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A different kind of rescue watercraft

By: Robert Dummett
Marine Services Bureau
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Dept.
Miami-Dade County, Florida, USA

In the beginning

It had been another long night of wading through the snake and alligator infested swamp, in up to waste deep water and vegetation towering over his head, trying to gather enough to keep their family fed and put a little extra money in the cookie jar. Sitting on the top step of the porch, of his crude wood frame home, removing the third leach from his leg, Earnest Yates thought that there had to be a better way of making a living.

Pulling down the left let of his well-worn pants, Ernest’s thoughts were interrupted by the drone of a bi-plane flying overhead. As the plane flew by it banked toward the east and headed deep into the Everglades. Earnest could not help but think how anyone would ever reach the plane if it were to run out of fuel or for some other reason go down in that vast expanse of swamp.

The sun was rising high in the morning sky and Ernest realized that he was running late. He had promised his brother Willard that he would accompany him on the 20 mile trip into town to sell their gator hides and fresh frog legs to the local mercantile.

The town of Chokoloskee was buzzing with activity. Finishing their business with the local hide and seafood dealer, Ernest and Willard drove their wooden flatbed pickup truck to the docks to see what the commercial fishing boats had brought in from the Gulf of Mexico. Crossing the rickety wooden bridge that stretched across the wide shallow bay, the roar of an engine that sounded like a freight train that was about to enter the passenger side of the truck caught Ernest’s attention.

Turning to his right, Ernest thought that he and Willard had seen their last day on earth, as he looked headlong into the propeller of a pontoon equipped bi-plane approaching the truck at a distance of about thirty feet above the water and maybe 10 feet above their heads. The air thundered as the plane passed overhead and set down on the smooth flat water of the bay.

The plane taxied down the waterway, turned around at the far end of the bay and slowly maneuvered to an area on the shoreline that had been cleared for a loading area.

The trip into civilization was just a little more than Ernest and Willard could handle. Upon reaching the far end of the bridge, Willard promptly turned the truck around and without hesitation drove straight through town and down Highway 41 toward home.

An idea is born

The cab of the old Model- A Ford pickup truck was silent during the drive, with only the hum of the tires being heard over the rhythmic clatter of the truck’s engine. Not a word was said between the two men during the drive.

Suddenly Ernest let out a yell, while slamming the open palm of his hands on the truck’s dashboard.

“That’s it,” he said. “That is how I can do it,” Ernest shouted. For the remainder of the trip, Ernest explained his idea to Willard thinking and making changes in his plans as he spoke.

It was 1930 when Ernest and Willard planned and worked together to develop a machine that would revolutionize transportation through the Everglades. Using a wooden flat bottom boat, an old Ford model-A engine and an airplane propeller, Ernest and Willard built the first airboat to be used in the Florida Everglades.

With the intention of making it easier to hunt alligators and catch frogs, Ernest and Willard Yates had no idea that their crude invention in years to follow would be refined to be one of the most useful tools used by emergency personal having to traverse inaccessible wetlands, navigate flood waters, engage in marsh search and rescue missions and perform ice-rescue operations.

Use in emergency operations

Traditionally airboats have been thought of only as boats best used for sightseeing, frog gigging and alligator hunting. However, today airboats are used by emergency service agencies around the world. From Maine to California and from Florida to Alaska, as well as, numerous countries airboats are used to perform rescue operations and saving lives.

An airboat’s virtually flat bottom hull design and its not having any working parts below the waterline, makes it nearly the perfect vessel for flood rescue and evacuation. An airboat can be deployed without regard to a designated launch site or depth of water. An adequately powered airboat needs no water at all for operation. An airboat can be unloaded from its trailer onto dry ground and can even be maneuvered across dry pavement to the water’s edge.

With no working parts below the waterline, an airboat can be operated in floodwaters, without regard to depth or submerged debris. With a full load capacity, an airboat can maneuver through floodwaters skimming over downed trees submerged fences, automobiles, trash and vegetation. Although airboats do have their limitations, they have been reported to have been operated in up to class 4 whitewater.

During the I-90 Schoharie Creek bridge collapse near Amsterdam, NY in the 1987, that killed 10 motorists, it was only airboats, operated by the New York Department of Forestry, that were able to traverse the rushing water and reach the site of the collapse in the middle of the creek. The Schoharie Bridge collapsed and fell 80 feet into the rain-swollen creek below plunging unsuspecting motorists into the turbulent water.

An aluminum airboat’s construction, coupled with a polymer hull covering allows it to withstand the otherwise destructive punishment given it by ice shoves, rocks, logs and tree stumps. An airboat with a polymer-clad aluminum hull can withstand the destructive pounding of jagged ice that would rip the vinyl skirts of a hovercraft to shreds.

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