River Roller! Pontoon Boat that Rolls Across the Water!

Discussion in 'Boat Design' started by Matthew Lee Towne, May 10, 2017.

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Do you think the River Roller will work?

  1. Yes

    1 vote(s)
    2.4%
  2. No

    34 vote(s)
    82.9%
  3. Maybe

    6 vote(s)
    14.6%
  1. SamSam
    Joined: Feb 2005
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    SamSam Senior Member

    The main one would be to power it. Without power this thing has no features at all to make it go smoothly through the water. You're trying to solve problems that you don't know if they even exist.
     
  2. Matthew Lee Towne
    Joined: May 2017
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    Matthew Lee Towne Senior Member

    One thing has not changed. This will be electrically powered. To some degree you are correct. I'm not sure there will be a problem with the transition from slow to fast. I just suspect it will be a problem. My testing so far suggests that the trailing trantoons will be less effective. All else I am taking from posts here.
     
  3. PAR
    Joined: Nov 2003
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    PAR Yacht Designer/Builder

    If you're going to explore this approuch, consider trying to take advantage of the wake the entry makes. As I see this, she'll be chewing on progressively more turbulent flow and the conical 'toons will be sucking air quite a bit, because of their undulating positions. Along these same lines you could make conical 'toons progressively beamier as you go aft, in an effort to keep them on the wake. Of course this isn't possible without a fixed speed, but at least during some portions of operation she'd gain a slight advantage. It also looks to be a very convoluted power transmission, which generally isn't good. Think simple. As to exsperementing, I'd start with just 4 rotating 'toons, to (again) keep things simple and prove concept. In other words, starting with a 16 'toon setup is pretty much guaranteeing you'll not get any usable information. Lastly, you're eating relatively flat water, what makes you think conical 'toons are going to work. Logic would dictate cylindrical 'toons are the better choice, maybe articulated, so they can conform to the ever increasing turbulent flow aft. It's one thing to think out of the box, if only for brain session escapades and another to maintain enough focus and discipline, so these sessions might have a chance of being productive.
     
  4. rwatson
    Joined: Aug 2007
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    Location: Tasmania,Australia

    rwatson Senior Member

    I thought I was doing a pretty good job already. What do you expect people to do for you on such a secretive project ? If you had based you concept on previous projects and/or experimental discovery, you might be able to express your aims a bit better.
     
  5. JSL
    Joined: Nov 2012
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    Location: Delta BC

    JSL Senior Member

    Looks interesting and possibly an absolute headache if you ever encountered debris like seaweed, old ropes, nets, etc.
    Rotating pontoons (spiral drive) were developed and used years ago (1945-1955-->)in the arctic. worked on snow, ice, muskeg, and water. Essentially fore/aft pontoons with a spiral blade... sort of like a big corkscrew. Not really fast... but fast enough....they worked.
    worked in swamps too.
     
    Last edited: Oct 1, 2017
  6. ondarvr
    Joined: Dec 2005
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    Location: Monroe WA

    ondarvr Senior Member

    These were linked earlier in the thread.
     
  7. Poida
    Joined: Apr 2006
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    Location: Australia

    Poida Senior Member

    There has to be one good thing to say about you Matthew, you are persistent.
    Although you are not the first new poster to come onto this forum for advice and then completely ignore it.
    Most just disappear but I don't think you will and I am looking forward to your test results.
    I did vote "No" because everything you are trying to achieve doesn't seem plausible.
    You seem to be annoyed by negative responses but if someone comes on the forum with an idea of making a submarine out of 3mm (1/8") plywood, do they expect positive comments?
    Keep trying, everything starts with an idea.
    Poida
     
  8. HCB66
    Joined: Oct 2017
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    Location: USA

    HCB66 Junior Member

    Very interesting concept, you definitely need to build at least a small RC model. This is the kind of stuff that creates our future. Certainly if you build one it'll be part of history whether it works as planned or not.
     
  9. Matthew Lee Towne
    Joined: May 2017
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    Location: Oviedo

    Matthew Lee Towne Senior Member

    You might be my best and worst critic all wrapped up in one. I appreciate the input. I am also leaning towards the cylindrical toons but think there is definite advantage to tapering the toons outwardly as you go aft. Tapering the diameter and conical shaping is still up for debate. My gut and wife seem to indicate the conical toons as a better solution.
     
  10. Matthew Lee Towne
    Joined: May 2017
    Posts: 142
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    Location: Oviedo

    Matthew Lee Towne Senior Member

    Thanx Poida! My wife has a different word than "Persistant". But the idea is I will chew on it until I'm sure one way or the other. One thing I am sure of is the River Roller has a practical application. BTW if the submarine has a length of 2 feet, is made of 1/8" plywood, and is intended for a single five minute use, it should be met with constructive criticism as it is entirely plausible.
     
  11. Matthew Lee Towne
    Joined: May 2017
    Posts: 142
    Likes: 1, Points: 18
    Location: Oviedo

    Matthew Lee Towne Senior Member

    Wow. Thank you. I really needed that.
     
  12. PAR
    Joined: Nov 2003
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    Location: Eustis, FL

    PAR Yacht Designer/Builder

    I call it the way I see it, regardless of the poster.

    Conical and tapered cylinders are the same thing aren't they. In either case they have no merit in this application.
     
  13. Poida
    Joined: Apr 2006
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    Location: Australia

    Poida Senior Member

    After I thought that this project won't work, I thought of rotating conical rollers. They would take the shape of the hull but instead of pushing the hull through the water the hull would pull itself through the water. Then I thought, (whole lot of thinking going on) sorry that was a "whole lot of shakin' going on," but who's old enough to remember that?
    If you had the large ends of the cones in the centre with a gap between them. This would allow water to go between the rollers, without turbulence and then hit the rear rollers where the cones are joined in the middle. This means that the front rollers are pushing water out to the side as would a standard hull and allowing water to pass to the back rollers without turbulence allowing them to pass water to the side. A rotating hull.
    All of this would be OK except. The standard hull is utilised as usable space, and with a rotatable hull, everything has to be on the deck.
    This would make the unit top heavy unless you made the cones heavy to keep the craft stable and then you would be using energy to push weight through the water that is not used that equals inefficiency.
    So basically at the moment I feel that it could work but it has no application.
    Poida
     
  14. Barry
    Joined: Mar 2002
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    Barry Senior Member

    Conical cylinders probably will not work because with a specific rpm the tip velocities of the paddles will not be the same. At the large diameter end, the tip velocity will be higher, moving a lot of water from static to the exit speed, and at the smaller end, due to the decreased diameter, the slower speed will mean that the difference between static and exit will be much smaller, Ie not much thrust
    If this tip velocity at the small end, is say 20 feet per minute, and the vessel is moving at 20 feet per minute, there will not be any thrust generated from the toon at the small end,
     

  15. PAR
    Joined: Nov 2003
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    Location: Eustis, FL

    PAR Yacht Designer/Builder

    Conical 'toons would also need to be twice as long as cylindrical ones, given the same displacement too.
     
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