Dream Boat

Just recently I dreamt I was out on the water on a power boat, a cat, and it seemed to be motoring along in very shallow, clear water, Too shallow, surely to keep the props out of the sand ! So, I takes a look over the stern to see what's going on, and lo and behold, no propellors, just rotating, wide, smooth endless belts ! . Dream ends.

A day or two later I did some googling and came up with this:

http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/boat-design/water-caterpillar-drive-36323.html

I can certainly see the appeal of using friction to drive the boat, even turning the devil of drag into a virtue. But, in practical use in fast boats, leaping about in waves, keeping it in the water seems to me a major problem. Now, I am wondering, for a boat like a monohedron vee-hull, whether such a set-up could offer significant resistance reduction even if wide, rotating belts,from say amidships to the stern, moving like the surface you find at a supermarket check-out counter, were un-powered, and a conventional out-drive or outboard was used ?

 

If only the belts can spin faster than the water flowing over them. Might be possible in small boat. Drive would cavitate and produce lift. I don't know how well it would last in salt water.

 

Might be interesting to take a snow mobile and build a hull around it, see what it does.

cheers
Lurvio

 

dident they used to call them side wheelers?

 

Would it not be more "slippery" than a fixed hull bottom, even if not moving faster than the water ( unpowered, of course) ? Obviously it would have internal losses and not keep pace with the water flow 100%. As for the additional lift, is that correct, it would create greater lift ?