Pedal Powered Boat for the Baltic Sea / Coastline

If you want to be competitive against kayaks rather than just compete then the best boat will be something like my current designs. The annual river race that I do has deal with logs and sand bars less than 1ft deep. My curved shafts handle this.

Did you follow this thread in your reasing:
http://www.adventuresofgreg.com/HPB/2008_09_15_archive.html
The build is discussed in earlier part of the blog but it is not the easiest or fastest.

If you are serious you should only consider carbon fibre. I would go for flat panl construction. It results in a quick build. You will build a whole boat with a gearbox for the cost of the Hobie flappers I believe. Last I heard they cost about USD800 but they have since reduced.

Don't believe the sales hype with Mirage. You will only ever see them demonstrated side-by-side paddles in pulling. There have been a couple run in the Murray Marathon and they are a joke from a competition point of view. My prop set-up is more practical in shallow water and weedy areas.

My last boat V14 does not have a weld in it apart from the prop but I could use a Bolly carbon fibre prop that gives around 80% efficiency instead of my fabricated prop.

Rick W

 

rick, you really got me thinking ...... and now all my idea are up in the air, again ...... so what's it like to portage your v14? On the Adirondack 90 Miler there's some portaging to do, one is a real beast. It's 1.25 miles, starting up a knarly set of steep rocks, then levels out to some up and down uneven and rocky parts with stream crossings, then a long down hill part, again pretty uneven. I've done this with a plastic two man kayak that weighs 70 lbs and for the downhill sections I had wheels that made it easy, but I had to tote it on my shoulder going up the tough parts. On the v14 I'm not sure on where to even grab a hold of it to tote it short distance ....

 

V14 can be built for less than 20kg (44lb). Greg got CP2 down to 18kg but it was pared to the bone. He did not use a shaft strut. He used a 1/4" shaft. I use an 8mm shaft.

With the rudder and prop set up I use the boat can be set down on the ground without risk of bending anything. This makes it easier to transport - could be slid if required but would suffer scratching on rocks of course.

V14 balances very nicely in one hand lifting by the drive frame just in front of the seat. However for long distances it is easiest to just carry on the shoulder.

V14 is 1.2m shorter than the V11 series boats and this makes quite a difference in ease of transport. The outriggers are best transported folded up over the seat although on V14 I have them plug in so they do not fold.

I expect if you constructed using 200gsm cloth over 6mm Corecell you would get a very nice, light hull. V14 took 38 hours to make the hull in actual work time. You need to allow time for epoxy to cure. The outriggers take almost as long and are good practice for the main hull.

I am not familiar with the the races. If you have rapids I think this might be an interesting challenge because you will need about 18" of water to run a prop or even use the Hobie flappers. You can have the prop bounce over things but you would not want this to be the continuous mode. You also need to be aware of heavy impact on the outriggers. It took me a while to get a boat that worked well in the Murray. Logs are the big issue there. If you did not see this then it might give an idea of how V11J goes in competition with an early model engine:
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/at...1230859349-pedal-powered-boats-mm_2008_rw.pdf
You will see how the outriggers fold up for transport. This boat is noticeably heavier than V14 but I still carried it unaided on all but the last day when my wife helped me carry it the 500m to the start line. In that condition there is an extra 3kg of water and food that tips over the scales for easy portage for me. It would be up around 30kg. One condition of her being the support crew was that she did not need to do anything with the boat - just meet me at the end of each day and enjoy leisurely shopping, visiting wine cellars and long lunches. Low weight was a high priority for V14 and the method of construction aimed at achieving that.

Rick W

 

I'm not sure the v14 will be able to do the beginning sections of the texas water safari as it might just be too wide of a boat for the narrow river sections. also steering could be a problem in the rapids and it might require a front rudder for quicker steering?

some pics of some of the rapids are here:
http://sports.webshots.com/album/563807230gbyyLo

If I can portage the 1.25 miles on the adirondack 90 miler the v14 might do good there. I wonder how wheels would work out on it over rocky trails?

I've also considered that around florida race. they have a 40 mile portage that requires a bicycle to tow the boat. since this v14 is already part bike, or possibly another design as you're basically camping out of your boat for a month, some even sleep in their boats .....
http://www.watertribe.com/UltimateFlorida/UltimateFloridaOverview.aspx

the bottom line is I guess one boat won't do everything, kinda like motorcycles. and now that my brain is scrambled I gotta regroup my thoughts ....
I'm still thinking a seakayak-ish boat but with your drive system instead of the hobie mirage drive that I can also use paddles with might be a good all around boat for the different bodies of water i'd be paddling in.

 

For those conditions you would really want a folding prop. I think you would inflict a lot of damage on the Hobie flappers. Has anyone tried a Mirage drive in the event?

I have dipping rudders that work reasonably well. I have them on levers now so they can be applied quickly. They are out of the water most of the time.

You would also want to beef up the bottom of the hull to take the wearing over logs.

You lose a lot of speed if you make the boat wide enough to be stable without outriggers. There is another idea where you have trimaran configuration at the surface but a mono underwater and mono above the water. Trouble is this starts to get heavy.

Rick W

 

ok rick, you're keeping me on track, thin is fast! so how do I make the v14 design do what I need it to do?

quicker turning (for texas water safari) and portaging (for adirondack 90), and a bit of storage for overnight
training/camping, a prop that can be raised to protect from (small) rapids, and can I use a kayak paddle as a backup?
(and when going thru rapids when the prop is raised) and if I feel crazy enough, that 40 mile portage for around florida race,
can I turn the kayak into a self propelled wheeled vehicle? (with enough storage for days worth of supplies?)

for those following along, this is rick's website:
http://www.rickwill.bigpondhosting.com/

He's done homework, he's proven his designs with results, so it only makes sense to follow success!

 

You would need to set down the requirements and concentrate on getting something to test that has the ability to expand to the ultimate boat. There is nothing like experiencing the conditions to determine the challenges.

Rick W

 

You should start a separate thread for the Adirondack Challenger (or whatever) and use it to build ideas. I can give you a hull design to suit your capability. V14 is optimised for 11kph at 130W - my rated continuous output.

Rick W

 

oops! I totally hijacked this thread! sorry about that ..... I'm starting up my own thread now ........ if the mod wants to he can delete my tangents ....