William Albert Hickman (22 December 1878 in

New Brunswick New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English and ...

– 10 September 1957) was a Canadian designer and manufacturer of innovative fast boats. He is best known as the inventor of the

Hickman Sea Sled The Hickman Sea Sled is an inverted vee planing hull invented by Albert Hickman. The Sea Sled is a direct forerunner of the modern high speed catamaran or tunnel hull. The reduced friction is due to a "trapped" gas film between the hull surface a ...

Biography

Born in

Dorchester, New Brunswick Dorchester is a formerly incorporated village and the shire town of Westmorland County, New Brunswick, Canada. It is named for Guy Carleton, 1st Baron Dorchester, an 18th-century Governor-General of the old Province of Quebec. It is located on t ...

, Hickman grew up in

Pictou Pictou ( ; Canadian Gaelic: ''Baile Phiogto'') is a town in Pictou County, in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. Located on the north shore of Pictou Harbour, the town is approximately 10 km (6 miles) north of the larger town of New Gla ...

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

, as part of a wealthy shipbuilding family. He earned a degree in marine engineering from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1899. He was later a Commissioner of New Brunswick, a lecturer for the Government, a Fellow of the Royal Colonial Institute and a successful novelist. He was highly intelligent but, openly, did not

suffer fools gladly Suffer fools gladly is a well-known phrase in contemporary use, first coined by Saint Paul in his second letter to the Church at Corinth (chapter 11). The full verse of the original source of the idiom, 2 Corinthians 11:19 (KJV), reads "For ye su ...

and was forever irritating his contemporaries in the marine business. This probably contributed to the low coverage of his ideas in the boating press.Seidman, David
"Damned by Faint Praise (article)."
100th issue of ''Wooden Boat'', May/June 1991. A 1940s promotional brochure which was in other respects conventional sales material included this banner heading which revealed the man: "Truth is like unto a star, appearing somewhat small, but bright and secure".

Hickman sea sled

He was the inventor of the inverted vee planing hull known as the

Hickman sea sled The Hickman Sea Sled is an inverted vee planing hull invented by Albert Hickman. The Sea Sled is a direct forerunner of the modern high speed catamaran or tunnel hull. The reduced friction is due to a "trapped" gas film between the hull surface a ...

A new type of vessel, which promises to revolutionize water craft and which takes the same place on the water that the automobile does on land -
Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it i ...
26 September 1914. In September 1914, a 54 foot Sea Sled design, with an internal steel frame designed by Hickman's Chief Engineer E. F. Tomlinson, four surface piecing propellers, a single 18" torpedo, 3 pound Hotchkiss gun, and was proposed to the US Navy as the first high speed motor torpedo boat, the forerunner of the famous World War 2
PT boat A PT boat (short for patrol torpedo boat) was a motor torpedo boat used by the United States Navy in World War II. It was small, fast, and inexpensive to build, valued for its maneuverability and speed but hampered at the beginning of the wa ...
. This vessel was later built in 1918 as US Navy vessel C-378 but was cancelled following the end of World War 1 after completing initial high speed trials recording a top speed of 37 knots at 1400 HP and a sustained speed of 34.5 knots in a winter northeaster storm with 12 to 14 foot seas. Various version of these steel framed Sea Sleds were used by both the US Navy and Army as rescue boats starting in 1913 up through the Second World War.

Along with the Sea Sled, a direct forefather of the modern high speed
catamaran A Formula 16 beachable catamaran Powered catamaran passenger ferry at Salem, Massachusetts, United States A catamaran () (informally, a "cat") is a multi-hulled watercraft featuring two parallel hulls of equal size. It is a geometry-stab ...
, or tunnel hull, he is credited with producing the first surface propellers, working out that they produced lift and patenting ideas for lifting strakes, sponsons, anti-trip chines and prop-riding craft. These are all well known and widely used principles today.

Selected works

Like the story-telling narrator of ''An Unofficial Love-Story'', who admits at the beginning of his fiction, "I was but an onlooker on the far outside," Albert Hickman became a kind of literary bystander, observing literature from a distance and Canadian literature, in particular, from an American vantage point. But his fiction continues to stand, albeit in a small corner in need of more light.Dictionary of Literary Biography on William Albert Hickman
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* 1900 – ''Handbook of New Brunswick'' * 1903 – ''The Canadian West and Northwest'' * 1903 – ''The Sacrifice of the Shannon'' 2003 * 1909 – ''An Unofficial Love Story'' * 1914 – ''Canadian Nights''

Notes

References

* Campbell, Lorne
''Innovation in Small Craft Design - A Tribute''
The Royal Institute of Naval Architects Web Site. * Gerr, Dave. "The Hickman Sea Sled: The Best High Speed Hull Ever? (article)" ''Boatbuilder Magazine'' Sept/Oct 1998. * Gerr, Dave. "Sea Sled Slides Again (article)." ''Boatbuilder Magazine'' Jan/Feb 2003 * Hall, Charles H. "Manufacturing Sea Sleds (article)." ''Motor Boat''. 10 Nov 1926 * Nelson, Curtis L. ''Hunters in the Shallows: A History of the PT Boat.'' 2003 * St. Pierre, Paul Matthew. (2006). "William Albert Hickman" in ''Dictionary of Literary Biography.'' Detroit, Michigan: Thomson Gale. * Seidman, David. Damned by Faint Praisebr>(article)."
100th issue of ''Wooden Boat'', May/June 1991.

External links

a 1925 Hickman Sea Sled]
The sea sledge
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hickman, W. Albert 1878 births 1957 deaths Harvard University alumni People from Westmorland County, New Brunswick People from Pictou County Canadian inventors