Yamato 1

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The Yamato 1 on display in Kobe, Japan

A MHD thruster from the boat, at the Ship Science Museum in Tokyo.

Yamato 1, is a boat built in the early 1990s by Mitsubishi. It uses a magnetohydrodynamic drive, driven by a liquid helium-cooled superconductor, and can travel at 15 km/h (8 knots).

The Yamato 1 was the first working prototype of its kind. It was completed in Japan in 1991, by the Ship & Ocean Foundation (later known as the Ocean Policy Research Foundation). The ship was first successfully propelled in Kobe harbor in June 1992. Yamato 1 is propelled by two MHD thrusters that run without any moving parts.

MHD works by applying a magnetic field to an electrically conducting fluid. The electrically conducting fluid used in the MHD thruster of the Yamoto 1 is seawater.^[1]

In the 1990s, Mitsubishi built several prototypes of ships propelled by an MHD system. These ships were only able to reach speeds of 15 km/h, despite higher projections.