Sawhead
13th November 2021, 06:47 PM
In 1998 I did a tour of Eastern Australia, Cairns, Alice Springs, Melbourne, Beechworth (to shake Geoff Lucas by the hand for producing his wonderful sawmill (which I had just bought) up the coast to Sydney via Canberra.
In Sydney Harbour I hired a water bike, which was a bicycle on a pair of pontoons, the main difference was that instead of a propeller it had a small tube which enclosed an Archimedes type screw to drive the machine.
Looking at the size of the tube,(maybe 3 or so inches in diameter and perhaps 6 or so inches long and made of plastic I think) I was not expecting much performance, probably slower than a pedalo I thought. But the thing took off almost like a road bike and before I knew it I was on the other side of the harbour.
The pedals took the drive via a chain to the rear axle where a vertical drive powered the screw. This shaft could be turned with the handlebars to steer the machine.
I desperately have been looking to buy one for our lake here in the UK, but I have not seen a mention of it anywhere on the web
Typical brilliant Aussie simple effective machine, just like the Lucas Mill!
Anyone seen anything similar?
In Sydney Harbour I hired a water bike, which was a bicycle on a pair of pontoons, the main difference was that instead of a propeller it had a small tube which enclosed an Archimedes type screw to drive the machine.
Looking at the size of the tube,(maybe 3 or so inches in diameter and perhaps 6 or so inches long and made of plastic I think) I was not expecting much performance, probably slower than a pedalo I thought. But the thing took off almost like a road bike and before I knew it I was on the other side of the harbour.
The pedals took the drive via a chain to the rear axle where a vertical drive powered the screw. This shaft could be turned with the handlebars to steer the machine.
I desperately have been looking to buy one for our lake here in the UK, but I have not seen a mention of it anywhere on the web
Typical brilliant Aussie simple effective machine, just like the Lucas Mill!
Anyone seen anything similar?