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24 hour record boat progress

7 Comments Published by Adventures of Greg on Thursday, May 08, 2008 at 6:38 PM.

Big progress over the last couple of days. It is Saturday morning now, and I am pretty sure that tomorrow she will be ready for her maiden voyage if I can find some unfrozen chunk of lake somewhere.

Here are a pile of images showing progress over the last few days:

My buddy Manny from Rhomec Industries contributed this jewelry for the suped up pedal boat. Two complete drive units consisting of a CNC machined propeller from Rick Willoughby's computer file, a bearing tube that hold two glass bearings, an aluminum nose cone, tail cone, U-joint and 3/8" shaft that runs to a coupler that is connected to the MitrPak right angle gear box.

Manny made me some interchangeable gears for the gear box. These collars will hold any standard Shimano rear cassette gear.

This is the MitrPak right angle gear box with a 13 tooth gear mounted on the input shaft and the 6 foot long prop shaft mounted with a coupler onto the output shaft of the gear box.

This is my seat frame sitting on the top deck of the boat hull. I was able to fit the hull into my shop, but the bow and stern are jammed into two corners of the room.

This is the rudder tube after I added the additional carbon reinforcement layers

The rudder tube bonded to the rear bulkhead

Before the top deck went on, I filled the compartments with water to check for leaks

Water filled compartment in the hull

Some very small leaks. I am going to pressurize the hull with air (with the top deck on) and wash soapy water over the hull and look for bubbles which I will mark. Then using a bit of vacuum pressure, I will apply epoxy to the pin holes that were marked from the soap test to fill the holes. We are going to spray a final coat of paint on her, so that will definitely help seal her up.

This is the deck after it was removed from the vacuum bag. We used CoreCell core material + 1 layer of 5.8 oz carbon on the top and 1 layer of 5 oz fiberglass on the back.

The deck has been bonded to the hull using a bit of micro and some epoxy. I clamped the deck onto the flange at first, but we got more even pressure around the flange using weights and duct tape.

Ben is filling my outriggers with expanding foam

Temporary setup showing the seat and pedals

The drive unit is mounted to the seat frame and everything is temporarily clamped to the deck. It all worked!

The SRM power meter chain ring with Dura Ace chain running to a 14 tooth gear on the Mitrbox gear box.

I welded a 2" wide, 1/4" thick aluminum plate to the bearings tube, then bent it. It will be bolted to the flange.

Top view of the boat

The gear box is mounted to the seat frame with a 1/4" thick aluminum plate welded to the seat frame. The slotted holes allow me to tension the chain.

The 6 foot long, 3/8" stainless steel shaft runs from the gear box down to a U-joint which is connected to a short shaft which runs through the tail cone, bearing tube holding two glass bearings, the prop and finally the nose cone (spinner). I still need to fair the strut with a grinder. The large flanges on the U-joint is my back-up U-joint. I am able to make 2 complete sets of drives - the main drive will use a small 3/8" diameter u-joint which could be the weak point of the whole drive. For the back-up unit, I decided to use the larger U-joints.

This is what I am dealing with in the middle of May! All the lakes around Calgary are still frozen over. Stefan was telling me that this is the first time in over 20 years that the reservoir hasn't opened during the first week of May.

Labels: 24hourHPBrecord, boatbuilding

7 Responses to “24 hour record boat progress”

# ralph 11:36 AM

Greg,
I am in awstruck, Wow. Congratulations for your dream, your determination, and your accomplishments, I know you will get there.

ralph@CrossTheAtlantic.com
# Ralph 11:43 AM

Greg,
I know you have been to our site, didn't you say that you bought a copy of bob's book

Our trip is not as athletic as yours but just as much fun. You are one of our heros.
ralph
# Ron Bothwell 12:31 PM

Greg, when your pedaling what does the resistance feel like... similar to riding a bike on the flats, uphill or down hill... and does this change depending on the water conditions.. ??? Do you feel the resistance of a wave in your legs..?

What have you done about the sea sickness problem?

Pictures are great... impressive work on the prop and gearing....

BTW... Spring has sprung here in Ontario.
# Adventures of Greg 1:27 PM

Ralph: ys, I just placed an order for your book at your web site. Looking forward to reading about your trans Atlantic

Ron: It's all set up to produce 150 watts of power at 90 rpm. The next time you are at your gym, hop on one of the LifeCycles and set it for 150 watts at 90 rpm. That's what it feels like.
# Anonymous 4:03 PM

Hi Greg dump the u joint go straight to the prop--(kiss)
# "the Dude" 4:12 PM

frozen lake?

24 hr record ice pedal boat? strap on some wheels to the gearbox?

(what a concept, could get some real speed on flat ice)
# Anonymous 4:36 PM

Hi Greg,

I used a u-joint on my Sidewinder HPB. It works fine for low power (no bollard pulls!). It looks like you welded the pins in. That's required!

It looks great! Congrats to You, Rick, and your other contributors.

-Warren.