I'm Puzzled

BrendanS

Well-known member
Joined
11 Jun 2002
Messages
64,521
Location
Tesla in Space
Visit site
Re: I\'m Puzzled

Did you know they built one a little while back with assistance of Greek navy, crewed by experienced oarsmen...apart from speed trials off the Greek coast, they shipped it to the UK, and whizzed it up and down the Thames outside the Houses of Parliament. Fantastic BBC documentary on it.


Anyway, if you haven't tried this already, try putting a few combinations of words into google.

trireme bbc
trireme speed physics
trireme speed horsepower

all got interesting results, some of these show minutes of meetings in design stage, and some excellent links from oxford uni, with input from academic physicists
 

ChrisP

Member
Joined
21 Aug 2001
Messages
777
Location
South East England
Visit site
Re: I\'m Puzzled

With all them blokes with whips in their hands and the captain holding a pair of water ski's and an expectant look on his face how many HP could you produce.

ChrisP ;o))

What do you mean the sea gull in front's walking !!!
 
G

Guest

Guest
Re: I\'m Puzzled

Thanks

Yes I had a look and it seems to confirm the 7knots and 1/10 hp

I found out that a horsepower was 33000 ft/lbs a min. which seems to be a considerable amount of thrust. A working horse is a big beast.

As I can easily push my boat with one hand (admittedly not very quickly), I still wonder why it needs so much power.

Is a prop really so inefficient compared with oars?
 

jfm

Well-known member
Joined
16 May 2001
Messages
23,885
Location
Jersey/Antibes
Visit site
laws of phizzics going a bit astray

Oooh dear. Horsepower is utterly different from thrust. 1 millionth of a horsepower could produce 33trillion pounds of thrust, with suitable leverage. Unfortunately the thing being thrusted would move very slowly. Horsepower isn't the ability to push hard, it's the ability to push hard and FAST both at the same time
 
Top