Trimarans and the BladeRunner...

Greetings Lorne!. If my memory serves me correctly, you and I met several years back when you paid a visit to 'our' foil-assisted trimaran vessel (in southern Maryland) in the company of Steven Loui and others of his group.

Great to see you on board and taking up the technical issues directly.

BMcF - Good to hear you. I remember the trip well. It was a good day.

You can use my full name ..Bill McFann. I'm not hiding behind the screen name..it was just handy. (or maybe I was trying to sneak under Carl's radar..but that didn't work for a NY second.. )

I can't recall his name..but you had one of you cohorts with you during that visit as well, yes?

Our trimaran has been on the hard for almost three years now. It was such a wonderful test craft that we have not been able to bring ourselves to render it in to beer cans - the normal fate of all such R&D craft.

That Triton sure is different, but I like it.

Bill - that was probably Jeremy Watts, the owner of ICE Marine, the Bladerunner manufacturer. Sorry - I am not very used to forums!

That sounds right.
No apology necessary..

Oh my..I'm not sure its what one would consider suitable for conversion to a 'pleasure craft'. LOL. We built it as a 1/4-scale model of a hybrid foil-assisted ferry concept that was developed by a Norwegian client..here is a pic of her 'flying'



The outboards are removed now. She has a single V-8 inboard as well, with a splitter transmission to two output shafts (the first testing was done with twin waterjets and not the outboards). We briefly entertained the idea of converting her to an 18-passsenger 'water taxi'..but reality intervened. )

I warned ya.

Awesome perfromance machine though. Motions in high seas at design speed were practically non-existent. Very low power required compared to conventional cats and tris that have been designed to operate at similar high speeds (50 knots at full scale).

But, alas for the inventor, he came up with this superbly performing concept about the time that the fast ferry market was collapsing..and it's never revived.

Here is what the full-size ferry was going to look like..at 56m LOA:



Now THAT is not a bad looking trimaran, in my humble opinion. The superstructure on the model is deisgned to be very light, easily removed and cheap to construct. It is/was just a scale model test craft after all, albeit quite an elaborate one.

Sea Knife followup


How fate works!! I was cruising the web thinking about this old British coot I worked for in the 70's and came across this forum!! I worked for Peter Payne on this project when his offices were in Annapolis and spend toooo many hours pouring over data for Peter on this project..we worked on the AMRL f-16 and the worlds only U.H.L.C.A.D.S (ultra high level,container air drop system)..I can tell you first hand that in the whole world there cannot be an UGLIER looking vessel..anyway,Peter's ideas worked great and he (and Hal) were just incredible guys with enough brainpower to stop clocks. If you have any questions feel free to email me..even though it's been 30 years,I will try to answer them.

Peter Payne's work

Dear Ironwolf, I saw your posting and just wanted to let you know that. I may get back to this subject in the future, but at the moment am rather busy with a new motor/sailing design.

This is the same kind of transmission I need. Can you post more information about yours so I can investigate more thoroughly? Thanks in advance.

For what torque and HP are you needing it for? And what kind of separation distance between the centers of the output shafts? We custom-built ours so it is not a 'product' that you can buy off the shelf. But if what we built is of any use in your application, I will simply forward you the design details and you could have one like it built locally perhaps.

Much less than the one you designed I would imagine. The current boat only needs about 50 HP, but I will have applications for larger engines/boats in the near future.

Thanks for the offer Bill, this would be extremely helpful to me! The manufacturers I have contacted all ask for drawings and specifications of course, but I don't have any -- yet. You can send files to me directly at bagacayboatworks@gmail.com or if you need to send physical data on paper I will send you my postal mailing address privately.

Brian, I'm interested in your hydraulic drive system and your belt drive system too. I have considered building my own belt drive system, but that Hungarian hydraulic system seems like a winner if it is really as efficient as suggested on your web site ...

The strange thing is, I wasn't looking for power transmission info when I reviewed this thread. Funny how I often find useful info in places I don't expect it.

Actually I came here again to see if there's any recent news about Peter Payne Seaknife type of boats? It seems that Brian has found and collected most of the info about this unique hull design, but if anyone else knows of one of these boats currently being built or used I am very interested to know more.

I have been looking on info/tutorials to learn Rhino and came across the designer of this interesting little craft...http://www.kenau.nl/sales_en.php
Neat!

Agreed, fascinating concept! But the outer hulls are so very fine, I wonder if they really provide much stability?

Kelly

Hydraulic or Belt Drive Systems

I missed this posting of yours as I was out of town at that time. Forget the hydraulic system there as it has died due to a number of factors.

However I am still working on some belt systems including either a chain (ex PYI) or carbon belt (Gates) drive-leg pictured here as a counter-rotating duo-prop outdrive leg on my website

I like the counter-rotating prop and belt system, it looks simple and efficient. I presume that's a gear abaft of the belts? How do you get reverse, with a standard F-N-R gearbox?

When you say you're working on them what does this mean ... designing, or building a prototype, or something else?

Brian - I think that craft is brilliant. It is more the execution than the concept, really. The principle is known. It is close to an idea of a low powered displacement Bladerunner that I have been sketching at. I was going to taper the sponsons in at the aft end rather than raise them up - but maybe the Kenau is better. They seem to have worked hard on it.