A bit faster, but not there yet
9 Comments Published by Adventures of Greg on Thursday, May 15, 2008 at 8:03 AM.
It was the perfect day - high of around 18 degrees C and dead flat calm during the morning. I finished all of my little fixes to the boat yesterday, and headed out to Glenmore Reservoir early this morning to test the boat again.
I climbed into my seat, kicked her off the dock and started to pedal when the the new U-joint that I had just welded onto the shaft snapped in two! Luckily I always ride with a paddle and was able to make it back to the dock. I drove home, picked up my old shaft with the big fat draggy U-joint on it and drove back to the lake. I installed the old shaft and headed back out.
Disappointing speeds again. Faster than Mondays test, but still not as fast as she needs to be to challenge the current 24 hour human powered distance record of 245 km.
I need to make something clear because I am getting a lot of advice (thanks - it's always appreciated) about what to do and what not to do, etc. There is almost zilch 'research' on this project. I am building a COPY of Rick Willoughby's V11 human powered boat. He has spent years doing the concepting, building, testing, and experimenting. I don't need to do any of that. All I need to do is copy exactly what he has already built and I *should* be able to match his performance numbers.
Here is a YouTube video of Rick pedalling his V11 to 16 km / hr !!!!
Rick's V11
100 watts = 10.4 km / hr
My V11G (on Monday)
100 watts = 8.8 km / hr
My V11G (Today)
100 watts = 9.2 km / hr
My cruising power for a 24 hour event is 150 watts which should equate to 12 km / hr and my current speed at 150 watts is 10 km / hr - 20% slower. If I were to maintain an overall average of 100 watts for 24 hours straight, I could cover about 250 km in Ricks V11, but that would equate to only 220 km in the current state of my V11G which would be 25 km short of Carter Johnson's record.
We need to figure out why my V11 is slower than Ricks. My V11 isn't *exactly* the same, so lets take a closer look at the differences and see if there are any clues to my missing speed:
1. My V11G is lighter than Ricks because the hull was made from Carbon. The weight of the hull with the seat and everything is 39 lbs (the 24 foot long hull alone is lighter than moat racing bikes at 19.5 pounds!). The outriggers are an additional 7 pounds for a total weight of 46 pounds. This means less displacement which should result in FASTER speeds, not slower!
2. My seat position is higher than Ricks. At 11 km / hr, the boat should balance on the center hull with the outrigger just lightly skipping on top of the water. Since I have yet to reach 11 km / hr, I can't seem to get my hull to balance on the center hull. To compensate for my higher center of gravity with the higher seat, I extended the outrigger arms to 8 feet (from 6 feet). This made it a bit easier to balance, but I found that I was still sort of rocking from one outrigger to the next. When it was super calm and flat out, I was able to get a few rides that I felt were very light on the outriggers, but it didn't make an appreciable difference to me speed. The reason my seat position is higher is that I have had foot numbness issues with a lower seat. When my heart is above my feet, I don't seem to get the numbness.
3. Rick is using spring steel for his shaft and no U-joint. We designed my version of the boat to use a U-joint and stainless steel shaft because in theory it should be slightly more efficient than the spring steel. That said, I could see and feel some pretty wicked vibration in my shaft under the water. This doesn't seem right and it seems that there would be efficiency losses through this vibration. The shaft vibrating is also shaking the prop around, and I can feel this vibration in the boat at higher speeds. It might be worth a test to place a support on the shaft at mid point to stop the vibration, and perhaps an angled fin to better support the prop.
When I spin the cranks and turn the prop when the boat is out of the water, the shaft and prop vibrate and shake wildly. Rick says this shouldn't happen under the water because a pusher prop is self stabilizing. When spinning the air, there is not enough resistance for the prop and it doesn't self stabilize. During my observation of the prop spinning in the water, this does not seem to be happening, as the prop and shaft are still vibrating - not nearly as much as in air, but still, something is definitely different with set up. Perhaps it is with the stainless shaft and U-joint.
Rick has a prop that doesn't have a strut! The prop is so stable that it pushes the boat against the spring steel shaft alone!
I ave also noticed that the prop when pushing water, seems to twist a bit to push to the starboard side. It is hard to observe this because the lake water is very cloudy, and it could be an optical illusion, but it appears that as soon as I start pedalling and spinning the prop, that it starts to twist the strut and rather than thrusting directly back, it pushing slightly to the right. When I am moving in a straight line forward, it feels like the boat is tracking slightly to the right. If I let the rudder go, the boat does a slow turn to the right. If the prop was pushing slightly to the right, then it would be pushing the back of the boat to the left which would cause the bow to make a slow right hand turn.
Perhaps providing a support for the shaft will resolve this, or maybe i need to add another triangulated strut to the prop bearing tube.
4. We had Manny at Rhomec Industries here in Calgary CNC machine a custom aluminum prop for me. In theory, this prop should be more efficient than a hand made stainless version because it is almost perfect (it is a true work of art!). Maybe the aluminum is too soft and it is warping under the water. My prop was designed for my cadence of 90 rpm at 150 watts compared to Ricks prop at 80 rpm for 150 watts. This means that my prop is spinning faster. Maybe there is something unexpected happening with that higher rpm? Like some unforeseen cavitation issue or something - I don' know. It would be worth it to exchange the prop for my old stainless hand-made prop from WiTHiN. I believe the rpms were the same - need to check that.
5. Water temperature Warren found this for me regarding the difference in drag of 30 degrees C water temperature: 0.8 KPH with a 30 degree temp spread (20.3868 KPH at 0 degree C to 21.1104 KPH at 30 degrees C). Rick's V11 was tested in the warm Australian waters near Melborne where he lives, and the ice on Glenmore reservoir just melted. That could account for maybe 1/2 kph which is fairly substantial.
To top it all off, my Achilles tendon started to get sore after only 2 hours on the water yesterday! Ugh! It used to take 5 hours at easy effort to cause pain, and now it's down to 2 hours. I have been really taking it easy on the Achilles over the past 10 days. I've been using my ultrasound and applying anti-inflam cream every day. It would seem that the reduction in activity is counter productive to recovery.
The other problem I had at the lake yesterday was repeated chain derailments! I hate those! Luckily, it's an easy fix, but I need to add a chain guide.
I also ran aground yesterday! That is a freaky feeling. The water level in the reservoir is still low and there is a large area to the west where the river feeds into the reservoir and it can get very shallow there. I hadn't realized how far to the west I was when my prop suddenly struck the dirt! Yikes! Luckily, I had my paddle on board and I was able to paddle east and back into deep water. I need to check my prop for damage.
Well, I've got some work to do. I'm planning on getting as much of these changes done today as possible and getting back out to the lake this afternoon. It's supposed to be in the mid 20's today, and I have to take advantage of this weather.
Stay tuned...
Manny from Rhomec made me these neat little brass busings for the rudder.
Plus, I filled and smoothened in the welds
This is the narrower, less draggy u-joint. Good in theory but it failed
immediately at the ball bearings joint
You can see a small pulley on my frame used to tension the steering cable.
It worked very well.
Labels: 24hourHPBrecord, boatbuilding
New 24 hour record boat lake test
Well, the good news is that it floats and generally works well. Very smooth pedaling action, very stable and quite comfortable. The less than good news is that it performed much slower than expectations which means I have more work to do.
Stefan messaged me yesterday that the ice is now melted at the reservoir and the docks are now in, so I finished up the last details of the boat and my buddy Greg B and I headed out to the Glenmore Reservoir with the boat on the roof of the Suburban.
Compared to WiTHiN, this new boat is very easy to haul around. The hull weighs only 19.5 lbs. With all the hardware, seat and frames, etc I think it weighs in at around 40 lbs.
The outrigger floats bolt onto a 1" square aluminum arm that is U-bolted to the seat frame.
The water is VERY cold. A few days ago it was frozen, so I wasn't going to take any chances with safety. I strapped a paddle on the deck in case my drive failed, and had two-way radio communication with Greg. The emergency phone for the patrol boat is right there at the dock, and the patrol boat was out on the water, so if something did happen and I lost my drive and the paddle wasn't working, or went for an unplanned swim, the patrol boat wouldn't have been far away.
At first, I found it quite difficult to balance without falling over onto one or the other outrigger. According to the design, when I reach a cruising speed of around 10 to 11 kph, I can balance on the main hull with the two outriggers lightly skimming on the water. The outrigger level is adjustable with the U-bolts and I found that if they were two high, then I would flop from one side over to the other, so I had to lower them quite far which was creating additional drag.
Low speed expectations were for a cadence of 75, wattage output of 89 watts, and resulting speed of 10 km/hr. Actual wattage at 75 rpm was 100 watts and 8.8 km/hr (and that was WITH the wind). This is FAR slower than it should be and points to excessive drag as being the problem.
Items that need to be 'tightened-up':
1. The outrigger positions need to be adjusted. I notice in the photos that the attitude of the floats is nose-up and they really need to be level. I also need to ensure that they are both pointed directly forward and this isn't something that I measured previously, so they could be off.
2. Rick thinks that because my seat position is higher, I might require a wider stance for the floats to make it easier to balance on the main hull. I am going to add 2 feet of length to the outrigger arms to extend that moment arm.
3. My rudder is WAY too loose in it's tube. The carbon tube is 7/16" ID and the aluminum steering rod is 3/8" diameter. Manny is making me a plastic bushing to make the fit tighter. The rudder was vibrating in the tube quite a bit and also because the fit was so loose, the rudder was flapping back and fourth a lot. I found it very difficult to hold the rudder steady with my two steering lines. This flapping back and fourth was probably creating quite a bit of drag.
4. I have not faired the rudder with micro yet. The rudder is a 1/4" aluminum plate welded to a 3/8" diameter aluminum tube. I grinded down the plate to form the trailing edge of a NACA0020 airfoil (photos below), but have not yet filled the weld gaps with fairing compound.
5. The U-joint that I am using on the drive shaft is the back-up U joint and I think it is creating quite a bit of drag due to the fat flange on it. I have another u-joint that is being repaired by Manny right now that I will exchange for this one. This will make a small difference.
6. To test other components to make sure they are working properly, I have a spare prop from WiTHiN that I could mount on this boat to make sure that the prop is working as designed. I think it is because the resistance I'm getting at rpm is close to design specs and point to additional drag. I also have a second SRM that I will swap out to double check that I am getting the right measurements for power.
Here are some photos of some of the details:
Items that need to be 'tightened-up':
1. The outrigger positions need to be adjusted. I notice in the photos that the attitude of the floats is nose-up and they really need to be level. I also need to ensure that they are both pointed directly forward and this isn't something that I measured previously, so they could be off.
2. Rick thinks that because my seat position is higher, I might require a wider stance for the floats to make it easier to balance on the main hull. I am going to add 2 feet of length to the outrigger arms to extend that moment arm.
3. My rudder is WAY too loose in it's tube. The carbon tube is 7/16" ID and the aluminum steering rod is 3/8" diameter. Manny is making me a plastic bushing to make the fit tighter. The rudder was vibrating in the tube quite a bit and also because the fit was so loose, the rudder was flapping back and fourth a lot. I found it very difficult to hold the rudder steady with my two steering lines. This flapping back and fourth was probably creating quite a bit of drag.
4. I have not faired the rudder with micro yet. The rudder is a 1/4" aluminum plate welded to a 3/8" diameter aluminum tube. I grinded down the plate to form the trailing edge of a NACA0020 airfoil (photos below), but have not yet filled the weld gaps with fairing compound.
5. The U-joint that I am using on the drive shaft is the back-up U joint and I think it is creating quite a bit of drag due to the fat flange on it. I have another u-joint that is being repaired by Manny right now that I will exchange for this one. This will make a small difference.
6. To test other components to make sure they are working properly, I have a spare prop from WiTHiN that I could mount on this boat to make sure that the prop is working as designed. I think it is because the resistance I'm getting at rpm is close to design specs and point to additional drag. I also have a second SRM that I will swap out to double check that I am getting the right measurements for power.
Here are some photos of some of the details:
This is my prop strut. I had faired it with an aerofoil leading and trailing edge, but this is not right, and something that I need to fix. The lowest drag fin is a sharp taper on both sides. When I first measured the prop depth and bent the aluminum plate, I positioned it too low. To raise it up I added a couple of spacers. This will allow me to experiment with different positions. Note the FAT U-joint
I still need to fair in the join with some micro
Labels: 24hourHPBrecord, boatbuilding
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:
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
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!
Top view of the boat
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
Training woes, and 24 hour record boat progress
4 Comments Published by Adventures of Greg on Monday, May 05, 2008 at 5:01 PM.
Progress updates:
I kept the cut-out sections of this sandwich board frame for Critical Power
and used them for the bulkheads for the new boat
I was very surprised when I weighed the hull with the outriggers because it was one pound LESS than when I pulled it off the mold. Even with the carbon bulkheads bonded in, it is only 13.5 pounds. It will weigh more when the top deck is on, but this is a good start!
You can see the Kevlar (gold) with the carbon weave.
Kevlar will prevent the hull from ripping apart if it is holed.
The top deck will be a 24 foot long piece of closed cell foam core called CoreCell. CoreCell is what we are building the new ocean crossing boat WiTHiN out of.
You can now follow my micro updates by subscribing to the PedalTheOcean Twitter feed. I am thinking of updating this feed during the 24 hour record attempt every hour. The advantage of following a Twitter feed is that you can choose to receive updates on your cell phone, text messages, email or follow using the Twitter web site, the AdventuresOfGreg web site (upper right hand corner), or my FaceBook page (status updates).
As with everything in life there is always give and take, pros and cons, good with the bad. Very seldom is anything easy and straight forward. The new 24 hour record attempt human powered boat build is going really great - too great in fact. Something needed to offset all this great progress and that something is the Greek sea-god Achilles.
My Achilles tendon on my right leg is swollen and very, very sore and is becoming an issue for me.
My weekly long training rides alternate between an ultra-long, but moderate paced ride which progressively grows longer each 2nd week as I near the record attempt date and a 5-hour, very intense, hard ride. Today's 5 hour ride was supposed to average 200 watts and I made it to 3 hours and had to quit because my Achilles tendon was too sore.
It's been getting worse over the last few weeks and I continue to hope that it will just disappear. Last weeks 10 hour training ride outside with my buddy Greg Bradley was very painful for the last 4 hours of the ride. Today, I didn't make it past 3 hours. I need to get this problem resolved!!!
My buddy Chad who is an Ironman triathlete and also an MD, suggested I purchase this cool portable home ultra sound device called Sonic Relief:
I've been using it aggressively in combination with a topical anti-inflammatory cream and it seems to reduce swelling. I will keep at it.
What I really need to do is to give my foot a break for a couple of weeks to allow the Achilles to heal, but I am afraid that I will lose too much fitness and won't be able to stick to my scheduled 24 hour human powered boat distance record attempt for late June. We have a pretty busy summer, so it will be tough trying to schedule the record attempt for July or August.
Since postponing the Atlantic crossing until December of 2009, I now have time for other athletic pursuits, so I signed up for Ironman Arizona in November. I really have to get this 24 hour record attempt done and finished with by July at the latest so I can recover and switch training focus back to Ironman. My goal for Ironman in November is to make it back to World Championships in Kona! I have a special reason for going back to Kona, Hawaii in October of 2009 - more on that at a later date.
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24 hour record boat progress
My Achilles tendon on my right leg is swollen and very, very sore and is becoming an issue for me.
My weekly long training rides alternate between an ultra-long, but moderate paced ride which progressively grows longer each 2nd week as I near the record attempt date and a 5-hour, very intense, hard ride. Today's 5 hour ride was supposed to average 200 watts and I made it to 3 hours and had to quit because my Achilles tendon was too sore.
It's been getting worse over the last few weeks and I continue to hope that it will just disappear. Last weeks 10 hour training ride outside with my buddy Greg Bradley was very painful for the last 4 hours of the ride. Today, I didn't make it past 3 hours. I need to get this problem resolved!!!
My buddy Chad who is an Ironman triathlete and also an MD, suggested I purchase this cool portable home ultra sound device called Sonic Relief:
I've been using it aggressively in combination with a topical anti-inflammatory cream and it seems to reduce swelling. I will keep at it.What I really need to do is to give my foot a break for a couple of weeks to allow the Achilles to heal, but I am afraid that I will lose too much fitness and won't be able to stick to my scheduled 24 hour human powered boat distance record attempt for late June. We have a pretty busy summer, so it will be tough trying to schedule the record attempt for July or August.
Since postponing the Atlantic crossing until December of 2009, I now have time for other athletic pursuits, so I signed up for Ironman Arizona in November. I really have to get this 24 hour record attempt done and finished with by July at the latest so I can recover and switch training focus back to Ironman. My goal for Ironman in November is to make it back to World Championships in Kona! I have a special reason for going back to Kona, Hawaii in October of 2009 - more on that at a later date.
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24 hour record boat progress
Above is a computer model of what the new boat will look like. Click to enlarge. My recumbent seat sits on a 10" wide, hollow carbon fiber hull that is 24 feet long. There are two, light weight carbon outriggers for balance that typically sit a few inches ABOVE the water line while underway. My forward momentum should be enough to keep the narrow main hull balanced without the extra drag of the outriggers.
The main hull is 2 layers of 5.8 oz carbon fiber + 1 layer of 6 oz carbon+Kevlar weave. To add stiffness and strength, I inserted six bulkheads which I cut out from a left-over section of the carbon fiber sandwich board frame for Critical Power. I think it is cool to have part of Critical Power in this boat. (Critical Power is the name of my human powered vehicle that I set a 24 hour distance record with in the summer of 2006).
I kept the cut-out sections of this sandwich board frame for Critical Powerand used them for the bulkheads for the new boat
I was very surprised when I weighed the hull with the outriggers because it was one pound LESS than when I pulled it off the mold. Even with the carbon bulkheads bonded in, it is only 13.5 pounds. It will weigh more when the top deck is on, but this is a good start!
You can see the Kevlar (gold) with the carbon weave.
Kevlar will prevent the hull from ripping apart if it is holed.
The top deck will be a 24 foot long piece of closed cell foam core called CoreCell. CoreCell is what we are building the new ocean crossing boat WiTHiN out of.
The CoreCell will be covered with 1 layer of carbon each side, then cut to fit onto the flange of the hull.
The short sections of CoreCell are joined with tabs that are epoxied over the seems. This should also provide a bit more stiffness to the top deck.
The rudder tube is an old carbon tube that I had. It wasn't quite strong enough, so I reinforced it with a wrap of carbon. After the carbon went onto the tube, I wetted it out with epoxy resin, then wound a tight layer of electrical tape around it. I poked holes in the electrical tape to allow excess epoxy to seep out.
Labels: 24hourHPBrecord, boatbuilding, training