FastShip, Inc.
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Maritime transportation |
| Predecessor | Thornycroft, Giles & Co. |
| Founded | 1997 in Delaware, United States |
| Founder | David L. Giles |
| Defunct | 2012 |
| Fate | Bankruptcy restructuring |
Area served | Transatlantic (U.S. East Coast to Western Europe) |
| Products | Intermodal maritime cargo transportation services |
FastShip, Inc. was an enterprise that introduced a novel concept for intermodal maritime cargo transportation during the 1990s and ultimately underwent bankruptcy restructuring in 2012.
Its antecedent, Thornycroft, Giles & Co., obtained multiple patents in the early 1990s related to high-speed monohull vessel designs. To commercialize these innovations, FastShip Atlantic, Inc. was established in 1992.
In October 1997, FastShip, Inc. was officially registered in Delaware. That same month, founder David L. Giles presented an enhanced logistics methodology in Scientific American.
The objective of FastShip Atlantic, Inc. was to reduce the Atlantic Ocean crossing time to less than 95 hours—far quicker than the traditional duration of approximately 160 hours—and to shorten loading and unloading periods at each port from 48 hours to under six. This improvement would decrease terminal-to-terminal transit time from 256 hours to 107 hours, facilitating a one-week transit between key industrial hubs in Western Europe and the U.S. East Coast and Midwest.
Operations were planned to connect the Port of Philadelphia with Cherbourg, France.
The envisioned FastShip TG770 vessel had a capacity of 1,432 TEUs arranged on two decks. Its semi-displacement V-shaped steel hull measured 265 meters in length, 40 meters in beam, with a draft of 10.5 meters. The ship’s propulsion system consisted of five jet turbines driving water jets.
In March 2012, FastShip, Inc., along with FastShip Atlantic, Inc., and Thornycroft, Giles & Co., filed for bankruptcy protection in Delaware and were released from bankruptcy proceedings by September of the same year.