The ‘Wild Nile Jet’ Boat is different from other boats, it has no external parts and instead of a propeller and rudder your ‘Wild Nile Jet’ uses a Jet Unit for propulsion, steering and control. Water is drawn in through an intake in the bottom of the ‘Wild Nile Jet’, a Jet Units containing impellers (internal propellers) then compresses and drives the water out through a jet nozzles at the rear of the Jet Boat with great force (nearly 400 litres of water per second per Jet Unit) and it is the force of this water that propels the Jet Boat. Steering is achieved by turning the jet nozzle which changes the direction of the water forced out the back of the Jet Boat and the Jet Boat therefore changes direction. The Jet Boat can also brake and reverse using ‘deflectors’ and ‘thrust buckets’ similar to a jet aircraft.
This illustration shows where water enters the jet unit via the Intake (A). The pumping unit, which includes the Impeller (B) and Stator (C), increases the pressure, or “head”, of the flow. This high pressure flow is discharged at the nozzle (D) as a high velocity jet stream. The driveshaft attaches at the coupling (E) to turn the impeller.
Steering is achieved by changing the direction of the stream of water as it leaves the jet unit. Pointing the jet stream one way forces the stern of the boat in the opposite direction which puts the vessel into a turn. Reverse is achieved by lowering an astern deflector into the jetstream after it leaves the nozzle. This reverses the direction of the force generated by the jet stream, forward and down, to keep the boat stationary or propel it in the astern direction.
