pedal driven paddle wheel boat?

Also my newest design involves two 24 inch round wheels 15 inchs long they will be placed behind the boat spaced 2 inchs apart with drive gear in middle.Still working on geering and steering also my best guess is 12 paddles per wheel so i always have one in water on a power stroke. trying to build a model wheel to try diffrent paddel shapes looking for one that is not to loud.I understand i will have noise i just dont want it to be as loud as one of those paddle boats at the parks can here them from a mile away.

 

A touring kayak will move along at 5mph quite easily - maybe get to 6mph with an experienced paddler in cruise mode. The 6ft to 8ft roto sit-ons you see will do about 4mph without getting hot and bothered. The speed potential is strongly related to length until you get to very narrow hulls.

Rick W

 

So is it safe to say that a 8 foot long by 32 inch wide flat bottom jon boat with my paddle system could keep up (not racing) with kayaks and canoes.I know in choppy water i will be outperformed.Most of my fishing is done on small lakes 50 acres or less, ponds, and small creeks,this boat would be used to float down a couple small rivers also.

 

You will be easily outpaced by a touring kayak. You should be able to keep pace with the stubby sit-ons up to 8ft that cost a few hundred dollars.

The point of my initial post here was that propulsion efficiency will not be of much benefit on such a boat. The shape limits the speed and applying power more efficiently will result in bigger waves without much increase in speed.

You should be able to do some simple tests with a battery drill and roughly made prop.

I am assuming you have some sort of boat now. Get a 4ft length of 1/4" steel rod and weld a couple of 3" long by 1" wide blades to it at 60 degrees. Place one end in the chuck of a battery drill and the end with the blades in the water out the back of the boat. Hold the drill firmly and start gently. See what it does. This is a quick test to see what is possible with a little prop. If you want to make something neater than this then that is fine.

You could do a test in a tank to get some idea of the thrust and how the prop and shaft behave before you head for the lake.

This is not intended to be a finished design. It is a simple means of seeing what a prop can do in your application. It gets more complex converting pedalling to spinning a prop. Much simper for the paddle wheel but then that will make more noise.

Rick W

 

Noise is not the end of the world just trying to keep this quiter than the peddle boats you find at parks here in the states.The way i figure it it wont be any louder than my 2 stroke outboard and when stealth is requred this craft will be small enough to push pole or paddle(short distances due to arm)into position.Rick may i ask what your opionen is on my design mentioned above.

 

A 2ft diameter wheel with a width of 30" having 12 blades immersed about 3" will perform quite well I expect. It should only need to be spun at normal cadence of 60 to 70rpm.

Having the ability to adjust and then set the blade angle relative to the radial could enable tuning to get nice release to minimise exit splash and associated noise.

Rick

 

Now i have a 10 foot flat bottom jon and i am trying to git a 8 footer dos it make much of a differance if i have to use the 10 footer?

 

The longer boat will be a bit faster for the same effort providing it is not a lot heavier.

Rick

 

Not much heavier just trying to keep length down i figure besides boat i have a 2 foot wheel off the back plus 6 inchs between boat and wheel.Does that sound right to you?Also how would you steer such a boat?

 

The only methods of steering I have seen on paddlewheelers is long shallow rudders, sidewheelers or split aft wheels.

The distance behind the transom and height relative to the transom are things to play with. I cannot see any reason to set the front of the wheel aft of the transom other than the fact it might need a guard.

I expect the least drag will be with the transom almost out of the water. The wheel needs to be submerged to about 80mm. So in this set up the wheel would be a little lower than the line of the hull. If you set it in line with the bottom of the hull it will be a good start.

Propellers rapidly overtook paddlewheels on ocean going vessels because the propeller is more tolerant of the waterline around the vessel.

Setting your trim just right will make motion a bit easier but no matter what the trim is you will still move.

Rick

 

Thank you you have been a big help

 

One thing that night make the whole thing a bit more manageable is to place a wear strip around the paddlewheel sides so it will make the boat easy to drag up the bank or over shallows using the paddlewheel as an actual land wheel.

Rick

 

Not for the purpose of a amphibus vehicle but i have kicked around the ideal of 2 26 inch mountain bike wheels one on each end just for what you are talking about.My main concern is still how much draft i will have!! If the boat drafts 3 inchs with every thing on it(just a guess!) and the wheel goes 2 inchs below that and you add 2 inchs of tire i am pushing 7 to 8 inchs of draft.But would the tires move me over the bottom?????? Hmm the thing to wonder about

 

Then agian tires float LOL HAHA

 

Anyone else have any ideals about this boat ideal