have been waiting
for. In a moment, you are about to
watch the world's fastest boat beat
the U.S. Navy's world speed record.
You are about to see the debut of the
QuasArk X2!

After formulating the structure of the
company, Standard started putting
together a team of people. "I figured
out what types of people were
needed for the company to succeed,
and then I identified some likely
candidates."

In addition to Standard's chief
designer and partner Quasar Kahnh,
members of the QuasArk team
include a serial entrepreneur from
Canada, a retired Navy Admiral, and
one of the Navy's top high-speed
boat pilots, whom Standard met at
the U.S. Navy SEAL station in San
Diego.

Standard says, "We've been really
well received. We have been to the
Pentagon three times and we just had
a meeting with the Navy SEALss in
Coronado. We have also been
invited to the Scientists Helping
America Conference put on by
DARPA (Defense Advance Research
Projects Agency). General Dynamics
has also come to us and we are co-
proposing on some grants. We are
also negotiating with a couple of
other defense contractors."

QuasArk sets itself apart from other
companies in the industry by being
the only company that has integrated
lift, propulsion, and wave dampening
technology into one system.
Standard says, "This means that, if
you have ever ridden in a car with
bad shocks on a bumpy road, or in a
boat at high speed across the water,
and have been jolted around, we are
the first to put an impact reducing
system into a vessel through unique
manipulation of the air."

Without giving away any proprietary
information, Standard says that the
watercraft his company designs are a
form of hovercraft called Surface
Effect Ships. Instead of sailing, the
ships fly along the water on a
cushion of air that is generated by
the vessel itself. "If you have seen a

pelican zooming over the water, that
is what it is doing. They have huge
wings that are down just over the
surface of the water and take
advantage of the cushion of air
below."

Standard says that the physics of the
watercraft are even more efficient
than that of an aircraft wing. "With
an airplane wing, as you fly at 30,000
feet, you get lift from the differences
in air pressure above and below the
wing. There is an energy that is
going down from the wing that is not
being recaptured. When you are
hovering just over the water, a good
percentage of the energy that is
reflected down is then reflected back
up. So, for the same amount of
energy from your engines, you get
much more travel and you can carry a
much greater payload."

Standard and his team will host an
international offshore racing event
later this fall to debut the QuasArk
X2. "We plan on having a racing
team from Italy and boating
enthusiasts from several other
countries. In between the races, we
will motor the X2 around for the
crowd before running for the speed
record. It's going to be wild!"

Standard and his team currently have
a 40-foot prototype and they are
installing jet engines to test over the
next couple of months. Standard
says that the Navy and its partner
company spent an estimated $500
million to set the existing speed
record. When he and his team break
the record, they will have spent just
under $2 million.

assembled one of the most elite
teams of designers, entrepreneurs,
and naval experts around, in hopes
of beating the 91.9 knot per/hour
(approx. 110 mph) aquatic speed
record set by the U.S. Navy in 1983.

After working overseas for fifteen
years, Standard moved back to the
states. He combined his past
marketing experience with a love of
extreme sporting to form San Diego-
based QuasArk America, Inc. The
company is primarily a design shop,
whose goal is to license cutting edge
vessel designs to defense
contractors, fast ferry manufacturers
and pleasure craft builders. The
company was incorporated In June
of 2000.

Standard has a list of milestones for
his company. He says that breaking
the world speed record is only the
first of several. "After breaking the
speed record, we are going to
participate in the Bermuda Boating
Challenge. It's a 780-mile run from
New York to Bermuda. If everything
is figured correctly, we should be
able to reduce the time by at least
20%."