In season 3, episode 4, of
The Witcher, our band of heroes catches a ride on a chain ferry. That's a new one on me. I've ridden the
Canby cable ferry and I've heard of big chains being stretched across rivers or harbor entrances to keep enemy ships out, but I haven't come across a chain ferry. There undoubtabedly were some in the bad old days, but the ones that are still around have all been converted to using steel cables and nobody seems to have preserved any of the old stuff. I did find one drawing of a chain boat (above) which was used for traveling up and down rivers, not just across them. They followed a chain that lay on the river bed. They picked up the chain at the bow, passed it down the length of the boat and dropping it off the back end. In the middle of the boat they had a couple of wheels driven by a steam engine that engaged the chain and propelled the boat along.
The ferry in the show crosses the north sea, a pretty fair distance since you can't see the far shore. You might think, like me, that this is unlikely, but the ancients dig all kinds of amazing things. It might not have been a good idea, but there isn't any reason it couldn't have been done, especially since this is a fairy tale. Oh, and there's no sign of an engine and there isn't much in the way of payload, but you know, maybe it's the off season. All in all an impressive prop for such a brief appearance.
Screen shots from the show on Netflix:
 |
| The ferry at the dock. No sign of the far side. |
 |
| A closer view of the ferry at the dock |
 |
| A view down the length of the boat. You can see the big idler wheel in the center with Ciri sitting dangerously close by. |
 |
| The drive and idler wheels and the chain. Ciri and Geralt in the background. |
 |
| A close up view of the ferry. |
 |
| A close up of the monster's tail that has just been severed by the chain wheel. Monster bleeds green blood. |
So the boat in the show works like the up and down river boat you found, because a chain that long not laying on the bottom would need links as big or bigger than ship anchors.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the reasons a lot of old stuff disappeared is WW II scrap metal drives. The took anything that wasn't nailed down even pulling junk cars out of rivers where they had been dumped to cut bank erosion.