When bicycles ruled the world, they were as revolutionary as computers are today. Ingenious people had many different versions of cycles, including aquatic versions, and tricycles. This unit looks like it might work, as long as the wheels didn't fill with water. 
The next tricycle was actually built, by a Mr. Ferris of England. The journal Science had an article about his July 28 1983 trip from Dover across the English Channel to Calais. The journey took him 8 hours. The distance is twenty miles, but it was a much greater distance because of currents.
Some aquatic velocipedes were simply conventional bicycles fitted to a boat, such as that of Myron
Coloney, patented in 1880. It is a large front wheel bicycle fitted on and boat, with a machanism to drive a propeller.
It seems a trike remarkably similar to the one shown at the top of this entry is commercially produced today:
http://www.geocities.com/blagnort/water-trike.jpg
Posted by: Jasper Janssen | October 12, 2005 at 03:07 PM