Air injection for planing hulls

This is a reply to the Air Lubricated Hull portion of this thread, not the hijacked portion.

There was a boat on St. John, USVI called "Caribe Air Ride". It was owned by Transportation Services. That boat had a large compressor which pumped air through holes in the outher layer of a double hull. It worked great in protected water, but not in heavy chop. The hull was cut out, the pumps removed and a single, conventional hull put in.

About 30-40 years ago, a small workboat out of Port Aransas, Texas used an auxilliary engine driving two 6-71 superchargers as compressors and upped his top speed from 21 to 31 knots by injecting the air through a small step glassed in at the front of the planing surface. I don't know how his fuel consumption was affected by the extra engine, but his speed came up nearly 50% even with the extra weight.

In controlled conditions, air lubrication can be made to perform very well, they just always seem to have the controlled conditions turned off when I get a chance to go boating.

Lance

 

Are you A Businessman?

If you were A Businessman, in the development industry; you will understand the optional business strategies flexibility as a superior quality investment opportunity on a technological monopoly ownership; so your again trying to be pocking holes in the solid short-form of the 55 page business strategy plan, clearly demonstrate you are not at all familiar with sophisticated and winning Business Strategies Plans, and are reacting like a kid who believes he found a flaw in the work that someone smarter then he is has developed.

So as others say here, get off your negative thinking appeasing the many other negative self fooling members who are so vocal without respect to truth and facts I sure will not share with such negative people, as too many of you are obviously and simply a None believers group who has never invented something of value, and are not qualified to criticize my honest wise work, by claiming to be professional or using professional terminology instead of simple English for all people to understand and know.

Sorry there are more fools then respectful members responding to my positive and honest thread - as you have made it look as negative as your thinking is, distorting what the thread really is and has to offer, for the dissent mariners I am looking for.

 

YES, there are many more such cases as you have spotted

YES Lance, there are many more such cases as you have spotted, and this is why the problem has not yet been resolved by others - the leaking problem as I know it - a problem which has been resolved and where my invention has succeeded. It is worth the development, as I have been told it can add 30% and some claim only 15% additional efficiency - but I have not yet tested my more advanced model of the invention.
In all my writing, you may have not noticed at my website, that I am writing about A Water Lubrication 1st and with OPTIONAL Secured Injection Cavity, and this is what most readers here have been missing, while looking at the Air Cavity idea which has been around and experimented with for many years by now.

Thank you for being one of the respectful members on this website.

For any more information, you can write to me directly, as this thread has been tainted by negative thinking members, and a clear view is not so simple to see anymore!

Ami

 

Thank you Lance, that is the kind of information I've been looking for.
Of course sea conditions greatly affect the performance of air injected hulls, that is probably why experimenters tried to contain the air in cavities or between fins. But for pleasure craft of 20-30 ft I think it will be sufficient if the system works in a quit sea or lake. Planing in 6 ft waves gives you headaches and kidney problems.
I also think that even a partial air film could save a lot of fuel. If it would be possible to lubricate half of the hull's planing area with air, the effect should be noticeable. Using a turbo charger for that is an excellent suggestion.

 

When does air lubrication become too much? If the boat were still, and bubbles were introduced under it, it would go down due to the now decreased density underneath it. Why doesn't this happen while planing? I'm guessing it has to do with the amount of time the bubbles are in contact with the hull - which brings another question: Is there a "critical speed" of sorts where the benefits set in?

 

I'm pretty sure that any bubbles under the hull must assume the same pressure as the water surrounding them. When the boat is at rest, the bubbles would have the pressure according to their depth underwater. If the boat is planing, the pressure would be higher to account for the dynamic force supporting the boat.

 

Tuantom,
The boat will not sink when you introduce bubbles under it, at least not when blowing them down throught the bottom of the boat itself. To introduce bubbles require a pressure when blowing the bubbles down into the water, which will create a lifting force for the boat.

It is simply not possible for a boat to sink itself by blowing bubbles under itself. The action would be similar to lifting yourself in the hair.

Injecting bubbles below a model boat with an external device as an experiment in an aquarium is a different case, as are the claimed gasses from the bottom of the Bermuda Triangle.

The problem with air lubrication is never too much air. The problem is to get air where you need it for lubrication when the boat is moving.

Erik

 

Now that I've actually stopped to think about it Erik, you're right; and I like the analogy (but you can pull yourself down by the hair ). Gaseous air can never be as dense as water, which would cause the boat to lower (or would the bouyancy of the bubbles lift???) - what I was missing, though, was the lifting force it takes to get the bubbles under the hull - and where it's introduced.
What would happen if we somehow managed to have a sheet of bubbles suspended on half the surface of a lake; and had a boat, which was planing on the normal water, cross into it?

 

That experiment could be done with the help of a large bottle of detergent and an outboard engine to create foam. Or the airport fire extinguishing equipment they use for precautionary landings.
An excellent idea, but I can't do it myself: the sea in front of my house is too agitated and the salt makes it difficult to create large quantities of foam.