FRANCE HELICES variable pitch surface drive

[PetterM]

Anyone know what happened to this?
Remember reading about it some years ago....

[olli]

I have seen that drive on just one boat. I think it was the PR Marine "Golden Eye" and if I remember it correctly that drive was custom built. I should have a pic of that one, will scan it later.

[PetterM]

Good...someone else that remembers...
I think i there was a picture in speed at sea or a similar publication about 10 years ago. I was wondering how well it worked and why they only made one?

[olli]

Finally I have scanned my slide of the installation on "Golden Eye" with an ordinary scanner therefore the poor quality:



I could not find those outer drives in my France Helices brochures. If you need further info on them the people at http://www.pr-marine.de/en/home.html should be able to give it to you.
BTW: When I asked Mr. Rammelmayr about the cost of the pictured drive system he only replied that you could buy a very nice house for that kind of money. Nice by anyone's standard.

[daiquiri]

Originally Posted by olli

When I asked Mr. Rammelmayr about the cost of the pictured drive system he only replied that you could buy a very nice house for that kind of money. Nice by anyone's standard.

Maybe that fact could reveal what happened to the whole project.

[jmiele3]

Originally Posted by PetterM

Anyone know what happened to this?
Remember reading about it some years ago....

The drive was actually quite successful from a performance standpoint.

However, the drive was originally intended for military applications. Due to the variable pitch, computer control was necessary. The issue was that most military customers are hesitant to use full computer control, for fear of computer failure. It was a question of market demand being low, despite performance.