Pedal Boat Design

Catfish WOOOT! lol.

I see the video of where guys like Rick and Greg go and they have beautiful mountains and this deep calm water. Very lucky. On the other hand, most of the water I have access to is quite shallow but theres literally hundreds and hundreds of square miles of it. I can also peddle right up to several restaurants and such so not all bad. I even have a video of what I think is Mike in a Cadence in what looks like open ocean or a Sound as the water is quite choppy and dark. Not a day I would be out lol, but looked fun.

What would work for the mono hull version is a cross strut connecting the bottoms of the down struts. be a huge drag of course. Rick even said at some point that the rotating foil might be better suited to a CAT. Ultimately, after we know for sure it works on the mono hull that is what I will build for local use, then convert the mono hull over to a pair of his flexible shaft props and hunt down some deeper water. The wifes cool with any excuse to travel =)

We are also nearing the point where we are going to have to decide about either moving to Oregon or spending summers in someplace cooler like Toronto or upstate NY.

 

The 8" wide hull will be more stable. It will be best to place the outriggers outside of the wheels as well. This gives added leverage.

The possible damage to the wheels on grounding will depend on how solid the bottom is. There will be a tendency to roll the boat slightly if you ground one side. The force required to create a few degrees of roll will not be very much.

If you found that side flexing was causing pins to jump out there are ways to secure the side plates either through the foils or an additional shaft between the sides of each wheel. Maybe the bottom brace as you describe. A thin strip of metal would act as a tension strut and would only add a couple of watts loss per side.

Rick

 

You know that east of the Cascades is like an entirely different planet from the west side, right? East=desert; west=rain forest.

 

Well, I am in WAY South West Texas and it is as close to rain forest or jungle as you can get without being in South America. They call it a "Sub Tropic". Here you mow and prune once a week 9-10 months a year or your property swallows you in a month. I am taking SEE things growing and sweat IN the shower lol.

Visit friends in Idaho and in 2 days your skin dries up and feels like its flaking away.

 

I have been thinking about adding VARTM to get better quality larger sized parts, like hulls =)

This bloke sells what looks like a nice unit:
http://www.vacmobiles.com/?gclid=CNiFpti86ZUCFQukHgodIROYfA
But not a price listed on the page. Usually indicates expensive =)

Doesn't seem like a DIY setup big enough for a 20' female hull mold would be all that hard.

Thoughts anyone?

G

 

That hobby place in China doesn't ship for 3-5 days and it takes upwards of 2 weeks to make it to Texas. Looks like I am in a holding pattern.

 

BG
Have you already completed the hull and wheels - any photos?

Rick

 

Plastic for the wheel down strut mechanicals won't be in till end of the week from MMC. I will take pictures of everything as it progresses.

I opened my box of T pins (used for building with balsa) and it was a lump of rust lol.

 

BG
Why don't you make up a flat panel of balsa and glass then laser cut it precisely to size from development of the hull. This will give you experience in flat panel construction. It will give a faster, fairer and stronger hull than glassing over a balsa hull.

I have made air cured flat panels from both glass and carbon fibre on 3mm Klegecell and their performance is brilliant. I use plastic sheet over chipboard as two part press and load it with decent weights to get good pressure. You get a nice flat board that does not require any fairing just a bit of smoothing with high build paint.

Slightly heavier than infused but the extra epoxy provides physical protection. The strength achieved matches the fabric spec.

Rick

 

I can do you hull developments from Delftship in dxf format if you want. Laser cut or router as you please. Would save hours of fiddling with balsa and exactly the same process could be used for full size hull.

Rick

 

A bit of overkill time and labor wise. I was going to just do a very basic balsa hull and throw a very light layer of cloth on. The test hull will get used so few times likely.

I also would like to lay up something a little nicer for the real hull/s. I know taking the time to build a mold seems like a lot of extra work, but I am seeing the process going along like this.

Build the model and be sure the new drive actually works. For this 1/3 scale model a very basic hard chine type hull will work fine as the item being tested is really the drive and not the hull.

If the drive looks promising enough to pursue then spend this winter building a full sized 6m mono hull version to test out the drive full size. Spring arrives here the end of February so there is time for the Wife and I to enjoy the process and build a nice boat. I will still likely go with a relatively basic hull type just laid up and bagged over a male plug.

If the mono hull version works out, then start the CAT with a more developed hull pulled from a female mold. Most likely 18' long. If it doesn't pan out then fall back to a more traditional paddle wheel and jump right to the CAT. My gut feeling having tinkered with it all this time is that it will provide thrust. It may or may not be enough, and the structure and mechanicals have me worried a little. It's a lot of load on relatively small light weight parts. Look at how many stainless U joints Greg broke. I think if its just barley strong enough on the mono hull then we will be fine on the Cat because there are no unsupported ends etc. and the platform is just better suited.

We shall see =)

 

By way of a little light relief, I thought you guys might like this Dutch take on a pedal powered paddle driven amphibian...
http://gbo.nl/work/portfolio/di-cycle/index_en.html

Next project, BG? you're the man who can...

 

I've been wondering if you couldn't make up a kind of crude sonar for a depth guage. I don't see why you couldn't; I think the hardest part would be finding the proper transducer, but there might be some used in industrial chemical processing. I'll bet there's someone on the forum who could design the circuit for you. Then you wouldn't have another weed-catcher on the boat.

 

I WANT ONE!! (with something other than pedal power . . .)

I had this idea when I was much (MUCH) younger . . . I was going to build a model, but never got far with it. Then I saw Ghallager (the comedian) riding one around stage in one of his shows, I yelled, "That's mine!"

Making it float would be the hard part. Think of the smooth ride, though!