The Boat Used to Take Down Drug Runners: SAFE Boats Interceptor 41 Walkthrough

every day the department of homeland security is patrolling our borders protecting us from harm to do their job effectively they rely on a network of boats and aircraft most notably the 41 foot interceptor we were lucky enough to get a chance to ride along with these agents and see what they do up close and the performance of this boat just blew our minds this boat is not meant for joy rides it's not meant for cruising this boat is meant for taking down the bad guys no matter the seas and no matter the speed well this is a little different you know normally when we do boat reviews and walk-throughs we're talking about how many state rooms the boat has where the sun pad is does it have a gyro stabilizer all these creature comforts that in our world of boating make the boats fun and livable and great to entertain on this boat is none of those things and it's one of the coolest boats we've been on in a long time so let's check it out so this is a 41 foot interceptor it's an aluminum boat with a with a foam collar all around it it's built by safe boat which is out of washington state and we were out here today with the department of homeland security running some simulations seeing what these guys do to protect our borders and let us boat freely and the boat really makes their job a lot easier this thing handles like a lamborghini we were up on a chase boat running neck to neck we were in the air on the sea but there's a lot going on to help these fellas and women do their job so we're going to kind of look at some of the different features stuff that i thought was really cool as an outsider and they even let me drive it which was amazing is really fun but this is not about a joyride this is a purpose-built boat to help these people do their job so one of the first things that i thought was really cool is the windscreen this is on a hydraulic ram so the captain can lower this and raise it if they're taking on a lot of spray he actually might lower it so they can see better and obviously when they're moving slow they'll drop it down and get some air circulation these seats are just incredible these are shock mitigating seats and in the command station actually the throttle and the gear controls this all goes up and down with the seat and when we were out there running simulations the captain never once looked at his hand he was able to just move the throttles turn the wheel constantly adjusting the position of the boat and never taking his eyes off the target so these shock absorbing seats are multifunctional they also fold and maneuver you can drop these armrests down to really hold on or if you need quick access out of the boat you can leave them leave them sitting down and you can hold here here here you know the agents can just jump out of the way really cool they make the ride so much more comfortable too so here in the navigator position the navigator can also control the mfds there's two big mfds up front a lot of radios he can me he can manage the radio and the sirens and the lights and all that so the operator can focus on the vessel that they're chasing down and a cool thing that they told me is all of the gentlemen on this particular boat are trained to run the boat so they can all do every job um there's nothing that will not get done uh two large mfds the shock mitigating seats it's got these pedestals that you can use to so these pedestals come down and you can park your feet here and really lock yourself in the armrests help too the arm rests have these handles and you can really wedge yourself in i mean this is a 60 knot boat we were doing drills at 55 knots and you need that but i got to tell you with the seats moving up and down it's a smooth ride and the boat when the captain yells an operation and says hang on you better hang on because this thing can turn almost vertical and if you look around there's hand holds everywhere i mean here here the seats you know here there's there's nowhere you're not going to be able to hang on stepping back there's also another screen for the crew member back here so these guys are probably going to be spotters and they can focus on you know they can run a different screen than what the operator is running another two crew member can sit here today we had uh four air marine agents on the boat and the gentleman here they can run the monitor they can also act as shooters uh basically what they were showing us they run up on that chase boat if the boat does not slow down if the boat does not stop if the boat does not listen they will make it stop and they showed us how they do it they don't mess around you're not going to win if this boat comes up flying on you so you they will shoot at the engines with a shotgun here again they can control this mfd same kind of mitigating shock mitigating seats there's another control up here for the mfd and just the overall construction of this boat i mean everywhere you look you see really beautiful welds this full aluminum boat this is a hand-built boat it's built to last a long time according to the agents we're with these safe boats replaced midnight outboard powered center console type boats and each one of the agents went on about how much they love this boat and how it makes their job a lot easier they've got access to all the electronics up here and there's a radar there's a flear night image camera lights there's there's quite a bit of electronics going on up here so let's keep moving back so moving back towards the stern they have these two large lockers for the shotguns these are real heavy solid metal so they're not going to move around and as you can see they're kind of got these custom built holders where an agent can just pull that gun right out and do what he needs to do slick easy fast and efficient and safe um you know there's this big tow hitch tow cleat and after they basically take down a boat they're responsible for towing it in uh so they will use this when they have to bring a boat in it's powered by four mercury 350 verados they were telling me that uh department of homeland security has a maintenance crew that can swap out a lower unit on one of these engines in about 40 minutes so if they have any issue the crew will meet them at the ramp they pull the boat out of the water change the lower unit and these guys can get back out and get out to protecting us lucky citizens who boat here in florida there's also a lifeboat back here life ring again everything is so solidly made more storage back here there's fire extinguishers a fresh water wash everything is just built super solid i mean there's no creaking or movement going on on this boat this boat is solid about as solid as i get another really cool thing this radar arch up here which again solid aluminum welded piece of equipment this will actually tilt down by by a human it's not hydraulic these guys have to drop these down they do trailer these boats a lot it's a 22 000 pound vessel so you need a big vehicle to trailer it but they'll pop that down and be able to trailer this down the road inside the console here is where they have access to all their systems lots of electronics you got your fuses i mean there's a lot going on in here and they they have to use guys who actually have clearance to work on these radios and electronics so everything they save is all proprietary you're not going to know about it so that's the 41 foot interceptor we want to thank the men and women of the air marine operations division of department of homeland security for letting us ride along experiencing a little bit of what they do to keep our waterways safe we're really fortunate to have them watching out for us and having our backs and thank you to all the men and women of our armed forces and for everything they do to read more about our day with the department of homeland security make sure to check out the september issue of power motor yacht or visit pmymag.com and please like and subscribe to our youtube channel be safe out there you

Channel: Power and Motoryacht

Views: 6,456,032

Keywords:

Id: xDD6LNUmMLI

Length: 10min 6sec (606 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 29 2021