How Do Propellers Move Giant Ships?

How do ship propellers move a vessel weighing thousands of tonnes? Follow the push from the water into the hull, see how ships change direction, and discover why water can damage the metal doing the work. We explain blade pitch, reversing, cavitation, hull flow and the different demands of cargo ships and tugs in plain English. Subscribe to Maritime Technology for the engineering behind ships and life at sea. WATCH NEXT: How Tiny Tugboats Control Giant Ships    • How Tiny Tugboats Control Giant Ships   CHAPTERS 00:00 How spinning blades move a ship 03:43 How ships change the push 06:48 Why the water sets the limits 11:06 The right propeller for the job 14:59 Watch next MEDIA CREDITS Original explanatory animations: Maritime Technology. Selected media are excerpted or fitted to the frame; source audio is omitted. Third-party images retain their stated licences. No endorsement is implied. Wärtsilä blade manufacturing and WST-24R imagery: © Wärtsilä Corporation. https://www.wartsila.com/media/image-bank/... MN Colibri footage: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13963/ Cavitation facility: U.S. Navy video by Travis Troller and Devin Pisner / DVIDS, public domain. https://www.dvidshub.net/video/931417 Dry-dock photograph: Joe Kane / U.S. Navy, public domain. https://www.dvidshub.net/image/350831 Okeanos Explorer: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research. https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/technology/... Wikimedia Commons photographs: Mercurius bollard-pull trial — kees torn, CC BY-SA 2.0. Image fitted to frame. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ME... https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa... Cavitation erosion — Hannes Grobe, CC BY 3.0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ka... Propeller and rudder — Brosen, CC BY 2.5. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Br... Alaskan Navigator — Alexgilmore85, CC BY-SA 4.0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MT... Queen Mary 2 — Dietmar Rabich, CC BY-SA 4.0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ha... Bollard-pull trial — BoH, CC BY-SA 3.0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?... Schottel unit — Gerd Fahrenhorst, CC BY 3.0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?... Park propeller — Wilfredor, CC0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sh... Wielingen propeller and Union Sapphire stern/nozzle — AlfvanBeem, CC0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?... https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Un... https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Un... Museum propeller — Александр Сигачёв, CC0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Is... Historic cavitation photo — U.S. Navy, public domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ca... Licence links: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa... https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa... https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/z... Pexels footage: Glenn Langhorst (11336225), willy one (36839329), 1Fred Films (19073572), Toan BDS (30262141), and videos 35888036 / 30262137. Pexels licence: https://www.pexels.com/license/ Hydrofoil cavitation test: U.S. Navy video by Devin Pisner / DVIDS, public domain. https://www.dvidshub.net/video/948659 New Pexels footage: Somogro Bangladesh (38400372); Luke Nomad (13682336); Phạm Công Thành (36233044); willy one (36180175); Seven Seil (15028168); willy one (35872184); Julio Agreda (16071601); Alexander Bobrov (3226072); Salva F. Ayala (13617656). KOTUG photograph in the closing tug-episode preview: © KOTUG. Editorial use. https://www.kotug.com/download-center/ #ShipPropellers #MarineEngineering #MaritimeTechnology