Well, there are some drawbacks to paddle wheels, and particularly sternwheelers. It sucks to tangle shit up in there. Ordinary props are enough of a hassle, and hella smaller, and harder to tangle shit up in, and I've managed it plenty.
I've never used a sternwheeler, but the massive real estate they occupy would really give me pause, particularly given the lack of deckspace on the SteemDreem.
Also, paddles are less efficient, IIRC, than ordinary propellers. Given the limitations on power you must necessarily consider with attempting to generate that power from solar, it would seem that efficiency would be pretty important.
Simplicity and reparability would be very good for a sternwheeler, though, unlike a prop or jet drive. You would be able to make the drive yourself, with a good motor, and a bit of crafting skillz.
Also, dual power is always a good idea on water. Redundancy, reduncancy.
Have I mentioned that redundancy is good?
What are the pluses you find most compelling about a sternwheel setup?
pluses of dual paddle wheel stern drive.
There is some dispute regarding what you have said according to what I have researched. Paddle wheels do MUCH better in 'dirty water" (weeds, trees, rocks dead bodies..) than props do. They just roll right over it rather than get tangled up in it.
Paddle wheels (as you say) are low tech. Easy to build..but more important ...easy to FIX when murphy wakes up and decides to have HIS say.
DUAL paddle wheels, as seen in the video, offer incredible agility. Turn one forward, the other backward...the boat rotates in one spot. The boat can be manuevered thusly...with no need for a rudder....Forward...or in reverse. It appears that dual paddlewheels give the boat the agility equal or better than one equiped with bow thrusters.
Lastly..the much bemoaned inefficiency. of paddle boats? Two things...make em big...the paddle hits the water at a small angle of incidence...it' pushing...not lifting..
Second...keep it slow. A Paddle wheel boat is NOT a speed boat...it's lives in the slow lane.
Lastly...fuel milage...
Here comes the SUN...when it burns out it's time to park and drink some beer.
Have I addressed all of your concerns?
Update:
that was ten minutes ago.
My head..she is spinning...one day I think props..the next day jet drive...then paddle wheels....wash rinse and repeat.
The onliest thing they all have in common is YUGE batteries kept charged by solar power.
Kites? did i mention kites?
noooooo..someone STOP ME!!!
LOL I have no objections to any thing you do, no matter how I think I might do things were I in your shoes. My comments are simply the provision of my experience and thoughts on what I reckon would matter to me, not what I think you should do.
All in all, given that increased inefficiency would result in more opportunities to drink beer, I think I'd opt for the paddle wheels, and try to fish around them.
sorry if I was snappy.
I'm that kinda guy.
but yeah...BEER...
anything that promotes drinking more beer is a good thing...
all seriousness aside..
the SteemDreem isn't intended to be a means of transportation so much as a means of BEING.
it's not the destination so much as the journey.
I was a long haul over the road trucker for a quarter century...I've been everywhere...
actually i've driven BY everywhere...all I know about this country is interstate, truckstops, shippers and recievers....
for example I've driven past meteor crater in Az....a hundred times...never got to stop and go see it.
my truck was my prison...if I couldn't take my truck then I couldn't go..
The Steem Dreem is a different deal..
Tom Finn?(huck sawyer?)....Unclle Jim....floating down the mississipi...laid back drinking beer..with a fishing line hangin in the water....
If I leave a wake it's likely to be an unusual thing...
I agree that the journey is the destination, and not just in terms of our travels.
yup...which is why...more and more...I long for the grasslands of africa...
metaphorically speaking of course.
what I mean is that being a Nomad is in our genes.
for 25 years I was like unto a turtle..
The turtle carries his house on his back.
I lived in a truck.
catch the parallel?
for hundreds of thousands of years mankind lived a nomadic existence..
and then along came those damn cities and fucked every up.
LOL
I live in my tool trailer so I can move from job to job. I'm aware.