tracked or wheels on boat

[fishon91]

im trying to get some ideas on a design for a boat with either tracks or wheels. i like the sealegs: http://www.sealegs.com/
but i really like the fast track driver: http://www.youtube.com/user/fasttrackdriver

my goal is to create a boat that is fully capable on land and mostly on water, built for the people riding around in marshes and nuddy terrain.

what sort of speeds do you think the sealegs would get on land, and how much power do those hydraulic motors get? can it push that boat up a steep levee? is there a reason why they put it on a RIB? and will it have trouble gettin out of the water, onto a steep levee in mud and where the front tire alone has to pull the back tires onto the levee?

lotsa questions but recently i've been trying to think of some ideas that could make my goal work. it's a long shot but i think it'd be cool to engineer something new and make a living off it

[Luckless]

Whatever you do, be sure to have more than one winch that is powerful enough to lift the boat, and cables and anchors for them. Last thing anyone in a swamp amphibian wants is to get themselves in somewhere that doesn't let them back out.

[yipster]

think that fasttrackdriver is hot and wonder what tracks they use
the other day i was reading an article on a kite driven beach trike made as boat
to use on beach and water, think it had the nosewheel as rudder
but here's a thread on imaginative paddlewheels
but where did i read belts may beat props and in what ways..

[jonr]

It is interesting but seems to have little ground clearance - what happens when the ground isn't so flat or has rocks?

[fishon91]

as far as rocks, i was wondering if it could be put on an aluminum boat, then rocks wouldn't hurt as bad. the fast tracks wouldn't have as hard a time on uneven ground as the sealegs.

ok so for this moment i feel like the fasttracks would be really cool to put on an aluminum boat.

those would be pretty cool to use. i wish i had auto cad or something i wanna start designing it

[hoytedow]

You can do it without autocad if you know your way around paper and drafting tools. There was no autocad when the Sherman Tank or The USS Enterprise was built.

[fishon91]

ya, i thinkim gonna start drawing something up tomorrow during school. senior year is soo boring.... no drafting skills involved just sketches

[thudpucker]

There's a Snow Vehicle that has a Belt on each side and a steerable Ski in the middle up front.
That thing will go anywhere. Even in soft sand.
Is that what your thinking?
In that case, yipster's belt comment is correct.

One thing I might add if you go that belt drive direction. You have to provide a method of keeping sticks out of the belt drive.

[fishon91]

does anyone know of any reading material that goes into detail about how belt drives work? different types and how different types are powered? not sure if they're all hydraulic or not, but i'd like to learn more about em.

[Yellowjacket]

Here is a link to a technical paper that was pubished on the fast track, the track is a modified snowmobile track, the only difference is that it is longer (a couple of tracks put together) and it doesn't have any "windows" or holes in the track, but othewise it is pretty conventional. It uses a conventional differential and brakes on each track to turn.

https://macc.nswccd.navy.mil/present...r-Wernicke.pdf

[hoytedow]

Also: http://www.clymer.com/SearchResults....&sw=V&mid=277&

[thudpucker]

Originally Posted by Yellowjacket

Here is a link to a technical paper that was pubished on the fast track, the track is a modified snowmobile track, the only difference is that it is longer (a couple of tracks put together) and it doesn't have any "windows" or holes in the track, but othewise it is pretty conventional. It uses a conventional differential and brakes on each track to turn.

https://macc.nswccd.navy.mil/present...r-Wernicke.pdf

I tried that link and FireFox warned me to git the heck outta there!
Is it an untrusted site? Full of Internet junk?
I'd like to see how that track business works too.
On the big Dozers they have a Differential up high with axles/Cog wheels driving the Tracks.

[Yellowjacket]

Originally Posted by thudpucker

I tried that link and FireFox warned me to git the heck outta there!
Is it an untrusted site? Full of Internet junk?
I'd like to see how that track business works too.
On the big Dozers they have a Differential up high with axles/Cog wheels driving the Tracks.

You need not worry about the site. It is a US Navy site (.mil suffix), but the US government doesn't upgrade their authentication so there are a lot of Department to Defense or Department of Energy sites that will give you that message. Even the site that our military contract payments come through gives me that warning. The file is a pdf that you can download to your machine and open with acrobat reader.

Also you can do a patent search on Wernicke and see the patent documents that show how they solved the issue of the water sticking to the back side of the wheel.

[yipster]

just learned some (big) pdf's got to be downloaded first or give error
try'd to with thur_wernicke pdf but get unexpected error
anyway do read you on snowmobile tracks and thanx

[kach22i]

FYI: the designer of this craft sometimes posts here:
http://www.industrialobject.com/sth.html