Catapiller Drive for cruisers

[Hal]

Has anyone heard of a Caterpiller drive for cruisers? And I don't mean like the tracks on a tank!

[cat man do]

Like in the "Hunt For Red October" ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_...ne_Red_October

Magnetohydrodynamic drive - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Eleven]

I worked with a Caterpillar subsidiary in the UK.
Excellent spares and service support. I don't know how small they go but dive into their site. These engines are made to last. Fast cat ferries use them alot.

[Hal]

Yeh, like in the "Hunt for Red October".

[never monday]

All of Cat's engines that are correctly sized for personal sailing yachts are made by Perkins.

[cat man do]

But the op is not talking about a caterpillar engine, he is talking about a caterpillar drive, like in the links.

Magnetohydrodynamic drive - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Principle

An electric current is passed through seawater in the presence of an intense magnetic field, which is able to control water's lopsided molecular structure. Functionally, the seawater is then the moving, conductive part of an electric motor. Pushing the water out the back accelerates the vehicle in the forward direction.

[Hal]

Has anyone ever heard of a Magnetohydrodynamic drive for a cruiser? Sorry about the confusion. I am not looking for an internal combustion engine manufactured by Caterpillar.

[Chief Engineer]

I don't think MHD would be legal because it would kill marine life like plankton zoo and phyto. If an Algae-x can kill stuff in the fuel, imagine what a traveling magnet or hundreds of them going across our oceans?????






































Tongue firmly planted in cheek ha-HAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Captain Bill]

Great Idea, no moving parts to wear out, now if we can just figure out how to get the nuclear powerplant required to run it on board we'll be all set. I never read anything about a yacht size device but I did read something about them about 30 years ago and they took a lot of power and weren't very efficient. Notice that even the navy is still using propellers on nuclear subs even though they started looking at MHD drives 40 + years ago.

[hellosailor]

Hal, MHD is a nice concept but unless you've got a couple of fusion reactors onboard to power it, just not practical for sailboats.

And if you had the reactors? A plain waterjet would still be way cheaper and more efficient. Not to mention, more compatible with anything magnetic on the boat.