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The machine resembled a colossal, metal cigar, measuring 33 metres long and seven metres tall. Despite appearances, it was, allegedly, a boat.

“It’s kind of this strange monument to hubris,” said Adam Bunch, a history author and organizer of the Festival of Bizarre º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøHistory. “There was this guy who decided that he had a better idea for how ships should work than thousands and thousands of years of human history.”

That guy was Frederick Augustus Knapp, a prominent lawyer-turned-inventor who, infected with the innovative fervour of the late 19th century, dreamed of a new kind of vessel — one that rolled across the surface of the water instead of being submerged within it.

well-known sea-sickness, Knapp endeavoured to impress the monarch with a smooth-sailing vessel capable of crossing the Atlantic in a single day. If successful, its inventor might even be knighted.

Knapp’s design was simple and unburdened by minor details like “aerodynamics.” It functioned like an elongated, steam engine-powered hamster wheel; a bladed outer cylinder spun and treaded water, while a stationary inner cylinder held its passengers, cargo and two steam engines.

The first prototype  — more than $800,000 today — and was constructed by Toronto’s Polson Ironworks. In 1897, crowds of baffled Torontonians gathered at the waterfront to witness the rollerboat’s glorious maiden voyage.

The result was ... less than inspiring.

Knapp boasted this vessel could roll across the waves at speeds of nearly 100 kilometres an hour. Instead, the tubular ship barely managed a crawl of less than five kilometres an hour: “The paddles plowed through the water, but the boat moved so slowly that the canoes and small boats were able to paddle all about her,” a Star article from the time reported.

According to Bunch, the ends of the tube were bizarrely left open to the elements, allowing water to slosh into the cabin. The bulky ship, battling both wind and water resistance, struggled to turn and manoeuvre itself.

Yet Knapp was still “satisfied” with his creation, claiming the first, limp voyage was due to the ship not running at full throttle. But the following tests never managed to travel much faster, even when operating at full steam.

One notorious voyage in 1899 saw Knapp attempt to sail his vessel from º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøto his hometown of Prescott, Ont. The ship ran out of coal less than 50 kilometres in, stranding Knapp near Frenchman’s Bay and requiring him and one of his partners to row for hours to Pickering to pick up new fuel. Newly empowered, the ship rolled on ... for another 40 kilometres before running out of fuel again near Bowmanville harbour. Here, it was beached and tied to a tree, .

Knapp’s rollerboat never caught on, even after its inventor drew up new designs. Knapp even pitched a larger model to the U.S. military, supposedly capable of transporting 30,000 troops and hundreds of tons of equipment from Florida to Cuba. That idea was quickly torpedoed and, as interest dwindled, the ship was soon abandoned. 

Finally, in the fall of 1907, the abandoned hull of the vessel slid loose from its moorings at Polson Wharf and smashed into another boat. To pay for the damages, the ship was sold for parts — a measly $295 for its fittings and another $300 for the hull. The latter would never be claimed.

Instead, the shell of the infamous rollerboat was abandoned at Toronto’s waterfront for the next two decades. The ship was eventually buried when it came time to fill in the harbour; it remains there today, next to the former Polson Ironworks that once birthed the contraption.

What strange moments of º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøhistory would you like to see us cover next? Send me your ideas at kjiang@thestar.ca or comment below.