Many years ago a man was on a television program, with a wave propelled boat. It was a small boat that used the up and down motion of the waves and some mechanical paddles, to propel the boat forward. Anybody know what happened with this idea, the man, or the boat. He did actually use the boat, and it did work, that much was shown on the television show.
Do you remember seeing this, even if you have no idea what happened to the boat or man?
Yeah, I think I have heard of those… They’re called surfboards, IIRC.
Perhaps the guy died. Maybe he went out into the ocean with his boat, but after awhile, the ocean became very calm, and he became stuck. And eventually he died from dehydration. Hey, it could’ve happened.
I remember this, it was shown on a British popular science programme called “Tommorrow’s World.” He had something like a sprung-loaded dolphin flipper stuck out the back of the boat. When the boat bobbed up, the flipper would tilt down and give a little forward thrust, when the boat bobbed down the flipper tilted up and again gave a little thrust.
I’ve no idea what became of him, it seemed a neat idea but maybe didn’t work as well as sails or something.
Don’t know about that particular guy, but Scientific American had a great article about the Aleutian kayacks a month or two back. Interestingly, the first recorded kayacks were incredibly fast, and had a very flexible hull–the advantages of which are still largely indeterminate. It is possible that the flexibility was used in combination with muscle power to create additional propulsive force. Unfortunately, a quick scrubbing of http://www.sciam.com does not show the article.
I have located patent numbers for quit a few wave propelled boats online. Problem is that’s all they are. No specifics like name, or anything else.
He just sat in the boat on a day that had about 6 inch high waves, and he moved forward across the water.
I do remember seeing this on television.
He had a little bathtub version, and a bigger one or two passenger version of his boat. I remember being impressed by the fact that the boat would propel itself both away from and back toward the shore depending on which way it was pointed.
That is about all I remember.
I think I saw the same thing you did Phobia, or at least a show on the same guy/concept. It seemed fairly sound, at the time I was watching it.
As far being screwed if there are no waves, is this any different or worse than being screwed on a sailboat because there is no wind?
The thing I remember most about it was the concept that if somebody had stumbled upon this very simple machine hundreds of years ago, it could have sped up the discoveries of a lot of the world. Whether that is good or bad, I guess it’s hard to say.