Sir William Hamilton (1899-1978) already had some experience of working with water-based mechanics when he invented the jet boat. In 1954, he had built a jet pump, the first of its kind. The pump was essentially a system for water propulsion. It used a propeller to create a centrifugal force that caused a forward thrust action underwater, drawing water through and back inside the pump.
The jet boat works in a similar way to the jet pump. Simply put, a traditional screw propeller accelerates a large volume of water by a small amount and, in agreement with Newton's Third Law of Physics—for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction—a large amount of thrust is created. This thrust is used to drive the boat and allows it to move speedily through the currents.
Hamilton lived and worked in New Zealand. There his boat was able to power quickly through the fast- flowing, shallow waters and was particularly adept at avoiding obstacles, such as rocks. The maneuverability of the jet boat made its design highly marketable.
Hamilton was not the first person to come up with the idea for a jet boat. Italian inventor Secondo Campini had devised a remarkably similar jet-powered boat as early as 1931, but he did not have the foresight to patent his design. Well before that, Greek scholar Archimedes had dreamed of a jet boat when he devised his water screw, an early propeller, in the third century B.C.E.
Hamilton has nonetheless been credited with "revolutionizing the conventional world of boating," although as he himself has commented, he probably has Archimedes to thank, at least in part, for this.
