Boat Buzz

A nice break for those folks like myself who tend to get too wrapped up in today's technology. R&D done "Old School".

Chad,

What's the history here? That looks like something that Naval Architect Van VanBibber may have come up with.

Al

That is a very interesting story and really interesting is the rumor that the Miss America X engines powered that thing. To bad they were lost when it went down somewhere.

Surely there are some news clippings or something of the sinking?

Anyone?

And is it coming or going????

Well, Don and Chad know the story but I'm still guessing.

Experimental design built by Wood late in life, sunk somewhere.

That's all I know. The Gar Wood book did not have a lot to say about it. I'll have to go back and look now.

It's yet another Gar Wood invention - a 188ft racing catamaran, powered by 4/1200 HP diesels. He built it after "retiring" in Miami in the forties. After he split from Gar Wood Industries. The later (45-47) GW boats were designed by Norman Bel Geddes, an industrial designer. These pics were taken in '49 in front of his island home in Miami (Biscayne Bay?.

Thanks,

That's amazing.

Al

WoW, I just spilled beer on computer, we have got to look into this!! steve

1949 article from Modern Mechanix

Chad's got all the bases covered. The experimental boat was known as Venturi. It was multihull boat that was designed to have the actual air pressure raise the boat up out of the water. Not a foil hull, and not a hydro, yet kind of similar in principle to modern tunnel hull boats, in the that shape of the inner hull surfaces actually compresses the air that runs under it. Notice in the photo of Gar in the pool that Chad posted, the actual curved sides of the hull face inward, with the flat sliced sides of the hull outward. The curved hull sides created a venturi. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venturi_effect

I read somewhere what Venturi was powered by. I cannot remember where I read. It seems like it might have been powered by Liberty's.

We actually have a 16mm film of this boat in action, and quite a feature film of Gar Wood himself. The film has been digitized, and will someday be released as our Archive Film Series DVD 2.

The "Venturi" was certainly a different-looking boat, but it wasn't a Gar Wood invention. It's a scaled-up version of Albert Hickman's Sea Sleds that were popular in the 1920s-30s. A 35' Hickman Sea Sled set a speed record of 58 mph in 1921 (see Bob Speltz' Real Runabouts Vol. III, page 29).

Thanks for setting me straight Al. They definitely are the same concept, and looks like Hickman patented it long before Gar's experiment.