I tried posting to the Minecraft subreddit, but the post would get deleted immediately. I just want to show someone!
It's mostly silent, minus the dispensers clicking and occasional water splash, but it's much smoother than a flying machine, and not to terribly slow, rising at a little over 2 blocks per second. It's a good way to transport things vertically
That's faster, easier and more efficient than this boat elevator! During the development process of the elevator, I did have a block switcher at the bottom which would swap a stone block for soul sand when the elevator was activated and the boat would rise very quickly (I didn't have to put a delay in like with this one.) It would also descend more quickly because the dispensers were faster. It was VERY noisy, though, because when you're on top of a bubble column it constantly makes splash noises
You can make a contained column of water with trap doors on their side (need two high) which prevents the water from escaping, soul sand underneath, and no boat needed. To come down, I made an empty column beside it with a water block at the bottom to stop fall damage.
Not as fancy as a mechanized dual-purpose elevator, but it got the job done, and it was quick and quiet.
It goes down faster because the wiring is one way, bottom to top. So the water gets picked up starting at the bottom going up, and the last one just drops the boat at the water fall speed