Inland Waterways Z Drive

What is an Inland Waterway?

An Inland Water Way is a river that flows inside the body of a country. These usually are natural but can be man made and have inlets to the ocean. An example of this is the Intracoastal Waterway(ICW). This river is man made, it starts up north and runs all the way down to Miami with multiple outlets to the ocean. The ideas that we chose will help preserve these waterways which are home to many different types of plants and animals that we may depend on.

The Z Drive

The Z drive is a vertically lined propeller that can spin 360 degrees. These only go down a few feet so you can go a lot shallower. The propellers can turn around completely allowing for the tugboat to accomplish almost any maneuver. When a tugboat is pushing a barge or a towing a ship into the the harbor they have to exert a lot of force. This amount of energy is so much that the fuel cost is ridiculous. It also has to turn a propeller that is about the same size as a small car. This new Z drive is a lot smaller but it spins faster allowing the tugboat to go faster but exert less energy which means that they are losing less fuel. This also allows the ships that are being towed to be docked faster and loaded in a smaller amount of time. Also when a tugboat gets stuck in the harbor if has to use a lot of fuel to get off or sometimes you damage the propeller.