Length: 54.5cm * Width: 12cm * Depth: 3.5 cm * Speed: 0.73m/s
Propulsion: 2 propellers * Steering: rudder, differential thrust, bow-thruster & stern-thruster
The bow thruster of ERIKA takes advantage of the fact that ERIKA has a keel.
A portion of the keel forms one of the 4 paddles of the paddle wheel thruster.
A ship with a flat bottom could be fitted with a 2- paddle thruster,
but when it operates it would increase the depth of the ship, and I considered that as not acceptable.
So I concentrated on thrusters that are integrated in the shape of the hull (MAX and MORITZ) and do not change the depth.
Recently I found out that 'Retractable Azimuth Thrusters' are used today on some ships and apparently are valued as an acceptable solution.
Compared to these retractable devices a paddle wheel that increases the depth a little bit seams to be no big problem, and so WICKIE was built.
WICKIE is a two propeller ship with a normal unspectacular hull shape. Two paddle wheel side thrusters are installed on the flat bottom.
Here the bow thruster and the stern thruster can be seen:
This is the first test run:
using both side thrusters:
moving around
bow thruster turn
Those thrusters seam to be quite powerful and could fit in any ship with a flat bottom!