Sir Charles William Feilden Hamilton , generally known as Bill Hamilton, was a New Zealand engineer who developed the modern jetboat, and founded the water jet manufacturing company, CWF Hamilton Ltd. Hamilton never claimed to have invented the jet boat. He once said "I do not claim to have invented marine jet propulsion. The honour belongs to a gentleman named Archimedes, who lived some years ago." What he did was refine the design enough to produce the first useful modern jet boat.
Early life
Hamilton was born at Ashwick Station near Fairlie, New Zealand. He survived an aeroplane accident returning to Rongotai Airport in poor conditions on 19 February 1936. The collision with the anemometer mast took the starboard wing off the fastest 'plane in the country, the Miles Falcon Six he was travelling in, and pilot Malcolm "Mac" McGregor died in hospital. At the age of 21 he bought the 'Irishman Creek' sheep station in South Canterbury. After a trip to England became fascinated with motor cars and raced a Bentley. He decided to develop his own heavy machinery. He built a workshop, developed an excavator with an earth scoop and built a dam to supply water for a hydroelectric plant to supply power for domestic use and for his engineering projects, and started a manufacturing business.
The main manufacturing business, which had started in the workshop at Irishman Creek in 1939, moved to Christchurch in 1948. From there the company supplied heavy machinery, in particular to the Waitaki Riverhydroelectric projects.
Jet boats
In the 1950s Hamilton set out to try to build a boat that could navigate the shallow fast flowing rivers where he lived. The rivers were too shallow for propeller driven boats to navigate as the propeller would hit the river bottom. He investigated the American Hanley Hydro-Jet, a model which drew in water and fired it out through a steerable nozzle underneath the boat. Even when further adapted it did not work well. An employee suggested moving the nozzle to just above the waterline. When he took one of his early demonstration jet boats to the United States, the media scoffed when he said he planned to take it up the Colorado River, but in 1960 three Hamilton jet boats, the Kiwi, Wee Red and Dock, became the first and only boats to travel up through the Grand Canyon. The critics were silenced further when the boats went down river through the Grand Canyon to cache petrol just prior to the uprun. The Grand Canyon trip planning, logistics for 2,500 gallons of fuel, and fuel placement was coordinated by famous Grand Canyon river runner Otis "Dock" Marston.
CWF Hamilton & Co Ltd
The engineering company Hamilton founded, CWF Hamilton & Co Ltd, is now the holding company for two companies, Hamilton Jet and Hamilton Marine, that are focused on the production of waterjet propulsion systems. The company has divested itself of its other engineering activities.
