Roller Ship

At first glance the boat does not leave much impression and rather looks like a failed project, but when you look more closely at these descriptions you quickly notice illogical things such as the date of its construction and its use or the inventor to whom we attribute this gigantic construction but which strangely does not appear on any photo while we are at the end of the 19th century and especially that he would have invented a revolutionary boat, despite this no photo just a drawing.

And furthermore the poor man died on January 21, 1898, a few weeks after announcing that he had overcome these problems, and revealing plans for an ocean-going line, with four pairs of discs, which would be able to cross from Le Havre to New York in 60 hours

In 60 hours really? But the challenge would never have been realized?

We found the article of a French newspaper dated August 22, 1897 detailing the capacities of the boat and this one relates mainly to this project of transatlantic in 60 hours We can thus better situate ourselves in the context of this period.

Here is an excerpt:

This ship, of 280 tons, consists essentially of a rectangular platform of 38 m. 50 long and 12 m. 18 wide, on which the boilers, machinery and accommodation are installed, and which is supported by three pairs of lenticular-shaped floats, providing the displacement, and which a special machine sets in motion. Each float has a diameter of 10 meters and therefore a circumference of 31 m. 40; its more large thickness is 3 m. 6.
Inside, steel bars maintain the walls and serve as a point of support against the onslaught of the blades.
The submerged part of the float will be one third, that is to say 3 m. 33. A propeller driven by a 550-horsepower machine and lodged in the channel left free by the floats will provide the impetus.
On the other hand, each pair of rollers will be driven by a rotational movement by a 50 horsepower machine, ie, for the three pairs, a force of 150 horsepower.

A second excerpt that challenges us even more:

...the boat will therefore move forward per minute 18m. 85 X 30, that is to say more than 565 m. 50, and per hour 33 kil. 930 m. This is precisely the speed that the inventor intends to obtain with this test boat: 18 knots, average speed; 20 knots, by forcing the march.
We've come a long way, aren't we? of the 32 knots we talked about. According to Mr. Bazin, this is a very achievable speed, but with the 22-meter diameter rollers, as he designs them for a transatlantic crossing.
These roaleurs would be submerged 7 m. 33, which is about the immersion of the hull of large steamers, and would develop at their circumference extreme 69 m. 08.
A calculation similar to the one we have just made, counting only 24 roller revolutions per minute gives a speed of 994 m. 56 per minute, and 59 kil. 673 m. per hour, which would make it possible to travel from Le Havre to New York in 100 hours, the distance which separates these two ports being 5.967 kilometres.

A boat capable of making high-speed transatlantic crossings with the sole aim of impressing the public? A little too good as a story.

But that's not all because apart from this transatlantic story, what we are told is that this wheeled boat was perfectly suited to any rocky terrain or with invisible debris, while avoiding the subject of flooding.

It could not only navigate but also ride in dirt or mud, but more importantly could be used on rails, although they also did not specify the use of this rail system, we deduced it later on another roller boat named ALICE made before that of Bazin by another phantom inventor (Robert Fryer) in wikipedia's history of roller boats.
Just the name of the boat should already make us tilt.

Fryer's boat, as you can see, was designed to run on rails, have 3 wheels, and function much like a locomotive.

And you can see the same spike-shaped wheels at the end for the 2 boats that were designed to move on rails.