Craig Loomes

SHP = shaft horsepower, as opposed to BHP = brake horsepower. SHP is measured by taking the prop off the drive and putting the dyno pickup on the propshaft; BHP is measured by pulling the engine from the boat and putting the dyno pickyp on the end of the crankshaft. Generally, petrol engines are rated SHP and diesels BHP by convention.

There's still a few real steamboats around Muskoka- little guys, 20-30 feet or so. Slow, smoky, and use a LOT of wood- but man do they ever attract a crowd. More so than even the big poker-run monsters.

I like Mackid's definition of a sexy boat there. Pretty, distinctive, economical, etc. And fun. Fun is the big one, both above and belowdecks. After all, isn't that why we buy boats?

 

Not all of us...well...ok, retract that statement. About the SHP vs BHP, sorry about that...yeah. Good to know. But are the steam boats fun to use?

 

YES THEY ARE!!

But there are a lot of us that go beyond the traditional plumb bow, fantail stern, wood burning, 6 knots max. I know of four steam powered outboards (two mount on the transom, complete); one stern drive under construction; one racing designed for 120mph (high pressure, light weight); one almost ready to launch 26' hoping to achieve 40+ mph. I'm in the process of a designing a lightweight plant to power a modified "Rescue Minor". The steam plant will occupy little more space and weigh about the same as the original gasoline engine and develop 33 SHP. Should move it around 20mph. Capable of burning furnace oil or biodiesel. And very quiet!

 

not to mention you'll be drawing a crowd of admirers wherever you go, and will probably be asked to lead a parade or two with that thing ;-)

There's a few in Muskoka that have been restored, a lot of them have 100-year-old power plants. Wood-burning. Beautiful boats, if a bit slow, but great style and class.

 

Sounds nice. Slow? No matter. Problem is, how do they do in a chop? 2-3 foot swells type chop. Sounds awesome regarding the biodiesel. I'm a fan already

 

Steamboats (are there any other kind?)

As with any boat, it depends on the hull design. Most of today's small (18' to 26') steamboats use "traditional" hull designs - "plumb" stem, fantail stern. Checkout the attached photos: Flyer is 23'6" LOA and powered by a 5BHP engine and wood burning boiler - note the excessive polution from the stack; sprt-oly.jpg is the steam outboard Sprite on a 14' alluminum hull; Catalyst is a 25' LOA Harry Sucher "skipjack" made from fiberglass/foam panels and a 10 BHP engine; Rose is 18' LOA and steam atomizing oil (biodiesel) fired. All of these boats steam in the open water on Puget Sound, Washington State.

If any of you want to pursue this further, visit the website of the Northwest Steam Society (I'm the webmaster) at http://www.northweststeamsociety.org

 

Catalyst looks great. I bet it'd work well as a diesel powered tender of some sort. Pollution? In the long run it produces less polution.

 

Hydrogen fuel cell technology has come along way. They run buses all over the world with it. My father gave me some stock in Ballard, a Canadian company. 80 shares,worth at the time, 2000,about $8000.00. Shortly after George Jr. was elected it dropped to pennies a share, go figure!

 

Ballard and a few other (many Canadian) companies- Stuart, Hydrogenics, etc. have made huge strides in fuel cell power. A 75 kW fuel cell (the kind you'd put in a Ford Focus-sized car) can now be built for a mere $50,000 (down from over a million just a few years ago) and lasts 30,000 km or more in a car. Still nowhere near the price or longevity of a combustion engine, but it's an improvement of more than an order of magnitude in just a few years. There will be plenty more improvements to come.

Cars and their polymer-membrane fuel cells are one thing. Boats, though, are just about perfect applications for the real cutting-edge fuel cell gear. Take, for instance, the solid-oxide fuel cell- too bulky, hot and slow to warm up for a car, but just about perfect for a trawler yacht or motorsailer. Could also use the big oxide or acid cells designed for stationary generators, put 'em in bigger yachts (60' and up). A lot of these new ones are designed to run on methanol or methane, which are much easier to store than pure hydrogen.

Prices are still a tad high and reliability uncertain. But the day is not far off when substantial prestie will come from a little "fuel-cell powered" marking on one's hullsides.

 

That sounds like a good day to be in.