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[The Wizard]

I am thinking of building a simple barge with a crane and although originally this was to be towed by my tug I think now I would like to have it self propelled .I'm thinking twin Korts and bow thruster.
The barge will be around 1 meter long and 300mm beam.
Any advice will be appreciated.


The Wizard

[bfgstew]

Between 50mm and 60mm twin Korts and a 19mm bore bow thruster, should be ample for a barge that size, am sure someone with more experience will give you more concise sizes.

[Tug Fanatic]

To give you a better answer we need a little more information. The fact that you are using Kort Nozzles makes no real difference to the power train required. As barges move relatively slowly I would be very surprised if you ended up needing 2 x 50mm korts and the motors that you would need to power them. With 2 well powered 50mm props and light weight you might have the worlds only planing barge. What matters is the motor prop combination. For a barge a big prop turning slowly is the best bet

Firstly what weight are you expecting the barge to be? Is it going to be ballasted or just be the build weight?

Secondly are the motors just being used to propel the barge or to move something else as well.

[The Wizard]

The barge will have to be ballasted .I have one that is 1500mm long that I tow and it has five 2litre containers of water as ballast so I imagine the new one will take around three or four of these containers so six tor eight Kg of ballast. I built the 1500mm long one in two bolt together pieces so it would fit in my car and built it light to make it a bit easier to carry.
The korts would be for manoeuvrability, not speed. I plan on loading and unloading cargo with the crane.

[Tug Fanatic]

Have a look at the video at the bottom of this page:

http://rc.noalia.fr/boats/barge/20150227

This is a Springer tug around 4kg and 450mm length using a single 45mm prop in a Kort Nozzle pushing a 1200mm x 400mm barge that weighs around 25kg ballasted. Total around 29kg and 1650mm length. See what I mean about 2 x 50mm? Having said that if you turn the 50mm slowly enough then they would work just fine but they are not required.

Keeping to the same blog have a read about the development of the Springer used here. It is well written and should help give you a few ideas. It is a good example for you to consider.

I doubt that you will think that you need this much power for a relatively small light barge but opinions vary.

Calimero is a member of this forum.

The bow thruster will help manouverability. I recommend this Ministeve type which work so much better than those that you can buy.
http://www.modelboatmayhem.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,20067.msg193914.html#msg193914


Come back with your thoughts.

 

[The Wizard]

Thank you Tug Fanatic for the info and links. The springer was going much faster than I want for my barge.
So now think one 50mm kort and a Ministeve bow thruster will do the job quite nicely.


The Wizard