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Roller boats ain't entirely dead. There have been a number of built even into modern times but the goal has been different. Instead of being ocean-going vessels, they are essentially amphibious vehicles intended for very moist terrain (swamps, mud, snow) with the ability also to cross ponds and rivers. They are called Archimedes screw vehicles. They are supported and propelled by horizontal, longitudinally arranged rotating cylinders with screw threads on their outer surfaces. The screw threads provide the thrust and the cylinders provide buoyancy. Here's an example: th-cam.com/video/QRP1YnACN-I/w-d-xo.htmlsi=PH-PaebE1cwesLiO
@@malekiththewitchking2799 is being a witch necessary to become a witch king? Or do you mean you’re just king of the witches but not necessarily a witch? Like maybe 3 or 4 are in a house somewhere in your kingdom so technically you are a king of witches, right? You’ll need to explain a bit before we move forward in our blossoming friendship
Nothing new under the sun? Modern crowdfunding by unscrupulous lawyers syphoning money from greedy idiots with too much money? SpinLaunch comes to mind immediately.
@@Zacho5 exactly - the best current variant is the "two long pontoon tubes, one on each side, with spiral paddle deal going down the length of each one". Those can move slowly over water then take on pretty much any quicksand, bog, swamp, or other nonsolid surface. I've seen a few specialist agricultural vehicles (specifically rice paddy planting machines, cranberry planting machines, etc) that use the "discs with spiral traction grooves" design, but those would be less stable afloat than the "two long pontoon" concept.
Being heavily invested in a flop is a hard thing to admit especially when it's your life's work. Fail fast, fail cheap is the first lesson of innovation.
Nice, I love that you're branching out to other whacky engineeering related stuff and not just armored vehicles. I think the venn diagram of people interested in tanks, and people interested in ships... its basically two circles overlaid on each other. Hell, I'd be down for it if you started talking about weird trains as well.
They still exist in the form of amphibious vehicles designed for swampy/muddy ground. They're not fast but they can go places other vehicles can't. For example, SHERP ATV. Also, UHAC prototype was a tracked version.
...there is one other (though somewhat unrelated) footnote to this. Monster Trucks did stunts like this in the '80s, when it turned out those big 66" and bigger tires would actually make the 13,000+ lb pickups _float._ The big chevron cleats of the tires would move the truck through the water like a...horrendously inefficient paddle-wheel. One '70s Ford Bronco known as "No Problem" was actually even registered as a boat in Florida - "No Problem" used an amphibious vehicle propeller driven off the Rockwell military rear axle to assist its movement. No idea if that truck still exists, as it wasn't seen nationally after the start of the '89 season, when the owner introduced a new race-oriented truck.
@@merafirewing6591 The funniest thing about that anecdote was the owner/driver of "No Problem," John Moore, ran his shop out of Tennessee. Apparently it didn't matter where you lived and what you were registering, Florida would just do it if it had all the equipment!
Is it April 1st already? 😜 I can't imagine how uncomfortable the roller ship would have been in the face of any sea. The side to side pitching while enclosed in a tube would have been epic. Queen Victoria would have NOT been happy I suspect. All these projects reminded me of the Antarctic Snow Cruiser. Novel ideas, but grounded in no known facts or needs. Seriously, who puts slicks on a vehicle intended for use on snow?
You got to have these kind of dreamers that are willing to go down these dead ends once and awhile because you never know when something very useful will turn up. Think of all the failed designs for aircraft before we got to where we are today.
also gotta have the people that give failed designs another chance, too often i see videos about designs that fail due to poor construction quality concluding that the designs themselves were doomed
The Canadian ship would work as an arctic expedition vechicle tbh . Just swap steam engines for diesel , balconies for He-111 style glass noses and voila ;P Oh and propably gyro stabilisers to help the inner cabin stay parallel to the right side up ...
@@starwarsfan_1206there's a reason you don't see too many conventionally wheeled vehicles in the arctic. Admittedly, in Greenland, they've got heavily modified pickups and SUVs, but there's nothing really bigger than that on wheels. Tracks are pretty much the go-to.
@@MonkeyJedi99there is already a small scale version of this type of thing called an aqua bike. It uses large paddle wheels like these but is human powered.
@@TheObsidianX All I could find under the name aqua bike were either exercise machines designed for use in shallow water like a pool, or a crazy hydroplane contraption that turns your up-and-down jumping into forward motion.
@@TheObsidianX Ah! Aqua trikes was the hit. They do have quasi-paddle bumps on the rear wheels, and a keel on the front wheel, Pretty sensible design choices.
Not my field but I would see, even despite the rollers turning, a pressure wave would build up on front of all the rollers. I wonder just how much testing Bazin did with his models. Very interesting off beat topic. Absolutely new to me. THX for bringing it to my attention.
In June to August 1970 as an engineering student from The Isle of Wight, England, UK I used to see an experimental roller boat at Fishbourne by the Wightlink car ferry terminal when making my weekly commute from the Island to Chobham during the industrial engineering placement for my degree. The craft, much smaller than those in the video, consisted of a platform to which were attached two wheels that were approximately 18 feet in diameter. Each wheel was constructed of two plain discs 2 to 3 feet apart, joined by paddle blades that extended radially from the circumference of the discs for around 3 feet towards the centre of the discs. Floatation chambers were formed by closing the spaces between the paddles at their inner ends. These wheels / rollers could thereby provide floatation by virtue of the pockets of trapped air and propulsion from the blades between the discs. In addition, a smaller third plain wheel at the rear formed from two cones having a diameter to height ratio of around 5:1 provided stability, buoyancy and steering. The machine was propelled by a BMC Mini attached to the platform, drive being transferred from its front hubs front hubs to the large paddle wheels through pulleys and belts that incorporated an appropriate reduction ratio. I never saw it run but a fellow passenger on the ferry, who lived in the area told me he had seen it being driven down the beach on its rollers under its own power and into the water though I don't recall any information on its performance not did I ever see any information in local media. Sadly, I never met the inventor / owner.
I have never heard of this type of ship. Pretty impressive and creative. We could need such out of the box thinking today. Most prototypes fail but maybe one will show promise.
Thanks for the update. Recall a news item back in the 1980's about the remains of a roller ship buried beneath the Gardiner expressway overpass near the Toronto island. Now know what it was about
I wonder what Bazin's "solution" was that he thought he figured out to the problems with his roller ship. Did he manage to write it down before he died, and did anybody else look into it? Most likely they still wouldn't have been viable, but it's too bad he didn't get a chance to test whatever new version he'd thought of.
My guess would be a change to the shape of the rollers but it could have been something else entirely. Sadly we'll probably never know unless someone wants to blow a ton of money testing it themselves and stumbles on the solution
@@RedXlV Computer modelling can still miss details that a physical model does not, such as the structure of the ship itself, and how tolerant it actually is. That is why shipbuilding companies usually have an in-between stage between computer models and physical prototype by using physical models. Sometimes, the Computer simulations miss the one or two odd detail that can make or break a ship.
Hydrodynamics is still not perfectly understood, but for which we have much better models. Want to see a mechanical engineer twitch? Whisper “Navier-Stokes equations” in their ear without warning.
Could you please cover the genuinely genius design in "LeTourneau's Land Train" it's absolutely fascinating what that guy built & i wish more people would bring his ideas back to life. Maybe even create a modern advanced mini nuclear energy option? The possibilities are limitless
That is hands down the weirdest way of pronouncing Ontario. Also this explains why the Gardener is always in such terrible condition. THE CURSE OF THE ROLLER!
@@samuelruetz5175Maybe southern Ohio? Sounds more like a Hoosier way of saying to me but Indiana has such a weird mishmash of surrounding states, it's own vintage, and faux southern it's hard to say even that. I have heard On-tar-e-oh living there as well as Own-tear-e-roh.
screw hulls! those things are actually pretty damned badass...and then it goes on to talk about something completely different...funnily enough that idea might actually work out alright as long as it has some way to actively stabilize the core: without that you're just floating over the ocean in a giant porch-swing...still exceptionally stable laterally so it might actually cut down on motion sickness even without active stabilization. ^screw hulls are ships that are pretty much exactly what it says on the tin: they float on big ol' tanks with screws mountedto/partof the outside of the tank, the ship move by turning the while tank, it's not terribly efficient but it _will_ casually crawl up on top of ice and drive on ice or snow or even land and rocks and whatnot (though anything without some give to it tends to wear the hull out extremely quickly) they look like something out of a comic book but they also _work_ like something out of a comic book and are pretty much the best thing ever for the job they are used to do.
The wheel boats missed the most important thing about a car with wheels...having a suspension so the passengers don't feel every bumps and such. Always wondered why boats don't have such a thing. Then some were created the floats put on arms that work like suspension. These boats were planned to for service to offshore wind farms or oil platforms, as they must go out in bad weather. In general though, if you build a small model most all of these issues will become clear. The thing with boats is parting the water is a big deal, so you should have only a single wheel to part the water once, multiple wheels make it worse. Also rotating a huge amount of material is wasteful when you only need to move the water, hence the paddle wheel is way better.
Aww 😢 you didnt mention the bras d’or in the hydrofoil section its my fave and is exposed in my hometown i was affraid to climb aboard bc of how high it is out of water (i still would be i bet vertigo is a mfker)
@@ConeOfArc i know thats in jest but but bras means arm in french and i believe its the name of a lake in canada ,anyway the gave that name to the final prototype of hydrofoil that the canadian navy did and it beat the speed record for hydrofoils with a max speed of 60 knots ! (110 kms per hour)
@@ConeOfArc The wheels should expel water or air through nozzles in the manner of a jetski. Perhaps it would go fast (like a penguin pushing air out of his feathers to avoid water friction). They should make a completely spherical ship. With a gyro stabilized gimbal mounted interior this could even be the proper ship for a planet with much rougher sea than Earth.
This thing would make such a neat story-piece concept for a steampunk amphibious vehicle. More intriguing that it was an actual thing, even if flawed and not finding success.
I really enjoy adventurous ideas like these. My initial bought was “but that will create cavitation, basically dig itself into the water. That will do the exact opposite of everything it hoped to do.” My second thought was, “I only have this educated guess because someone already tried it!” There is no such thing as a failure. It’s just research into what to avoid for success.
Can't believe I'm almost 59 years old, and I have never, ever heard of roller ships. You'd think that somewhere, at some time, I would have read at least one reference to them. Thanks for the video.
😳 Wonder what would have happened if Bezin had put golf ball dimples on his boat wheels? 😅 Or he locked the wheels in place and stuck a tapered hydrofoil on the bottom? (assuming that had been invented yet - apparently, neither practical hydrofoils or dimpled golf balls had been invented yet at that time? 😳😅)
Sometimes scale models are deceiving, especially when it comes to fluid dynamics. Pop pop boats a prime example of a propulsion principle that doesn't scale well (or at all).
I believe that all the roller boat designers' greatest error was that they thought too big. Water is scale invariant; what works at small scale will work the same way at a larger scale. Instead of enormous 1 off builds, why didn't they make small scale models and test them in a large tank under controlled conditions? That way, they could have tested hundreds, perhaps even thousands of different designs for the cost of one large scale experimental ship that failed. Maybe ships would look quite different today if they had followed this approach.
Fascinating! Good job on the video. But, dang, those inventors are what keep me from trying to build my ideas. There's a related design concept out there. It's more like a tracked vehicle with flappy floats on the tracks. The test vehicle has flexible-foam floats, and is being tested as a landing craft.
I saw only saw one of these once, a bottle ship in a bottle ship museum near Hamburg. In the discription was written that it was intended to be a very fast ship which didnt meet expectation even after a lot of tinkering. Still wasnt even sea worthy enough to be used as a "coal hulk" and got wrecked soon there after. Now I got to watch the video.
Roller boten werken al jaren in Oostenrijk als pont. Door snel stromend water gaan de rollen draaien en ze zitten vast aan een kabel en door het profiel van de rollen steken ze de Donau over. Wel langzaam maar zonder energie van een motor auto's fietsen en voetgangers steken zo over. Ziet er ouderwets uit maar werkt perfect zonder toegevoegde energie.
Cool weird ships, great info and research made for a very interesting video! P.S. @ConeOfArc sounded a bit like a tourist saying Ontario since locally its usually pronounced: On Tare Ee Oh For saying the word Toronto well...... there's more then a few pronunciations and slang terms, all of which I'd recommend simply ignoring.
Just from looking at them, I think they were way too smooth. If the wheels or the body was grooved, it would be able to push water better. I'm thinking the metal tires from Mario Kart 8 which has a v shaped tread in one direction around the surface of the tire (like so: >>>>>>>). The other option would be to have complementary tires where the left and right tires have grooves that look like "/" and "\" respectively. It would also need to be 4-wheel drive so it could use the wheels to turn. The tube boat would need a central tube that would be free moving but be self-righting (as in it keeps itself upright at all times). I'm thinking two halves of the tube should have "/" or "\" grooves and that the two halves should be able to rotate clockwise/counter clockwise independent of each other. The only issue is that this boat just wouldn't survive a storm in open waters because it's not as wide as it is long. It'll either be tossed about or snapped in half if it doesn't just sink from one side taking on too much water.
Their were many, many ships buried in San Francisco's harbor after they were abandoned when gold was found in California. People from around the world sailed there and the wooden ships and boats rotted and were covered over like the roller boat.
I can add one more contraption, built in The Netherlands in the 1980’s The ‘Kager roltrap’ which was an escalator built of blocks of styrofoam, which lay flat on the water and was moved by two pedestrians inside the loop of styrofoam blocks, getting wet from dripwater of the blocks passing overhead and from the splashing from below. 🤣
ngl I thought of something very similar to this, as a way to reduce drag for large planing megayachts with a series of long thin rollers along the flat base. I pretty quickly realized the vast array of issues with this concept and thought it was too absurd to even write down, I'm in disbelief that this was actually tried by genuine inventors all the way back in the 1800s.
Drag is mainly from the leading edges of crafts, so 6-8 rollers means 6-8 times the leading edge area for drag. there would also be some interesting hydrodynamic effects with the trailing rollers due to turbulence created by the leading rollers, this might cause those wheels to not gain a grip on the water meaning they were less effective. if you are having problems visualising it think of a biplane or a triplane, The extra wings created greater drag and the lift generated was not as much as the equivalent wing area due to interference with the other wings, however it meant that each wing carried less load important if you are needing lightweight materials that cant take high stress/strain. as for the drum thing, it parallels the motion of travel meaning a lot of grip but needing more power and having more drag, I think the idea of avoiding seasickness would also not have worked as the crew/passengers would still feel pitch and roll and being inclosed there eyes would see that they were still level, this is the thing that confuses the brain causing sea sickness. a trick for sea sickness is to look at the horizon and see it is moving telling your brain that yes the other inputs are not playing tricks on them, you really are moving in every direction. Were these designs dumb, yes but I would not judge the creators of them badly. The creators were also at a time when engineering principles were being invented and from what I understand were not subject matter experts, aka not shipwrights or engineers, but they had a dream, and sometimes you need someone out with a field to ask "But why not do this?" For people to come back and go, you know why are we doing this. an alternate history version of this could have been someone going huh that didn't work the way we thought it would and discovering a new aspect of physics or a better way of measuring drag or turbulence, The invention that made the Write brothers flight was the wind chamber, a device that let aviation take off.
@@tedarcher9120 in that case the tracks can be assumed to be moving faster than the craft so drag is in the opposite direction, hence movment. As for turbulence, that's part of why the tracks are not moving at the same speed as the craft as well as other loses. If a track design spin to fast then the tracks can lose there grip on the water and the craft goes nowhere, think wheel spin or a land rover digging its self into the mud, but on water.
@@tedarcher9120 probably not for the same reasons paddle wheels are not. It is a larger heavier system that will leave the water in high seas. even if it was more efficient than a screw the extra weight and taking up useful volume in the hull needed for cargo would mean you would need a larger ship negating any advantages in efficiency gained.
A square version having paddles on the rollers like a paddle wheel steamer, with a roller at each corner, is the answer. You just make the left and right rollers have their own speed controls. Could even have a partial wave cancelation system, using a hydropneumatic system, similar to an old Citroen 2CV. -Each roller could raise up and lower for every crest, greatly smoothing out the ride.
The description of roller ships begins at 4:30. I think it is possible with modern technology. As water speed increases, water behaves more and more like a solid. A 4-wheeled craft travelling at 80 kts might be able to move across the water with hardly any displacement.
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Excuse me, dunce! This ship clearly uses the porche tiger engine. Duh. Stupid face.
Bro, why you always taking these scam sponsors?
Roller boats ain't entirely dead. There have been a number of built even into modern times but the goal has been different. Instead of being ocean-going vessels, they are essentially amphibious vehicles intended for very moist terrain (swamps, mud, snow) with the ability also to cross ponds and rivers. They are called Archimedes screw vehicles. They are supported and propelled by horizontal, longitudinally arranged rotating cylinders with screw threads on their outer surfaces. The screw threads provide the thrust and the cylinders provide buoyancy. Here's an example: th-cam.com/video/QRP1YnACN-I/w-d-xo.htmlsi=PH-PaebE1cwesLiO
th-cam.com/video/UtMK0uztq50/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=JulienMiquel
@@mrbeefhbwnah man, call of war is fun as hell
Man, Drachinfel sounding awfully funny today.
Honestly an underrated comment
He got a touch of the 'rona. Made my voice funny too.
Now you’re starting beef with drach?? First lazerpig and now this?
@@TheCrapOnYourStrapOn No, I just thought it was funny.
@@malekiththewitchking2799 is being a witch necessary to become a witch king? Or do you mean you’re just king of the witches but not necessarily a witch? Like maybe 3 or 4 are in a house somewhere in your kingdom so technically you are a king of witches, right? You’ll need to explain a bit before we move forward in our blossoming friendship
I love how both men's solutions to their failed designs was to go bigger
Much like those in government.
they did not want to go home
Nothing new under the sun? Modern crowdfunding by unscrupulous lawyers syphoning money from greedy idiots with too much money? SpinLaunch comes to mind immediately.
If brute force does not solve your problem you are not applying enough brute force to the matter
Must have been terrible in the wind, and how to steer effectively.
honestly neat idea, bonus points if she can roll up a boat launch into land
The first design seemed to have that idea in mind with the ability for it to travel by rail
vehicles like this are amazing in wetlands
Could say the screw type amphibious vehicle are kinda the modern take on this idea. But there all much smaller.
@@Zacho5 exactly - the best current variant is the "two long pontoon tubes, one on each side, with spiral paddle deal going down the length of each one". Those can move slowly over water then take on pretty much any quicksand, bog, swamp, or other nonsolid surface.
I've seen a few specialist agricultural vehicles (specifically rice paddy planting machines, cranberry planting machines, etc) that use the "discs with spiral traction grooves" design, but those would be less stable afloat than the "two long pontoon" concept.
@@Zacho5 Have you seen Colin Furze's screw-drive buggy? Fun and impractical as all get out!
Had not seen any of those wonderfully weird creations before. So steampunk. Thank you.
Pizza cutter ships and floating hotels. Thank you for all the crazy ideas France
History shows most French ideas are crazy
It always seems like creators fall in love with their own designs and double down instead of admitting it’s failure
Ego I think, same how ppl like AH couldn't accept their defeat
Being heavily invested in a flop is a hard thing to admit especially when it's your life's work. Fail fast, fail cheap is the first lesson of innovation.
Nice, I love that you're branching out to other whacky engineeering related stuff and not just armored vehicles. I think the venn diagram of people interested in tanks, and people interested in ships... its basically two circles overlaid on each other. Hell, I'd be down for it if you started talking about weird trains as well.
I suppose a collaboration with History in the Dark could happen.
They still exist in the form of amphibious vehicles designed for swampy/muddy ground. They're not fast but they can go places other vehicles can't. For example, SHERP ATV. Also, UHAC prototype was a tracked version.
These designs are strait out of Mortal engines
...there is one other (though somewhat unrelated) footnote to this.
Monster Trucks did stunts like this in the '80s, when it turned out those big 66" and bigger tires would actually make the 13,000+ lb pickups _float._ The big chevron cleats of the tires would move the truck through the water like a...horrendously inefficient paddle-wheel. One '70s Ford Bronco known as "No Problem" was actually even registered as a boat in Florida - "No Problem" used an amphibious vehicle propeller driven off the Rockwell military rear axle to assist its movement. No idea if that truck still exists, as it wasn't seen nationally after the start of the '89 season, when the owner introduced a new race-oriented truck.
That is the most Floridaman/American thing to do.
@@merafirewing6591 The funniest thing about that anecdote was the owner/driver of "No Problem," John Moore, ran his shop out of Tennessee. Apparently it didn't matter where you lived and what you were registering, Florida would just do it if it had all the equipment!
Whistling diesel did this a couple of years ago with his truck monster max too.
Is it April 1st already? 😜
I can't imagine how uncomfortable the roller ship would have been in the face of any sea. The side to side pitching while enclosed in a tube would have been epic. Queen Victoria would have NOT been happy I suspect.
All these projects reminded me of the Antarctic Snow Cruiser. Novel ideas, but grounded in no known facts or needs. Seriously, who puts slicks on a vehicle intended for use on snow?
She DEFINITELY would be likely to say, "We are not amused."
The snow cruiser actually served well as a base camp
I wonder why someone didn't built a stabilized apartment "capsule" for the queen inside an ordinary ship.
No, but it's 5:30 somewhere so it's beer thirty.
Are you suggesting the queen would not enjoy the idea of days on end in a cramped, windowless, noisy metal tube in the middle of the ocean?
Basically an older larger steam powered Aqua Trike( Those pedal powered big wheels you can rent at lakes)
Those are funny to try out, but imagine one in a gale force wind!
France had some crazy engineering going on for a while. Theyre good at being different.
I've said for decades that the first commandment of French engineering is “f*** you.”
"The French imitate nobody and nobody imitates the French."
Different sure, good....rarely. Their obsession with tumblehome hulls and sending hotels to war.
One word-Absinthe.
Jules Verne.
You got to have these kind of dreamers that are willing to go down these dead ends once and awhile because you never know when something very useful will turn up. Think of all the failed designs for aircraft before we got to where we are today.
also gotta have the people that give failed designs another chance, too often i see videos about designs that fail due to poor construction quality concluding that the designs themselves were doomed
The Canadian ship would work as an arctic expedition vechicle tbh . Just swap steam engines for diesel , balconies for He-111 style glass noses and voila ;P Oh and propably gyro stabilisers to help the inner cabin stay parallel to the right side up ...
just use conventional wheels (maybe tracks), probably cheaper and more reliable
@@starwarsfan_1206there's a reason you don't see too many conventionally wheeled vehicles in the arctic. Admittedly, in Greenland, they've got heavily modified pickups and SUVs, but there's nothing really bigger than that on wheels. Tracks are pretty much the go-to.
Seems like a fun idea to give a bunch of university engineering students and see if modern technology can make them any more viable
And students would be smart enough to build small-scale first, to test at one of the worlds' ocean simulators.
@@MonkeyJedi99there is already a small scale version of this type of thing called an aqua bike. It uses large paddle wheels like these but is human powered.
@@TheObsidianX All I could find under the name aqua bike were either exercise machines designed for use in shallow water like a pool, or a crazy hydroplane contraption that turns your up-and-down jumping into forward motion.
@@MonkeyJedi99 I think they may actually be called aqua tricycles or aqua trikes. Sorry for the confusion.
@@TheObsidianX Ah! Aqua trikes was the hit.
They do have quasi-paddle bumps on the rear wheels, and a keel on the front wheel, Pretty sensible design choices.
Bae wake up ConeOfArc uploaded a new video!
Your hand wakes up with you doesnt it?
@@jblob5764 Stop projecting dude.
Not my field but I would see, even despite the rollers turning, a pressure wave would build up on front of all the rollers. I wonder just how much testing Bazin did with his models. Very interesting off beat topic. Absolutely new to me. THX for bringing it to my attention.
In June to August 1970 as an engineering student from The Isle of Wight, England, UK I used to see an experimental roller boat at Fishbourne by the Wightlink car ferry terminal when making my weekly commute from the Island to Chobham during the industrial engineering placement for my degree. The craft, much smaller than those in the video, consisted of a platform to which were attached two wheels that were approximately 18 feet in diameter. Each wheel was constructed of two plain discs 2 to 3 feet apart, joined by paddle blades that extended radially from the circumference of the discs for around 3 feet towards the centre of the discs. Floatation chambers were formed by closing the spaces between the paddles at their inner ends. These wheels / rollers could thereby provide floatation by virtue of the pockets of trapped air and propulsion from the blades between the discs. In addition, a smaller third plain wheel at the rear formed from two cones having a diameter to height ratio of around 5:1 provided stability, buoyancy and steering. The machine was propelled by a BMC Mini attached to the platform, drive being transferred from its front hubs front hubs to the large paddle wheels through pulleys and belts that incorporated an appropriate reduction ratio. I never saw it run but a fellow passenger on the ferry, who lived in the area told me he had seen it being driven down the beach on its rollers under its own power and into the water though I don't recall any information on its performance not did I ever see any information in local media. Sadly, I never met the inventor / owner.
I have never heard of this type of ship.
Pretty impressive and creative.
We could need such out of the box thinking today.
Most prototypes fail but maybe one will show promise.
If they had tried with a couple Archimedes screws, it could've worked better
Thanks for the update. Recall a news item back in the 1980's about the remains of a roller ship buried beneath the Gardiner expressway overpass near the Toronto island. Now know what it was about
🎵"Rollin, rollin, rollin"🎵 lol
Most steampunk thing ever.
I wonder what Bazin's "solution" was that he thought he figured out to the problems with his roller ship. Did he manage to write it down before he died, and did anybody else look into it? Most likely they still wouldn't have been viable, but it's too bad he didn't get a chance to test whatever new version he'd thought of.
My guess would be a change to the shape of the rollers but it could have been something else entirely. Sadly we'll probably never know unless someone wants to blow a ton of money testing it themselves and stumbles on the solution
@@ConeOfArc they could always test it by using model ships.
@@Victor-056 Or, these days, even with computer modeling.
@@RedXlV Computer modelling can still miss details that a physical model does not, such as the structure of the ship itself, and how tolerant it actually is.
That is why shipbuilding companies usually have an in-between stage between computer models and physical prototype by using physical models. Sometimes, the Computer simulations miss the one or two odd detail that can make or break a ship.
I doubt he had found a solution, but rather it was only a pitch to secure funding.
What?!! Roller boats? Man, you f#cking rock for making this video.
We could've had a sick-ass era of steampunk-style gigantic sea vessels. If only reality didn't hit.
what the hell is your pfp?)
Your avatar😂
I loved these early wacky designs. When hopes and dreams has yet to face reality.
@7:46 Oh, thats why YT shop below has links for Dixie plates. I thought it was a glitch.
I’m old and things can seem a little mundane. You have shown me some thing I was unaware of…..a gosh darn roller ship…
Hydrodynamics is still not perfectly understood, but for which we have much better models. Want to see a mechanical engineer twitch? Whisper “Navier-Stokes equations” in their ear without warning.
Could you please cover the genuinely genius design in "LeTourneau's Land Train" it's absolutely fascinating what that guy built & i wish more people would bring his ideas back to life. Maybe even create a modern advanced mini nuclear energy option? The possibilities are limitless
That is hands down the weirdest way of pronouncing Ontario.
Also this explains why the Gardener is always in such terrible condition. THE CURSE OF THE ROLLER!
Isn't Cone from like Ohio or something too? Seems like that's close enough to know how to pronounce it.
@@samuelruetz5175Maybe southern Ohio? Sounds more like a Hoosier way of saying to me but Indiana has such a weird mishmash of surrounding states, it's own vintage, and faux southern it's hard to say even that. I have heard On-tar-e-oh living there as well as Own-tear-e-roh.
I read your comment before I got to that part of the video, and I still wasn't prepared. That gave me a good double take
Ooo Drachinifiel will not be ahppy about this...
“This internet ain’t big enough for the both of us!”
Why? Drach does warships, this was not a warship.
screw hulls! those things are actually pretty damned badass...and then it goes on to talk about something completely different...funnily enough that idea might actually work out alright as long as it has some way to actively stabilize the core: without that you're just floating over the ocean in a giant porch-swing...still exceptionally stable laterally so it might actually cut down on motion sickness even without active stabilization.
^screw hulls are ships that are pretty much exactly what it says on the tin: they float on big ol' tanks with screws mountedto/partof the outside of the tank, the ship move by turning the while tank, it's not terribly efficient but it _will_ casually crawl up on top of ice and drive on ice or snow or even land and rocks and whatnot (though anything without some give to it tends to wear the hull out extremely quickly) they look like something out of a comic book but they also _work_ like something out of a comic book and are pretty much the best thing ever for the job they are used to do.
It is fun to see people willing to think outside the box and hey tech has moved on maybe...
can you make a video on the double barreled E-5 Rutscher panzerkleinerstoerer it was a 2 man design which had 2 8cm PAW 600 cannons
What an age to be an inventor ! Untried concepts galore . How to use recent new technology , Electricity , Engines , etc etc etc .
Excellent coverage on Knapp Roller Boat, which I had been looking to find for years.
Sounds like a catamaran with extra step.
These should become the new standard ship design for steam punk stories
The wheel boats missed the most important thing about a car with wheels...having a suspension so the passengers don't feel every bumps and such. Always wondered why boats don't have such a thing. Then some were created the floats put on arms that work like suspension. These boats were planned to for service to offshore wind farms or oil platforms, as they must go out in bad weather.
In general though, if you build a small model most all of these issues will become clear. The thing with boats is parting the water is a big deal, so you should have only a single wheel to part the water once, multiple wheels make it worse. Also rotating a huge amount of material is wasteful when you only need to move the water, hence the paddle wheel is way better.
Aww 😢 you didnt mention the bras d’or in the hydrofoil section its my fave and is exposed in my hometown i was affraid to climb aboard bc of how high it is out of water (i still would be i bet vertigo is a mfker)
I make videos on history topics. Do you think I have any experience with bras? ;)
@@ConeOfArc The brassiere actually has a long and fascinating history. :P
@@ConeOfArc i know thats in jest but but bras means arm in french and i believe its the name of a lake in canada ,anyway the gave that name to the final prototype of hydrofoil that the canadian navy did and it beat the speed record for hydrofoils with a max speed of 60 knots ! (110 kms per hour)
@@ConeOfArc I know a few historians who routinely wear them, so that's not ruling it out... Still laughing at that pronunciation of "Ontario" though.
@@ConeOfArc The wheels should expel water or air through nozzles in the manner of a jetski. Perhaps it would go fast (like a penguin pushing air out of his feathers to avoid water friction). They should make a completely spherical ship. With a gyro stabilized gimbal mounted interior this could even be the proper ship for a planet with much rougher sea than Earth.
Great video! Kudos to Lord Captain Teapot, and you, for providing some very informative and educational material. You earned a new subscriber!!!
Just because an idea sounds great at 2 o'clock in the morning,doesn't mean you have to act on it!
I LOVE THE VIDEO and want you to make more about innovative designs, whether or not they worked.
Without this video I never would have heard of these boats. So, THANK YOU!!!
Props for these guys and never giving up
Day 1 of asking Cone for a Video about the Object-277
AND "This Is WHY!" EV's will never be mainstream! Man Kind always goes with Nature, and "NATURALLY the Best" USE of Energy!
This thing would make such a neat story-piece concept for a steampunk amphibious vehicle. More intriguing that it was an actual thing, even if flawed and not finding success.
What would happens if the wheels would expel water through jet nozzles like a jetski? May it get faster this way?
It puzzles me as to how these inventors didn't build smaller prototype designs as a proof of concept before going all in and making these giant fails.
It is pronounced "ON-Tair-eo"
Great video
The last thing we need is car centric infrastructure on the ocean
This video was very interesting! I'd never heard of any vessels like them!
I can't believe they actually built them ! 😲
I really admire designers that start with a blank sheet of paper instead of trying to improve on present designs.
I really enjoy adventurous ideas like these. My initial bought was “but that will create cavitation, basically dig itself into the water. That will do the exact opposite of everything it hoped to do.” My second thought was, “I only have this educated guess because someone already tried it!”
There is no such thing as a failure. It’s just research into what to avoid for success.
We boutta boat on land 🗣️🔥
Can't believe I'm almost 59 years old, and I have never, ever heard of roller ships. You'd think that somewhere, at some time, I would have read at least one reference to them. Thanks for the video.
I was confused for a couple seconds, I expected to hear Drachinifel.
😳 Wonder what would have happened if Bezin had put golf ball dimples on his boat wheels? 😅 Or he locked the wheels in place and stuck a tapered hydrofoil on the bottom? (assuming that had been invented yet - apparently, neither practical hydrofoils or dimpled golf balls had been invented yet at that time? 😳😅)
Crazy how full scale vessels were the proof of concept rather than scaled down prototypes.
Sometimes scale models are deceiving, especially when it comes to fluid dynamics. Pop pop boats a prime example of a propulsion principle that doesn't scale well (or at all).
I could only imagine the "roller ship" breaking a gear and the entire thing rolling like towels in the drier
"Ontawrio." I will fight you.
I can't wait to see Musk's new and revolutionary HyperBoat!
I believe that all the roller boat designers' greatest error was that they thought too big. Water is scale invariant; what works at small scale will work the same way at a larger scale. Instead of enormous 1 off builds, why didn't they make small scale models and test them in a large tank under controlled conditions? That way, they could have tested hundreds, perhaps even thousands of different designs for the cost of one large scale experimental ship that failed. Maybe ships would look quite different today if they had followed this approach.
Pretty interesting subject, thanks for going over it for us.
The human imagination is a weird and yet wonderful place. Over a century later we're still being entertained by the wild and the wacky. 😂😂😂
Fascinating! Good job on the video.
But, dang, those inventors are what keep me from trying to build my ideas.
There's a related design concept out there. It's more like a tracked vehicle with flappy floats on the tracks. The test vehicle has flexible-foam floats, and is being tested as a landing craft.
The design reminds me of those trikes with large plastic wheels you can sometimes find on lakes as recreational rentals.
I saw only saw one of these once, a bottle ship in a bottle ship museum near Hamburg. In the discription was written that it was intended to be a very fast ship which didnt meet expectation even after a lot of tinkering. Still wasnt even sea worthy enough to be used as a "coal hulk" and got wrecked soon there after.
Now I got to watch the video.
this was a wild concept.. I love it.
These design look cool but I’m at a loss as to how their inventors ever thought they could work
That's because you live in a post invention world.
Nice job on the video, well done and entertaining...
Excellent stuff bro
Fun fact. Ferdinand Porche based his engine design for the elephant on these boats...
Awesome video!🎉
Just gotta wonder if ANY of these designers had actually set foot on a boat,on the water...
And simping for Queen Victoria-eewwwwwww.
Roller boten werken al jaren in Oostenrijk als pont. Door snel stromend water gaan de rollen draaien en ze zitten vast aan een kabel en door het profiel van de rollen steken ze de Donau over. Wel langzaam maar zonder energie van een motor auto's fietsen en voetgangers steken zo over. Ziet er ouderwets uit maar werkt perfect zonder toegevoegde energie.
Cool weird ships, great info and research made for a very interesting video! P.S. @ConeOfArc sounded a bit like a tourist saying Ontario since locally its usually pronounced:
On Tare Ee Oh
For saying the word Toronto well...... there's more then a few pronunciations and slang terms, all of which I'd recommend simply ignoring.
"a french engineer" ah i see where this is going
I’m amazed that people invested in such large initial vessels without smaller proof of concept prototypes.
Those ships look really unstable.
We did kind of get there, just from another direction. When used to cross bodies of water vehicles like the Sherp are basically small roller ships.
Just from looking at them, I think they were way too smooth. If the wheels or the body was grooved, it would be able to push water better. I'm thinking the metal tires from Mario Kart 8 which has a v shaped tread in one direction around the surface of the tire (like so: >>>>>>>). The other option would be to have complementary tires where the left and right tires have grooves that look like "/" and "\" respectively. It would also need to be 4-wheel drive so it could use the wheels to turn.
The tube boat would need a central tube that would be free moving but be self-righting (as in it keeps itself upright at all times). I'm thinking two halves of the tube should have "/" or "\" grooves and that the two halves should be able to rotate clockwise/counter clockwise independent of each other. The only issue is that this boat just wouldn't survive a storm in open waters because it's not as wide as it is long. It'll either be tossed about or snapped in half if it doesn't just sink from one side taking on too much water.
Their were many, many ships buried in San Francisco's harbor after they were abandoned when gold was found in California.
People from around the world sailed there and the wooden ships and boats rotted and were covered over like the roller boat.
Excellent video - Thanks!
I can add one more contraption, built in The Netherlands in the 1980’s The ‘Kager roltrap’ which was an escalator built of blocks of styrofoam, which lay flat on the water and was moved by two pedestrians inside the loop of styrofoam blocks, getting wet from dripwater of the blocks passing overhead and from the splashing from below. 🤣
Maybe some South African Billionaire could develop this in a product to revolutionize high sea travel maybe call it "Hypership" or "Cruise X" 🎉
ngl I thought of something very similar to this, as a way to reduce drag for large planing megayachts with a series of long thin rollers along the flat base. I pretty quickly realized the vast array of issues with this concept and thought it was too absurd to even write down, I'm in disbelief that this was actually tried by genuine inventors all the way back in the 1800s.
Enjoyed watching 😂
Drag is mainly from the leading edges of crafts, so 6-8 rollers means 6-8 times the leading edge area for drag. there would also be some interesting hydrodynamic effects with the trailing rollers due to turbulence created by the leading rollers, this might cause those wheels to not gain a grip on the water meaning they were less effective. if you are having problems visualising it think of a biplane or a triplane, The extra wings created greater drag and the lift generated was not as much as the equivalent wing area due to interference with the other wings, however it meant that each wing carried less load important if you are needing lightweight materials that cant take high stress/strain. as for the drum thing, it parallels the motion of travel meaning a lot of grip but needing more power and having more drag, I think the idea of avoiding seasickness would also not have worked as the crew/passengers would still feel pitch and roll and being inclosed there eyes would see that they were still level, this is the thing that confuses the brain causing sea sickness. a trick for sea sickness is to look at the horizon and see it is moving telling your brain that yes the other inputs are not playing tricks on them, you really are moving in every direction.
Were these designs dumb, yes but I would not judge the creators of them badly. The creators were also at a time when engineering principles were being invented and from what I understand were not subject matter experts, aka not shipwrights or engineers, but they had a dream, and sometimes you need someone out with a field to ask "But why not do this?" For people to come back and go, you know why are we doing this. an alternate history version of this could have been someone going huh that didn't work the way we thought it would and discovering a new aspect of physics or a better way of measuring drag or turbulence, The invention that made the Write brothers flight was the wind chamber, a device that let aviation take off.
What about tracked ships tho? Build a flat bottom barge with rubber tracks running all the way from bow to stern
@@tedarcher9120 in that case the tracks can be assumed to be moving faster than the craft so drag is in the opposite direction, hence movment. As for turbulence, that's part of why the tracks are not moving at the same speed as the craft as well as other loses. If a track design spin to fast then the tracks can lose there grip on the water and the craft goes nowhere, think wheel spin or a land rover digging its self into the mud, but on water.
@@shoootme what is interesting is will it be more efficient than using regular screws?
@@tedarcher9120 probably not for the same reasons paddle wheels are not. It is a larger heavier system that will leave the water in high seas. even if it was more efficient than a screw the extra weight and taking up useful volume in the hull needed for cargo would mean you would need a larger ship negating any advantages in efficiency gained.
A square version having paddles on the rollers like a paddle wheel steamer, with a roller at each corner, is the answer. You just make the left and right rollers have their own speed controls. Could even have a partial wave cancelation system, using a hydropneumatic system, similar to an old Citroen 2CV. -Each roller could raise up and lower for every crest, greatly smoothing out the ride.
Small prototype should have been tested. Save money.
interesting idea, but it would be catastrophic in heavy seas. with only the axel connection points, the wheels would be at risk of detaching.
TANKS a lot for that!
Awesome
The description of roller ships begins at 4:30. I think it is possible with modern technology. As water speed increases, water behaves more and more like a solid. A 4-wheeled craft travelling at 80 kts might be able to move across the water with hardly any displacement.