I investigated paddlewheel drives for small boats because of my shoal waters. I made a working prototype that I installed on a 12' john boat. It was a single wheel stern drive, 3' wide and 4' diameter with feathering floats (blades). I also put the wheel in a tow tank. Some highlights:
Feathered wheels add about 15% efficiency.
Small sternwheel boats suffer GREATLY from changes in trim.
Paddlewheels are MORE efficient than props when the speeds are slow and the boat is heavy.
Take a close look at the New Era sternwheeler. The slip seems just right to me, which means he put the right wheel(s) on the right boat. This is just as tricky as putting the right diameter and pitch prop on a boat.
The boat is long. This helps with trim. However, you can see that if some of the crew were to walk fore or aft, the boat would change trim, which would mean adjusting the depth of the wheels to maintain efficiency. I would say that his boat is about the smallest that you could make that would be practical.
My conclusion was that to make a practical sternwheeler it would need to be at least 24' long, narrow, and have twin feathering wheels with electric trim.
Remember the television show Junkyard Wars? They did a paddlewheel challenge at my request. We wanted to do a tug-of-war, but decided it was too dangerous. I would have been the "expert", but I had built a working paddlewhee, so I helped them find another fellow.
Dan
--- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, "qc_ca_666" <qc_ca_666@...> wrote:
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> Hi all!
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> "New Era" is solar-powered paddlewheel boat.
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> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLOYfdJ0DGU
> http://www.spanglefish.com/newera/
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> I hope it helps.
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> All yours,
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> Pierre
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