Some might mistake this US Navy FLIP ship for a capsized vessel, but it was designed to stand vertically in the ocean without any support.
The R/P FLIP (floating instrument platform) was an open ocean research platform owned by the U.S. Office of Naval Research.
It was designed to partially flood and stand vertically with only the front 17 meters pointing out of water.
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While it may be the last ship you ever want to step foot in, the vessel was actually used for research.
And don’t worry, the crew is completely safe during the flipping procedure.
Unfortunately, the R/P FLIP ship or Floating Instrument Platform was retired in 2021 and scrapped as of 2023.
It was the first-of-a-kind ship that remained in service for 60 years, before being retired.
Weird ship concepts like these have been around for a while.
While it can’t be considered a ship, Saudi Arabia is also an $8 billion turtle-shaped yacht that would be a floating city.
Back to the US Navy FLIP ship, the vessel could float and operate in both normal horizontal and vertical orientation.
The way the ship flips is by partially flooding the back section of the ship, and then pitching backward 90°.
At the end of the mission, compressed air is pumped into the flooded section of the ship, to make it surface again.
After that, the US Navy FLIP ship was towed to another location by other ships.
The vessel was 108 meters (355 ft) long and capable of being moored to 5000 ft depths.
Although, when kept horizontal the ship was quite long, it still couldn’t hold a candle to the world’s largest cruise ship.
The US Navy FLIP ship was a remarkable human engineering feat that helped in many kinds of scientific research, just like the Earth 300 ‘science yacht’.
