First underwater drone for the care of your hull

Boat owners wishing to carry out cleaning and hull inspection while their yachts are still in the water may be interested in a new underwater drone called the Keelcrab.

Created by 30-year-old Italian Fabio Terzaghi, the Keelcrab is designed mainly for cleaning bio-fouling algae and vegetation from the hull of sailing boats (of any size).

It has been developed to be a user-friendly drone and as such it can be commanded by anyone on his own in order to perform automated hull cleaning. It is operated by a remote control device with display, linked to a IP68 video camera with LED lights installed on the drone.

By looking at the screen you can manoeuvere your Keelcrab through simple directional buttons on the remote control as well as to monitor and check the conditions of your hull on the same time.

Keelcrab is equipped with certified brushes ( soft-medium-hard ) with nylon bristles. It has a plastic exoskeleton with ‘neutral hydrostatic balance’.
It weighs 9.5kg, and is 42.5 long x 42.5 wide x 32cm tall. It travels at a speed of 1,5 m² per minute.

The vacuum / aspiration force is generated by a central impeller or turbine (propeller), driven by an brushless motor, which performs the dual function of keeping the robot attached to the hull and removing algae formed underneath. The movement is driven by rubber brushes on tracks that allow movements in all directions.

A cleaner hull allows the boat to perform better reducing on the same time the fuel consumption.

So far 10 harbours have chosen to use Keelcrab drones for hull maintenance.

A crowd-funding Kickstarter scheme has been launched to get the scheme off the ground.

So far €15,985 of the €75,000 target had been achieved, with the deadline of Friday 25 November.