The shock occasioned by the blow of the ratchet on the spur-wheel, or of one tooth upon another, may be reduced almost to vanishing point by multiplying the number of ratchets or toothed bands, and placing the effective ends, which engage in the teeth of the wheel successively, one very slightly in advance of the other. In this way the machine is so arranged that, no matter at what point the stroke imparted by the movement of the buoy may be arrested, there is always one or other of the ratchets or of the teeth which will fall into engagement with the tooth of the spur-wheel, very close to its effective face, and thus the momentum acquired by the one part before it impinges upon the other becomes comparatively small.
The limit to which it may be practicable to multiply ratchets or toothed bands will, of course, depend upon the thickness of the spur-wheel, and when this latter has been greatly enlarged, with the object of providing for this feature, it becomes virtually a steel drum having bevelled steps accurately cut longitudinally upon its periphery.
The masts of a ship tend to assume a position at right angles to the water-line. When the waves catch the vessel on the beam the greatest degree of pendulous swing is brought about in a series of waves so timed, and of such a length, that the duration of the swing coincides with the period required for one wave to succeed another. The increasing slope of the ship's decks, due to the inertia of this continuous rhythmical motion, often amounts to far more than the angle made by the declivity of the wave as compared with the sea level; and it is, of course, a source of serious danger in the eyes of the mariner.
But, for the purposes of the mechanician who desires to secure power from the waves, the problem is not how to avoid a pendulous motion but how to increase it. For each locality in which any large wave-power plant of machinery is to be installed, it will therefore be advisable to study the characteristic length of the wave, which, as observation has proved, is shorter in confined seas than in those fully open to the ocean. It is advisable then to make the beam width of the buoy, no matter how it may be turned, of such a length that when one side is well in the trough of a wave the other must be not far from the crest.