Sir William Hamilton

Of course, all inventions are built on the shoulders of giants, yet his reply doesn’t do justice to a lifetime of ingenuity, adventure, and achievement by one of New Zealand’s most celebrated sons. Bill invented his now famous jet in 1954 and changed the course of marine design forever. It continues to be the driving force behind waterjet propulsion systems – from river and sport boats to large ferries and passenger ships.

Charles William Feilden Hamilton was born on 26 July 1899 at Ashwick, a 45,000-acre sheep station in South Canterbury. Bill had a childhood that encouraged independence, self-reliance, and an innovative approach to problem-solving. Bill left school at 16 to help his father run the family farm after his brother Cyril was killed in World War I. By the age of 23 he bought Irishman Creek Station in the heart of the Mackenzie Country.

Bill’s parents were originally from England, and in May 1922, the family travelled back to England to take delivery of Bill’s nephew, Dick, whose mother, Bill’s sister Leila, died 10 days after giving birth. While there, Bill met Peggy, and they married on 26 October 1923, leaving for New Zealand three weeks later. They looked after Dick, and went on to have a son, Jon, and a daughter, June. Peggy would provide Bill with support and encouragement across all his endeavours.

Ostensibly a sheep farmer, Bill was also a talented mechanic and racing driver. He won several races in Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, including claiming the Australasian land speed record, hitting 100 mph, and then breaking the record again in 1928 with a top speed of 109.09 mph.

A talented and brave driver, Bill could have joined other New Zealand icons like Bruce McLaren in the Motorsport Hall of Fame, but engineering was his true calling.

In 1926, he built a hydroelectric station to power his farm and workshop. Frustrated with the machinery to construct the station’s dam, he invented an earthmoving scoop, the IC Excavator, which he put into commercial production in New Zealand and Britain.

As the Depression hit New Zealand in the early 1930s, Bill increasingly relied on his engineering and contracting business to make ends meet. Necessity is the mother of invention and his work led to novel designs for a shingle loader, water sprinkler, hay lift, air compressor, and even an air conditioning system.

By the 1940s, the workshop was outperforming the farm and Bill made the difficult decision to invest in a 10-hectare engineering workshop site in Christchurch. The move paid off. Over the following years the firm was commissioned to build a wide range of machines, including bulldozers, scrapers, and excavators for New Zealand’s burgeoning hydroelectric network. In 1947, Bill designed and built New Zealand’s first rope ski-tow for Coronet Peak ski field. Some of his machines still operate on private ski fields today.

By the 1950s and 1960s, water propulsion systems came to dominate the firm’s work as it expanded into larger boats and new markets.

As a young man, Bill dreamed of zooming up the braided rivers of the South Island in a power boat. But nothing was lightweight, powerful, or streamlined enough to navigate the stony shallows. The propellers kept getting in the way.

Various attempts had been made to replace propellers with a jet-style engine, including the American Hanley Hydro-Jet, which drew in water and fired it out through a steerable nozzle underneath the boat. It didn’t perform well enough for Bill, and he began to tinker and discovered that, by moving the nozzle above the waterline, he could achieve the necessary power and manoeuvrability.

In 1954, he finished his first design, a 3.6-metre (12-foot) wooden-hull boat fitted with a 100E Ford engine (the type used in small British cars) attached to a centrifugal pump. It was enough to slowly make its way up the shallow waters of the nearby Waitaki River. In the years that followed, he refined the designs, especially the jet, which he changed to a multi-stage, axial (horizontal) flow.

It was time to take on a bigger challenge. In 1960, three Hamilton Jets defied critics to travel 740 kilometres up and down the Colorado River, including one boat (driven by son Jon) making it through the raging Vulcan Rapid (also called Lava Falls) in the Grand Canyon. It was a world first. A film shot at the time (now available on YouTube) shows a tiny boat being tossed like a cork against giant brown swells. The feat stunned onlookers and propelled Bill Hamilton and his jet boats into international fame.

Over the next 20 years many river adventures followed: the Sun Kosi (Nepal), Sepik (Papua New Guinea), Zaire, Ganges, and Amazon Rivers. Bill’s boats increasingly became used in flood rescue, surveying, and sport.

These days, Hamilton Jet is a global force in marine design, employing 440 staff and supplying 60,000 propulsion systems for offshore, pilot, rescue, fire, military, patrol, windfarm, fast ferry, fishing, aquaculture, and recreational applications. The electric engine revolution is increasing demand yet again.

Bill was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1961, and knighted in 1974, for services to manufacturing. He passed away in 1978. He was inducted into the Business Hall of Fame in 2004 and his ingenuity and vision continue to inspire generations of New Zealanders who, like him, are impatient to simply make things better, faster, and more fun.