Vintage Transportation: Lake Champlain Horse Ferry Working Replica

Horse-powered ferries (also called "team boats") are a unique form of transportation popular in the United States in first half of the 19th century. The most sophisticated version, invented in 1819 by Barnabas Langdon, mounts a treadwheel just below the deck, which is geared to a pair of paddle wheels. Slots in the deck along two teams of horses to be hitched, facing opposite directions, and maintain a steady forward gait powers the boat.

A wreck was discovered in Lake Champlain's Burlington Bay in 1983 and remains the only archaeologically studied example of a turntable horse ferry in the world. More information about this unique piece of transportation history, including how to safely visit the wreck, can be found through the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum.

The model is geared to allow a Technic motor to power the treadwheel + paddlewheels, and makes the horses trot inverse kinematically. Unfortunately I was not able to upload the demo video here.