PROVEMENTS IN AND APPERTAINING TO BOATS OR VESSELS FOR NAVIGATING CANALS, RIVERS, OR LIKE PLACES, AND IN THE MODE OF PROPELLING THE SAME, APPLICABLE ALSO TO SEA-GOING VESSELS
Year: 1878

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Edward Davies at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 17th July 1878.
"IM-
EDWARD DAVIES, of Liverpool, in the County of Lancaster, Engineer.
PROVEMENTS IN AND APPERTAINING TO BOATS OR VESSELS FOR NAVIGATING
CANALS, RIVERS, OR LIKE PLACES, AND IN THE MODE OF PROPELLING THE SAME,
APPLICABLE ALSO TO SEA-GOING VESSELS."
This Invention is primarily designed for use in boats for navigating canals and
rivers, where an excessive wash from the propelling mechanism frequently injures
the banks.
Its object is to so arrange the propelling mechanism that the water shall leave it
quietly, and it shall be protected from objects floating in the water.
It consists in placing in the after part or cabin of a canal, or river boat, or sea-
going vessel two (preferably narrow) paddle wheels, which are arranged one on
each side of the keelson, and work through spaces or wells in the bottom of the
boat. The crank shaft operated by the engines, which can be of any of the usual
types, is placed between the wheels. Near the outside of each wheel projecting
down into the water I arrange a strong plate or board, so arranged that they shall
form two waterways, one for each wheel, which serve the purpose of directing the
water to the wheel, and allow to escape quietly therefrom, and also protect the
wheels from objects floating in the water.
To further aid this object I arrange a grating below the wheels, and connecting
the projecting plates together. The boiler can be placed near the engines, or else-
where. I prefer to arrange the engine and wheels so that either one or the other,
or both, can be adjusted to the depth of floatation of the boat; or the floats can be
brought nearer or further from the shaft of the wheels by being fixed in grooves in
the frame of the wheels, or otherwise.
If feathering floats are desirable I construct them in such manner that the float
shall leave the water edgeways with its edges in a line with the boat. I prefer to
These floats are feathered by
construct these floats square, or approximately so.
means of a double-acting cam or cams, or their mechanical equivalent, fixed one on

page_text: each side of the wheels, and so arranged that the cams or snugs upon them come
against arms or projections placed on the floats or the edges of the floats themselves,
to bring them to the proper position.
Other plans than the above could be adopted of causing these floats to feather.
This mode of feathering floats-is applicable to sea-going 'or large vessels, having
the paddle wheels in the ordinary position, or otherwise. In this case instead of
constructing each float entirely in one piece I construct it in a number of small
floats, each one feathering as described.
I prefer to bevel off the faces of the cams for actuating the floats from each side
to the snugs, so as to cause them to actuate the floats so as to leave the water more
quietly and steadily.
The whole principle of the Invention applies also to sea-going vessels.