JET BOAT (WILLIAM HAMILTON)

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aukepalmhof
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JET BOAT (WILLIAM HAMILTON)

Post by aukepalmhof » Wed May 06, 2015 8:13 pm

On 17 November 1999 New Zealand issued a set of stamps in the Millennium Leading the Way part 5, and the 40c of this issue depict a power-jet-boat. By searching for info on the stamp I found the book Wild Irishman which was written by his wife Peggy Hamilton.
Between page 160 and 161 is a photo and I am sure this photo was used for the design of the stamp.
The caption says Matthew Wills on the Tasman River, with Mount Cook in the background. The person standing in the boat must be Mr. Wills and most probably the woman near him, his wife. Mr. Wills was an in-law of William (Bill) Hamilton.
Very vague on the stamp you find a sketch for a two stage axial-flow power unit, and I believe it is the original sketch of George Davison the manager of Hamilton boating division. And this sketch marked in 1956 the beginning of the Hamilton unit as it is known today.
Bill Hamilton born in 1899 at Ashwick station (a sheep farm), New Zealand, South Island was a farmer and inventor and during a camping holiday in 1951 along the Waitaki River, he made the suggestion that it was more fun to travel and explore the river by boat. But most rivers in New Zealand are shallow and scattered with rocks and treacherous willows in and along the banks, the water boiling all around them, with the change to be sucked underneath the branches or roots. On this rivers you can go downstreams in a canoe, but upstreams was not possible due to the strong current, and a conventional propeller craft could never navigate the shallow rivers.
After the holiday, he started with several experiments, first with a tunnel boat with a catamaran hull, with a propeller mounted in a cavity along the centre, but it did not work. Then he tried a new hull with a retractable water-propeller and an airscrew mounted on the transom for use in the shallows. The experiment was improving but the noise and draught were terrible, and the change to be decapitated by the airscrew considerable. Then he turned his attention to the marine jet, the first boat was a 12 foot plywood hull, with a 100E Ford engine, and the jet a bevel gear driven centrifugal type pump. The jet did work but the steering was not good, and the bevel gears were noisy. The outlet for the jet was below water level and this was a mistake. But it was a great improvement. Her maximum speed upstreams on the Waitaka River was 11 mile, but a speed of 11 mile was not good enough and also the steering had to be improved.
The centrifugal pump was changed for an axial flow, this handled more water and gave a greater trust, and the outlet for the jet was put through the transom above the waterline. The speed increased to 17 mile and steering was perfect. By maximum speed she could turn around her own length, and the stability of the boat was good. The first jet boat in 1953 was only a private boat to get her owner and his family on the rivers they wanted to explore.
A new 14 foot boat was built the WHIO named after a blue duck living in the high-country and found in the mountain streams. She was powered by a Mark 1 Consul engine, 45 hp, but still fitted out with the centrifugal-pump. Three jet-boats of this type were built.
The jet boat was a success and others wanted one.
1955 The first production unit was installed in a fine mahogany and kauri craft, belonging to Matthews Wills (I believe the craft on the stamp of $1.20). She was a 4.8 meter long, and she was powered by a six cylinder 65hp Mark 1 Zephyr engine, maximum speed up to 45 km/h. It was the so-called Quinnat model of which only seven were built, she were notable for their noisy gearbox. Wills was for many years the owner, and the craft still exist.
Today there are hundreds of jet boats all over the world, and on shallow rivers you will find this craft. All this craft still use the type of waterjet designed by (later) Sir William Hamilton.
He himself never claimed that he it was not he who invented the waterjet, that honour he attributed to the great mind of Archimedes. He only improved the idea.
Hamilton died in 1978.

New Zealand 1999 $1.20 sg?, scott? and 2007 $2.00 sg?, scott?
Source: Wild Irisman by Peggy Hamilton. The jet boat the making of a New Zealand Legend by Les Blokham and Anne Stark.
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