Business Notes TECHNOLOGY

Sometime within the next year, an eerily quiet, 280-ton lime-green ship will leave the docks at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries' shipyard in Kobe, Japan, for the first time. Though it will never speed faster than a leisurely 8 knots or carry more than 10 passengers, the Yamato No. 1's maiden voyage will be as unique as the first time Robert Fulton steamed up the Hudson River. Christened last week with a bottle of sake, the Yamato is the world's first vessel to propel itself through the water using the power of magnetism.

Japanese government and industry are bringing to ocean travel the same technology they have used in the development of magnetically levitated trains. The Yamato, named for a World War II battleship, is powered by superconductive electromagnets that have been cooled down to an energy-efficient -425.47 degrees F. The magnets shoot electrified seawater through a set of jetlike thruster tubes, thus greatly reducing the noise and vibration associated with the traditional rotating propeller. But before this system can be applied commercially, the size of the magnets, which now limits the vessel's speed and cargo space, will have to be reduced.