River Roller! Pontoon Boat that Rolls Across the Water!

The 2013 changes actually help the small guy as they allow the first to disclose as the true inventor.

 

Makes sense. How much I'm willing to spend defending it will depend on the success of the prototype.

 

Yep. I'm working on it. See other replies for your other points. For the record 5000lbs is my Max load not my optimum load.

 

Yes. Why?

 

Just so you all know i intend to test my design here is a pic of the first attempt at a trantoon, or as my kids prefer, a pontoodle. The support material made it to heavy so i will have to try again.

 

I will enjoy proving you wrong also. Not as much as Upchurch, but your a close second.

 

Thank you for that. Makes my day to be so recognized. Actually the definition of "works" needs lots of examination to determine if anything like your proposal is a significant advance in technology. Plenty of past similar contraptions have been able to float and make advance across the water. The best to my knowledge are those that use longitudinal tubular pontoons with screw threads wrapped about them fore and aft. Worked pretty well in bogs (and snow) compared to non floating vehicles.

You will have a very difficult time proving me wrong since all of my post is simply a challenge for you to prove your claims. As always, the challenge is to put up or shut up. Its always great to see something that no one has ever been able to achieve actually work. Do that and most of us here will be appreciative fans. The Wright brothers managed that but they worked from a basis of real science, study and progressive experimentation.

 

Here is a link to the nearest I can find on YT, a truck with a giant v8 motor, plenty of tyres although it floats with the tyres about 50% immersed. When that lovely sounding engine is revved it goes - absolutely nowhere. I think the only question is, would it be better if more tyre (trantoon) flotation were available. My guess is yes, but not enough.



edit: I bet the builder was more than disappointed.

 

I'm glad to see you are proceeding with an actual model. What scale will it be? No matter what the results are it will definitely be interesting. Good Luck I hope you prove us all wrong.

 

The builder could have saved a lot of embarrassment, grief and money if he had done a little study of basic physics.

It has 8 large balloon tires and if it had 16, it would go some better and with 32 tires, better yet. See where this is going Matthew? I have driven a large paddle wheel riverboat and if you look at any of them, you will see that they work best when the immersion just covers the blades in the vertical position. You might fool a lot of people Mathew, but fooling mother nature is another game altogether.

 

I haven't contributed to this thread in a while, but as I previously mentioned and the video demonstrates, the wheels aerate a hole, and she squats, into the now much lower pressure area below the wheels. You can live in denial of physics, but you'd be wise to be within swimming distance of shore if you do.

 

If you watch the video of the monster truck with the 4 big tires it should show you exactly why this won't work. I'm pretty sure that the guy that built it envisioned the same thing you do that when he poured on the power that it would climb up on top of the water and go but just the opposite happens while it moves through the water slowly as long as the RPM's are kept low as soon as he applies the power it aerates the water and sinks. The problem with using paddle wheels is they work pretty good at low speeds with a well designed displacement hull and the bigger the diameter the better but I doubt that you could make a boat plane with them even if it had a good planing hull but they were never intended to do this. They could be built from wood in remote locations and with steam engines no gearing or complicated drive system was needed just a simple connecting rod and for reverse you just reversed the rotation of the steam engine. I hope you go ahead with building the model you will learn a lot from the experience.

 

Yes, you can make a paddle powered boat plane off. It's been done and a few have actually been fast, if wet and noisy. The paddles were of conventional configuration (aft) and driven very fast, with slight emersion. The last one I saw was a large jon boat (maybe 24') fitted with a small block and a single 5' diameter paddle, mounted on a rack off the transom. The large flat bottom helped control squat and it ran over 40 MPH. Of course had it been equipped with the same HP in an outboard, it would have likely been faster, certainly less wet and considerably lighter too. He had 1,000 pounds of SBC and drive attached to the paddle, which is a lot more than a Black Max hanging on the transom.

 

I'm working on it. Ironically much of the criticism here has helped to concieve of a plan B. That being relevant if all of you are correct in your analysis of my design. If plan A doesn't work, many of you will be able to take credit for the inspiration of plan B. I'm still convinced that there will be a design that will work. You have all helped me to sharpen my teeth to that extent. Thanx for that.