the Body Boat?

I am sorry to seem silly so near 1 April, but this is genuine. I remember a newspaper article many years ago about someone designing "the Body Boat", which was a modified outboard motor designed to be fastened directly to a swimming man's body, and not to a boat that he is riding in. Please have any of you heard of such a thing? Google search was swamped in irrelevant matter.

I have heard of underwater diver-riders, including the type described at this link, which is fastened directly to the diver's body; but the "Body Boat" was internal combustion powered and for surface use.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protei-5_Russian_diver-rider

 

Anthony,

You mean like an "Aqua-Scooter" like this using a petrol engine & snorkel.....?

http://www.aquascooter.com/

Jeff.

 

I have heard of the device called Aqua-scooter at that link; but I seem to remember that the Body Boat was a special outboard motor that was strapped to a surface-swimming man's hips and its propeller was guarded to avoid it injuring him.

 

what would be the purpose of doing that. maybe better to hollow out the mother in law and fit her with a transom to take a small outboard, then you would have a useable dinghy.

 

I'm sure she speaks well of you too !

 

mr e, its a better use than the bike rack I was going to turn her into.

 

Aside from the mother in law solution, Whitepointers question remains: What would be the pupose for doing that?

 

There's another way to go here.
Attach a rope to an outboard mounted on a stable platform and let it pull you along.
Get yourself some kind of skid underneath and you could just skip along the surface.
Use your thumb to indicate faster and slower and you'd have speed control.
I think you're idea could really evolve into something here.

 

The device that I remember did not use an ordinary outboard motor such as used on a RIB, but was a specially-made device containing a motor. If this device has gone back into the past and been forgotten, I am very sorry for causing any difficulty.

messabout wrote:-
> ... What would be the pupose for doing that?

Smaller than a boat and motor, fits into less luggage or storage space.

 

Whitepointer posed the question first. Aussie that he is, he was perhaps thinking of all those hungry great white sharks that live in Oz waters. In my case, here in Florida, we have ill tempered alligators. In several other places, "there be dragons".

I concede, it does sound like a fun way to swim.

 

Once, from a distance I saw an Italian tourist, standing on the bathing platform of his yacht, pulling the starter cord of what looked like a big chainsaw. The picture got even weirder when he lowered the bright orange object in the water and jumped in after it. This must have been what the OP wrote about.

The guy used the device for just a few minutes only, probably because he wasn't prepared for the fumes coming from the little 2 stroke engine right in front of his nose.