The pedal drive is here
3 Comments Published by Adventures of Greg on Monday, June 29, 2009 at 4:58 PM.
Here is a nifty little animation I whipped up showing the computer model of WiTHiN blending into the actual boat in my shop.
And the big news for the week is the drive leg is here! MitrPak built it and they did an awesome job! The 'T' gear box at the top has a Shimano crank axle which turns a stainless shaft which will run through a tube that connects to the lower 'L' gear box which will turn the prop. The entire drive shaft tube and gear boxes will be filled up with oil and the higher head pressure will keep the corrosive sea water out.
The image above shows the seat panels now carbon taped into position. The round hatch below the arm rest is for dry storage.
The above illustration is a cut-away view of WiTHiN showing the cockpit, supplies, cabin and a new removable wind generator. My boat equipment guy Glenn Mulhare from Mariner Parts and I are having difficulty finding enough power with flexible solar panels to power all of the electronics, so we have decided to mount a removable wind generator for when the batteries need charging, and wind conditions are right. I can't leave this up all the time because it would cause far too much drag in head-wind conditions. However, if I am stopped for the night, and have a sea anchor out, I should be able to charge the batteries overnight as I sleep.
Labels: boatbuilding
If you don't live here (Calgary), I am sorry and I don't mean to rub this in your face or anything, but check out the pictures from my Saturday training run with my buddy Bryon.
Bryon Howard and me at the 9100 feet summit of Mount Allen in Kananaskis
It has been a long-time goal of mine to complete an ultramarathon, and I am very happy that I was able to accomplish my goal 2 weeks ago by finishing the Northface endurance challenge 50 miler ultramarathon which was an amazing experience.
After the race, my knees were swollen, achillies tendons very sore, my quads were trashed and my toes are black and blue and I will lose 3 toe nails. A long, restful recovery is required and I am happy and satisfied that I have achieved my goal.
NOT!!!
Instead, I went and signed up for a 90 MILE (146 km) ultramarathon called the Sinister 7 in Crowsnest pass in 9 days from now! YA!!!! Bring it on!
After the race, my knees were swollen, achillies tendons very sore, my quads were trashed and my toes are black and blue and I will lose 3 toe nails. A long, restful recovery is required and I am happy and satisfied that I have achieved my goal.
NOT!!!
Instead, I went and signed up for a 90 MILE (146 km) ultramarathon called the Sinister 7 in Crowsnest pass in 9 days from now! YA!!!! Bring it on!
me running (& lost) following an animal trail trail
The Sinister 7 solo race starts at 7:00 am on Saturday morning, July 4. The 146km course will take me through the most rugged, remote and beautiful terrain in Alberta's stunning Rocky Mountains. With over 5,050m (15,150 feet) of elevation gain across the course, this race will punish those who are not prepared.
The Sinister 7 is open to solo runners or teams of up to seven and racers have 27 hours to complete the grueling event. The course is split into seven stages, each featuring a geographic and historic highlight of the area. The race's name is inspired by the treacherous Seven Sisters Mountain that looms over much of the course.
my buddy Bryon sitting at the summit
I actually think I can leverage the Northface race and use it as a training stage for the Sinister - the two races are about 4 weeks apart. I spent the last 2 week in active recovery from Northface, and I felt like I could put in a really tough 2 day training weekend before tapering for the Sinister race. So, last weekend my buddy Bryon and I headed out to Kananaskis to fast hike / climb Mount Allan. Wow! What a hike. It was straight up for 2 hours to the 9000 foot summit. the views were breathtaking!
There was a bit of climbing, but not much, and not very technical
ON the way back down, we got off track and ended up on the other side of the wrong ridge and followed a mountain goat trail to a water fall where a heard of big horn sheep were crossing. That was a really incredible sight. We ended up making our way back over the ridge by following goat trails and eventually made it back to our hiking trail. It was a really cool day.
Bryon Howard
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In other news, we are still making progress on WiTHiN - the expedition boat. The portlight and hatch holes have been cut-out and we have started preparing the edges which is a very time-consuming job! Each of the cut-out holes have to be de-cored, filled with micro, then reinforced with 20 layers of unidirectional carbon running around the perimeter of the hole with a final layer of bidirectional carbon to cap it off.
Labels: boatbuilding, training
my x-wing starfighter cockpit
6 Comments Published by Adventures of Greg on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 at 6:00 PM.
We got the seat panels inserted into the expedition boat and just as a double check, I placed my recumbent seat onto the carbon seat panel and used the cranks and drive from Critical Power 2 to check where the pedals will be. It all fit perfectly.
We also got the port light (windows) holes cut out of the cabin top, so we placed the top onto the hull while I sat in the seat. For a moment, I was ready launch a plasma bomb to destroy the death star from my X-wing fighter starfighter cockpit seat. Then I confirmed that nothing interfered with the pedal revolution (it's a human power X-wing) and checked the view out the windows (making sure that the horizon from my eye level was mid-window). All worked perfectly according to plan. Whew! Exciting!!!
Labels: boatbuilding
Peace, rainbows, a mean machine, and a shiny new logo!
Peace and rainbows. man.
We started removing some of the jig stations. I can stand on the bow, and it is rock solid.
We prepared the edges of the cut-outs for inspection hatches in two bulkheads and carboned the bulkheads into the hull. 15 layers of uni-directional carbon surrounds each hatch / portlight cut-out!
I'm also making good progress on other PTO project items including securing a safety boat for the expedition, the new charity that I hope to raise $250,000 for, and a splashy new web site. I'll announce my new partners and more details soon! Here is a sneak preview of the new PTO logo:Peace and rainbows. man.
We have the lower hull almost totally assembled now, so for fun, we placed the cabin on, and the other top deck panels. It's really starting to come together! Ken is doing a fantastic job and we are progressing nicely - a little slower than I had hoped for, but the quality of Kens workmanship and Stuart's design is second to none. This will be one, mean - state of the art - human powered machine when she is finished.
We started removing some of the jig stations. I can stand on the bow, and it is rock solid.
We prepared the edges of the cut-outs for inspection hatches in two bulkheads and carboned the bulkheads into the hull. 15 layers of uni-directional carbon surrounds each hatch / portlight cut-out!
I am getting tons of help purchasing supplies and equipment from new PedaltheOcean.com sponsor Glenn Mulhare from Mariner Parts. The shipment of hatches and portlights is due to arrive today and we're working on specifying the electronics now (solar panels, radios, GPS, etc). It is going to be pretty state of the art. The AIS will talk to the GPS, and the marine radio will broadcast the GPS coords, and I can get sat weather on the GPS, etc - it's all going to be pretty awesome. My good friend George and PTO sponsor from MitrPak is working on the drive legs right now. They should be here in a week or so and we should be able to start working on the structure to hold it in place.
New sponsors are coming online including a tracking device, a sea anchor, a machinist who is milling the prop, a web developer, a web designer, a copywriter, a new charity, a safety boat, and many others who are kindly volunteering to be a part of this in various ways. Thanks to everyone and welcome to the team! Details and names will all be announced when we roll-out the new web site. If you would like to 'join the PTO team' and feel like you have a bit of time or expertise you can offer, email me - I always appreciate the help.
I am speaking at a grade 9 graduation ceremony tomorrow morning and then Helen and I are off to Bellingham on Friday to run the Northface Endurance Challenge on Saturday. Helen's running the half and I'm running the 80 km. I'm ready, but with a lingering knee injury, so I'm a bit apprehensive about that. Oh well... all part of the adventure I guess. I won't be setting any records that's for sure, but since this is my first ultra, my goal is just to finish within the cut off time. Wait.. what is the cut off time anyhow? Let me check... Oh, it's 13 hours. I should be ok. (famous last words!)
Labels: boatbuilding, expedition
The lower hull jig is finished and we have the first panel in!
First, my training progress for the Northface Endurance Challenge Gortex 50 mile run June 6: My last long run weekend consisted of a 6 hour run on Saturday followed by a 3 hour run on Sunday. Both went very well and my pace was faster on the 6 hour run than the previous weekend, so that is good. No serious injuries so far - my Achilles tendinitis has gone away like I knew it would and now I have a bit of a sore knee developing. The race is still a bit over 2 weeks away, so I have time to recuperate.
Second, Pedaltheocean human powered ocean crossing progress: I've been making some good progress on expedition plans.
I am close to signing on with a new charity which is very exciting. I did some research and found that previous ocean crossing expeditions raised anywhere from $20,000 to $600,000 for their charities, so I'm totally pumped about what I can do - sorry, about what 'WE' can do for this great cause!
I need to announce the new Canada to Hawaii route, so I am working with a great web design company & PTO sponsor / team member on a Pedaltheocean.com re-design. The roll-out of the new site will coincide with the route announcement and the partnership with the charity.
I am also pretty happy that I may have found a safety boat to follow me across the Pacific to Hawaii. Again, I don't want to say anything until it's a 100% sure thing, but if it works out, it will provide me with the responsible safety net I want, plus it will be a great platform to film from. I am looking for someone who might be interested in producing a film, ( or documentary, TV series, TV show, whatever) and who might enjoy a 40 to 60 day Pacific cruise.
Third, speaking: I'm not nearly as busy as I want to be, but this economy is really beating up on the speaking business. I have a booking to speak at a Toastmasters club annual wrap-up luncheon on June 21, a Junior high school year-end function on June 9, and I'm speaking to American Program Bureau in Boston on June 23. APB is one of the largest speaker bureaus in the US and they want to sign an exclusive representation agreement with me which I am considering.
Fourth, other cool projects: My buddy Roz Savage is due to depart Hawaii for Tuvalu, then onto Australia. According to the countdown timer on her web site, her departure window opens in 3 days from now. We all wish her well!
Fifth, boat building progress:
40. The jog sections are traced onto 1" thick MDF
43. The jig sections are aligned using target holes and a tight string. After we aligned each station, we could peer through a 1/4 inch hole in the end station and look through ALL 15 holes in 15 stations spanning almost 30 feet!
44. A slot was cut down the middle of the floor hull panel to allow it to bend slightly to fit into a shallow 'V' shape in the jig sections. It is held in place temporarily by weights.
45. The carbon panel is secured to the jig stations with screws and blocks, and the cut is filled with a runny mixture of micro & epoxy
46. The seem is reinforced with a strip of carbon tape, then peel ply is placed over it.
47. Sand is poured into the epoxy whetted carbon tape & peel ply to keep the carbon tightly pressed against the panel and the seem.
See the ENTIRE process (all 47 steps) at this blog post.
See the ENTIRE process (all 47 steps) at this blog post.
Labels: boatbuilding
Well, we have the cabin top assembled! This is pretty cool because it's the first thing we've made that actually looks like Ocean WiTHiN! We're also pretty psyched to see that Stuart Bloomfields design magic works like a charm. After building the cabin top jig and fitting the 3 cabin top carbon panels into position, they fit PERFECTLY - amazing.
All the construction steps for the cabin top are below, but first a quick training update. As you may recall, I signed up to compete at the Northface Endurance Challenge 50 mile ultramarathon on June 6 in Bellingham, Washington. This will be my first foray into 'ultra' territory which is typically defined as distances greater than 30 miles. I'm really, really enjoying the training which basically consists of 2 long runs per week, back to back. On Saturday I ran up and down Moose Mountain trail in Kananaskis for 4 hours, then I ran it for 5 hours on Sunday.
Running a hilly trail is easier in ways than a flat course. The constant muscle changes from climbing up the steep incline to running down hill seems to 'spread the load' a bit more than the relentless flat and level run. I feel better after 4 hours than a flat run for sure and feel like I can keep going.
The Northface Endurance Challenge Gortex 50 is a TOUGH race with over 13,500 feet of elevation change over 80 km of mountainous trails. The rule of thumb for predicting finishing times for a double marathon is to take your best marathon time, double it and add an hour. This would put me at 8 hours, but that isn't the case with this race. The WINNING time for my division last year was 9 hours! This is one TOUGH race.
My training run on Moose Mountain is a 7.3 km, 2000 foot climb up, then 7.3 km down. I timed myself on my 5.25 hour run on Sunday and calculated that if I could hold the same pace for the entire 80 km race, I could finish in 9 1/2 hours. That's wishful thinking though because I will surely start to slow down after my 5th or 6th or 7th hour! I will be happy if I can break 10 hours.
OK, on to the cabin top building steps:
All the construction steps for the cabin top are below, but first a quick training update. As you may recall, I signed up to compete at the Northface Endurance Challenge 50 mile ultramarathon on June 6 in Bellingham, Washington. This will be my first foray into 'ultra' territory which is typically defined as distances greater than 30 miles. I'm really, really enjoying the training which basically consists of 2 long runs per week, back to back. On Saturday I ran up and down Moose Mountain trail in Kananaskis for 4 hours, then I ran it for 5 hours on Sunday.
Running a hilly trail is easier in ways than a flat course. The constant muscle changes from climbing up the steep incline to running down hill seems to 'spread the load' a bit more than the relentless flat and level run. I feel better after 4 hours than a flat run for sure and feel like I can keep going.
The Northface Endurance Challenge Gortex 50 is a TOUGH race with over 13,500 feet of elevation change over 80 km of mountainous trails. The rule of thumb for predicting finishing times for a double marathon is to take your best marathon time, double it and add an hour. This would put me at 8 hours, but that isn't the case with this race. The WINNING time for my division last year was 9 hours! This is one TOUGH race.
My training run on Moose Mountain is a 7.3 km, 2000 foot climb up, then 7.3 km down. I timed myself on my 5.25 hour run on Sunday and calculated that if I could hold the same pace for the entire 80 km race, I could finish in 9 1/2 hours. That's wishful thinking though because I will surely start to slow down after my 5th or 6th or 7th hour! I will be happy if I can break 10 hours.
OK, on to the cabin top building steps:
29. The jig stations are aligned to each other using alignment targets and a tight string.
30. The carbon sandwich panels are placed into position in the jig. Note that the peel ply and blanket layers are still on the panels. This is to prevent us from rubbing off the peel ply texture which is required for a proper bond and paint.
31. The edges of the peel ply are ripped off showing the carbon. The panels are screwed into the jig sections using a strip of particle board. This will force each panel to curve into it's exact position.
32. The edges of the panels are joined with a radius of micro/epoxy
33. The joins will be reinforced with a strip of carbon tape. To avoid fraying the carbon, a large sheet is whetted out with epoxy resin first, then cut between 2 layers of poly.
34. the carbon tape is placed onto the seam. The epoxy/micro filled radius in the join is semi-curred to a tacky consistency to assure a good bond between the carbon and the micro.
This shows the carbon tape fully whetted out
35. The carbon tape is covered with a strip of peel ply and a strip of absorbent blanket, then covered with plastic.
36. Normally, this carbon tape wet layup should be curred under vacuum, but in this case it would be difficult to obtain a good vacuum due to the seam between the two carbon panels. So, we used about 100 lbs of sand to press down on the wet carbon.
37. After curring, the sand is removed, and the peel and blanket layers are removed. The inside is temporarily reinforced with wood spacers.
38. The cabin top is removed from the cabin top jig.
Labels: boatbuilding, training
We have completed all but two panels and we realized that we had miscalculated the amount of epoxy resin we were going through. The raw Corecell panels were soaking up way more epoxy that we had originally expected, so I placed an order for more MAS brand epoxy from Noahs in Montreal and we have to wait until Friday for delivery.
It was a chance to switch gears for a bit, so we started work on the next phase - building a jig to hold the panels in place while they are bonded together, and cutting the exact panel shapes out of the rectangular carbon boards. The following steps are a continuation of the step by step "Building WiTHiN" blog post from last week. I'll continue to revise that blog post by adding new steps as we do them.
It was a chance to switch gears for a bit, so we started work on the next phase - building a jig to hold the panels in place while they are bonded together, and cutting the exact panel shapes out of the rectangular carbon boards. The following steps are a continuation of the step by step "Building WiTHiN" blog post from last week. I'll continue to revise that blog post by adding new steps as we do them.
23. The panel drawing is placed on the cured carbon fiber panel. The photo shows the bulkheads drawing on a section of panel with the peel ply and blanket layers removed. Normally, we do not remove this layer until AFTER the parts have been cut out.
24. The drawing is taped down to the carbon panel by cutting holds in the paper and taping through to the panel.
The two photos above show the paper pattern taped down to the carbon panel ready for cutting.
25. I use a jig saw and follow the cut lines on the paper pattern. Since the paper is taped down to the carbon panel, I can cut right through the paper and panel.
This shows a small panel part cut-out with the paper panel still taped on. Note the nice tight fit between the pattern and the cut carbon panel.
This is the cut-out top deck panel with the peel ply / blanket layer still attached. We won't remove this layer until we are ready to place it into the jig because it protects the surface of the carbon.
26. Ken is building a jig for the top & bottom hull halves. He is starting with a long, straight square box on wheels and the jig stations will be mounted to the top of it and aligned. We will start with the top deck (top hull half) and when it is assembled, we will remove the jig stations and install the jig stations for the bottom hull.
Labels: boatbuilding
Building Ocean WiTHiN - a human powered ocean crossing boat
My last blog post called "how it's done" was a step by step attempt to show you how we are building Ocean WiTHiN and it was received with a bit of confusion. I realized that I could do a much better job, so after four more days of panel making, and way more photos taken, here is a much more thorough explanation of what we are doing.
Design:
The illustration above is a computer rendering of Ocean WiTHiN - a pedal powered boat designed for me to human-power across an ocean with. The ocean in question will either be the Pacific ocean via a route that has never been 'human powered' before - from Vancouver Island Canada to Hawaii in June of 2010, or a speed record attempt across the Atlantic ocean in less than 40 days from Canary Islands to the West Indies in December of 2010.
Ocean WiTHiN was inspired by the prototype version of WiTHiN shown in the photo below taken near Tofino off the west coast of Vancouver Island. Sea trials video here.
WiTHiN prototype was designed by myself and human powered boat guru Rick Willoughby and build by myself and my friend Ben Eadie. She is made of fiberglass using a double kayak hull as a base which was kindly donated by PedalTheOcean sponsor and advisor Steve Schleicher from Nimbus Kayaks.
The new boat - Ocean WiTHiN was designed by myself, Rick Willoughby and world record winning naval architect Stuart Bloomfield. Ocean WiTHiN is made from flat carbon fiber panels that are stitched together to form the basic hull.
Design:
The illustration above is a computer rendering of Ocean WiTHiN - a pedal powered boat designed for me to human-power across an ocean with. The ocean in question will either be the Pacific ocean via a route that has never been 'human powered' before - from Vancouver Island Canada to Hawaii in June of 2010, or a speed record attempt across the Atlantic ocean in less than 40 days from Canary Islands to the West Indies in December of 2010.
Ocean WiTHiN was inspired by the prototype version of WiTHiN shown in the photo below taken near Tofino off the west coast of Vancouver Island. Sea trials video here.
The new boat - Ocean WiTHiN was designed by myself, Rick Willoughby and world record winning naval architect Stuart Bloomfield. Ocean WiTHiN is made from flat carbon fiber panels that are stitched together to form the basic hull.
The above illustration shows some of the hull panels, and interior seat and bulkhead panels
This is a paper model assembled from printing and cutting out the individual panels. This method of construction is called developable panel. An advantage of developable panels is faster and less expensive fabrication process. According to Ricks calculations, the efficiency differences between a smooth contoured moulded hull (like the prototype) and the square flat panel hull is minimal.
How we're building it
The drawing above shows the layout of some of the individual panels that will form the hull. Each panel is made from 1/2" thick Corecell foam board covered with 2 layers of carbon fiber on each side - called a sandwich panel. We are making all of these rectangular sandwich panels in advance, then tracing the outlines of each panel part and cutting that part out with a saw.
3. The first layer of carbon is 6 oz unidirectional carbon fiber. Unidirectional carbon is a fabric consisting of thousands of thin carbon fiber threads all running longitudinally and held together with a fine thread. Unidirectional carbon is very strong in tension longitudinally and has zero strength width-wise. The carbon is 12" wide and comes on a roll which we roll out to the length of our panel and cut.
4. The unidirectional carbon strips for BOTH sides of the Corecell panel (2 strips on the top side of the foam board and 2 strips on the bottom side) are rolled up and stored at the back of the table.
5. The second layer of carbon to be applied to each side of the core is 6 oz bidirectional weave. This is a weave with threads running both horizontally and vertically. It is cut and applied to the foam board such that the fibers are running at 45 degrees to the length of the core (and direction of the unidirectional). These sections of fabric are cut to size, rolled up, and stored at the back of the table.
6. Absorbent blanket material is cut to fit over the length of the Corecell board. This material will soak up excess epoxy - more about that later.
7. Strips of 'peel ply' fabric are also cut to fit each side of the panel and stored along with the blanket and carbon at the back of the table. I'll explain what the peel ply is for later.
8. This is a picture of Ken weighing each roll of carbon. We will be wetting-out the carbon layers on the Corecell with epoxy resin and we use the weight of each layer of carbon to calculate the exact amount of epoxy to apply.
9. We mix a pre-calculated amount of epoxy resin required to fully cover the Corecell foam board. This epoxy is poured into the foam board and then spread evenly over the board with squeegees. I don't have a photo of this process. After the board is fully saturated with epoxy, we roll on our first layer of unidirectional carbon fabric.
10. A pre-calculated volume of epoxy resin is mixed and then poured in an even line down the middle of the carbon on the Corecell board and then spread evenly over the surface with the yellow squeegees shown above.
11. After the unidirectional layer has been fully whetted out with epoxy, we roll on our bidirectional carbon weave. (There's always a clown - hey?)
12. The epoxy resin is a two part mixture: resin and catalyst which will harden (cure) in about 8 hours.
13. The bidirectional carbon weave is whetted-out with epoxy in the same way that the unidirectional carbon was - by pouring an even line down the middle, then splitting the line with squeegees from each side pulling epoxy from the middle to the edges and then pressing the epoxy into the carbon fabric.
14. You'll be tempted to, but don't eat the epoxy.
15. The process of wetting out the foam core, rolling out the unidirectional carbon, wetting out the unidirectional carbon, rolling out the bidirectional weave, and wetting that out is repeated on BOTH sides of the Corecell panel.
Before the panel is turned over, the wet layup is covered with a layer of peel ply (not shown). This is a fabric that won't stick to the curred epoxy, but will allow wet epoxy to seep out of the layup into an absorbent blanket placed on top of the peel ply. The blanket strip is placed on top of the peel ply layer, then the whole board is carefully flipped over and the entire process is repeated on the other side.
The whole wetting out process takes about 90 minutes for each side with two people working. The preparation which includes cutting the Corecell panel, assembly of the Corecell sections, and cutting of the carbon, peel ply, blanket, poly sheet and mixing epoxy takes an additional 3 to 4 hours. So far, each panel has taken 2 man/days to make.
16. After both sides have been whetted out and the peel ply and blanket have been applied, the other side of the poly sheet is placed over the panel completely covering the layup. The three open sides of the poly are sealed using gummy tape to form an air tight bag.
17. A vacuum pump is connected to the bag and all of the air is sucked out of the bag. The vacuum process creates very high pressure (about 26" mercury) which presses the plastic bag against the wet layup forcing excess epoxy to seep out of the carbon through the peel ply and be absorbed by the blanket.
19. In order for the entire layup to fully cure in 8 hours, it is important for the temperature to stay at or above room temperature. Higher curing temperatures are advantageous because it increases the viscosity of the epoxy allowing more excess epoxy to be absorbed by the blanket. To increase the curring temperature and decrease the curring time, we cover the entire wet layup with electric blankets which keep the panel very warm.
This photo shown the vacuum tube entering the bag and the electric blankets placed on top.
20. The entire layup is left to cure under heat and vacuum for 8 hours and then we turn the vacuum pump off, and leave the heat on until morning (total of about 18 hours curing). Then the bag is cut open and the fully curred, hard carbon panel is removed. We store the panels in a curved stand which is approximates the curve that the panel will take when it is used to form the boat hull.
This is a photo of my 4 car garage which has been turned into a boat making shop.
21. Eventually, the peel ply and blanket is removed from the carbon, but this won't happen until the panel shape has been cut out of the panel. The peel ply and blanket protects the surface of the panel until we are ready to assemble the boat. The photo above shows our first two panels (with the peel ply/blanket layer removed) post curring on a warm, heated floor.
This is the cut-out top deck panel with the peel ply / blanket layer still attached. We won't remove this layer until we are ready to place it into the jig because it protects the surface of the carbon.
25. Ken is building a jig for the top & bottom hull halves. He is starting with a long, straight square box on wheels and the jig stations will be mounted to the top of it and aligned. We will start with the top deck (top hull half) and when it is assembled, we will remove the jig stations and install the jig stations for the bottom hull.
26. Here is the completed jig station box. It's flat and square and very rigid with coasters so it can be moved in and out of the shop.
27. Ken is tracing the jig station patterns onto some 1" thick MDF wood.
28. The jig stations are cut out and assembled onto the box at pre-specified spacing
I will continue this step by step post as we progress. If you have any question, please feel free to post a comment to this blog post and either I or Ken will respond with an answer.
22. The panel drawing is placed on the cured carbon fiber panel. The photo shows the bulkheads drawing on a section of panel with the peel ply and blanket layers removed. Normally, we do not remove this layer until AFTER the parts have been cut out.
23. The drawing is taped down to the carbon panel by cutting holds in the paper and taping through to the panel.
The two photos above show the paper pattern taped down to the carbon panel ready for cutting.
24. I use a jig saw and follow the cut lines on the paper pattern. Since the paper is taped down to the carbon panel, I can cut right through the paper and panel.
This shows a small panel part cut-out with the paper panel still taped on. Note the nice tight fit between the pattern and the cut carbon panel.
This is the cut-out top deck panel with the peel ply / blanket layer still attached. We won't remove this layer until we are ready to place it into the jig because it protects the surface of the carbon.
25. Ken is building a jig for the top & bottom hull halves. He is starting with a long, straight square box on wheels and the jig stations will be mounted to the top of it and aligned. We will start with the top deck (top hull half) and when it is assembled, we will remove the jig stations and install the jig stations for the bottom hull.
26. Here is the completed jig station box. It's flat and square and very rigid with coasters so it can be moved in and out of the shop.
29. The jig stations are aligned to each other using alignment targets and a tight string.
30. The carbon sandwich panels are placed into position in the jig. Note that the peel ply and blanket layers are still on the panels. This is to prevent us from rubbing off the peel ply texture which is required for a proper bond and paint.
31. The edges of the peel ply are ripped off showing the carbon. The panels are screwed into the jig sections using a strip of particle board. This will force each panel to curve into it's exact position.
32. The edges of the panels are joined with a radius of micro/epoxy
33. The joins will be reinforced with a strip of carbon tape. To avoid fraying the carbon, a large sheet is whetted out with epoxy resin first, then cut between 2 layers of poly.
34. the carbon tape is placed onto the seam. The epoxy/micro filled radius in the join is semi-curred to a tacky consistency to assure a good bond between the carbon and the micro.
This shows the carbon tape fully whetted out
35. The carbon tape is covered with a strip of peel ply and a strip of absorbent blanket, then covered with plastic.
36. Normally, this carbon tape wet layup should be curred under vacuum, but in this case it would be difficult to obtain a good vacuum due to the seam between the two carbon panels. So, we used about 100 lbs of sand to press down on the wet carbon.
37. After curring, the sand is removed, and the peel and blanket layers are removed. The inside is temporarily reinforced with wood spacers.
38. The cabin top is removed from the cabin top jig.
39. The lower hull jig section patterns are printed and cut out
40. The jog sections are traced onto 1" thick MDF
41. The jig sections are cut out with a skill saw and jig saw.
42. The jig sections for the upper cabin are removed from the square box, and the jig sections for the hull are fastened into place.
43. The jig sections are aligned using target holes and a tight string. After we aligned each station, we could peer through a 1/4 inch hole in the end station and look through ALL 15 holes in 15 stations spanning almost 30 feet!
44. A slot was cut down the middle of the floor hull panel to allow it to bend slightly to fit into a shallow 'V' shape in the jig sections. It is held in place temporarily by weights.
45. The carbon panel is secured to the jig stations with screws and blocks, and the cut is filled with a runny mixture of micro & epoxy
46. The seem is reinforced with a strip of carbon tape, then peel ply is placed over it.
47. Sand is poured into the epoxy whetted carbon tape & peel ply to keep the carbon tightly pressed against the panel and the seem.
I will continue this step by step post as we progress. If you have any question, please feel free to post a comment to this blog post and either I or Ken will respond with an answer.
Labels: boatbuilding
Here's how it's done:
4 Comments Published by Adventures of Greg on Saturday, April 25, 2009 at 3:55 PM.
Ken and I are now like a well oiled machine. A carbon sandwich panel making machine. Yesterday we finished side B of our first panel containing seat parts, and BOTH sides of the next panel which consists of the bulkheads. We have a pretty good system down, and so far the panels are coming out great - very flat, hard, smooth and strong. The photo above shows the two panels sitting on my warm water heated floor in our TV room. Since winter seems to be hanging in there in Calgary, it isn't warm enough in the garage for these panels to fully cure.
Following is the step by step process for making a carbon fiber sandwich panel:
Following is the step by step process for making a carbon fiber sandwich panel:
1. The above photo shows two patterns for our next panel running almost the full length of the table - something like 26 feet long. I believe these are the two main side panels of the hull.
2. The first step is to roll out poly for the vacuum bag. The plastic is folded on the left hand side and will envelope the entire panel after it is fully whetted out to form a sealed vacuum bag.
3. The next step is to place the Corecell foam core down on the table and bond the individual sheets of Corecel together.
3. The next step is to place the Corecell foam core down on the table and bond the individual sheets of Corecel together.
More photos after Monday's work!
Labels: boatbuilding
Blew through another iPod
8 Comments Published by Adventures of Greg on Friday, April 24, 2009 at 10:13 AM.
I seem to blast through iPods as fast as I blow through sneakers. Last summer during training for the 24 hour human powered boat record I purchased a totally water proof enclosure for my iPod from OtterBox because my previous iPod got wet and eventually died. I was sick of buying new iPods so I decided to invest my money into a water proof and shock proof case.
Good idea in theory, but because this OtterBox case fits the iPod so tightly, inserting and removing the iPod for updating and charging wore out the headphones plug and now the sound is shorting out. So, Time for a new pair of shoes, and yet another new iPod.
I searched the house for as many old, broken iPods as I could find and shot this photo. Included in the collection is the very first iPod as well as the mini, nano, shuffle, touch, classic and probably some I don't even remember the name of.
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Ken and I applied the first carbon laminate layer on one of the panels yesterday. We picked a panel that contained seat parts so if we made a mistake we could correct it before we got to the more crucial hull panels.
Good idea in theory, but because this OtterBox case fits the iPod so tightly, inserting and removing the iPod for updating and charging wore out the headphones plug and now the sound is shorting out. So, Time for a new pair of shoes, and yet another new iPod.
I searched the house for as many old, broken iPods as I could find and shot this photo. Included in the collection is the very first iPod as well as the mini, nano, shuffle, touch, classic and probably some I don't even remember the name of.
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Ken and I applied the first carbon laminate layer on one of the panels yesterday. We picked a panel that contained seat parts so if we made a mistake we could correct it before we got to the more crucial hull panels.
The layup was 1 layer of unidirectional carbon on the .5" Corecell core, then bidirectional weave at 45 degrees. The layup went smoothly and we ripped off the peel ply this morning to reveal a beautifully flat and strong panel. For the next panel we are going to try to do BOTH sides at the same time.
Labels: boatbuilding, training
After only 2 days into my Peru trip, I got a text from Ken with the bad news that we got kicked out of the hanger that my friend Steve so kindly offered to us as to build the new ocean crossing human powered boat - Ocean WiTHiN.
I guess the owner of the Citation jet that was hangered in there didn't like the idea of us lugging long 2x4's under the wings of his baby (understandable I guess), so Ken looked around for another space. The cheapest he could find was a full hanger for $1500 per month - no way.
I guess the owner of the Citation jet that was hangered in there didn't like the idea of us lugging long 2x4's under the wings of his baby (understandable I guess), so Ken looked around for another space. The cheapest he could find was a full hanger for $1500 per month - no way.
I knew my garage would be the perfect size for this job, so I sold Helen and Krista on the advantages of parking the cars outside for the entire summer. There weren't many advantages and admittedly it was a tough sell.
So, I spend a couple of days and totally GUTTED the garage and my shop, washed the floor, cleaned it all out and made room for the almost 40 foot long, perfectly flat, most awesome panel layup table that Ken had already assembled at the hanger. Ken installed more lights and we are now totally set to get started on the panels! There is room beside the layup table for a jig that will hold the panels in place to form the top and bottom hulls.
I've been playing with my 3d model of Stuart's design for WiTHiN to get a better understanding of how my drive leg and keel will be incorporated into the hull. Rick Willoughby wants to use the drive leg bay as a torque tube to transfer the rolling moment from the keel into the hull. My good friend and sponsor George from MitrePak is building the drive leg.
The training is going good - no injuries to speak of so far. I'm handling the volume OK. This week I did a 4 hr run on Saturday, 3.5 hr run on Sunday, 1 hr yesterday and I'm off to do a 3 hr run today. I have the Police half marathon to run this Saturday, and I'll probably be running it TWICE - the first time as fast as I can, and the second time in survival mode.
Labels: boatbuilding, training
Ocean boat progress. FINALLY!
5 Comments Published by Adventures of Greg on Wednesday, April 01, 2009 at 10:04 AM.
Finally some real progress on the new ocean crossing boat!
The image above is a model that Ken made using the developed panels designed by Stuart Bloomfield. This is basically how the new boat will be built. The first step is to create the flat panels which are carbon over Corecell closed cell foam core. Then we cut-out each panel shape and form the top and bottom hull halves by placing the panels into a wood jig then joining them together with carbon tape.
My good friend Steve McDonough kindly offered to donate some workshop space in his new hanger at the Springbank airport, so I jumped at the opportunity and Ken and I are going to be building WiTHiN at the new hanger.
The very first step was to test our panel making procedure by running some stress tests on a sample panel. Rick Willoughby suggested two tests - a break test and a flatwise tensile test. He also made a spreadsheet for us to record and quantify the results. Following are the photos and results for each test:
The very first step was to test our panel making procedure by running some stress tests on a sample panel. Rick Willoughby suggested two tests - a break test and a flatwise tensile test. He also made a spreadsheet for us to record and quantify the results. Following are the photos and results for each test:
This is a 2" square section of the test sandwich panel. The lamination schedule is 1/2" thick Corecell, then 5 oz unidirectional carbon, then 6 oz bidirectional carbon. (same for both sides of the core). Both sides were fully whetted out with epoxy resin then vacuum bagged.
This shows the break test setup. I used my lat pull-down machine with wood blocks to support the test panel. Weight lifting plates placed on the sliding weight holder pressed down on a 2" wide strip of stainless steel on the test panel.
Our first sample broke at 176 lbs. The 2" x 12" long test panel weighs only 1.75 ounces and I since I weigh only 155 lbs, I could stand on it without it breaking. However, when it broke during the test, the sample sheared apart due to a poor bond between a thin coat of micro on the core and the first layer of carbon - not good.
We made a new panel without the micro and it weighed less at only 1.6 ounces and tested much better. The photo shows how it sheared under compression on the top layer as expected.
The most important test is the flatwise tensile test which measures the bond between the laminate layers and the core. What we didn't want to see, is the laminate layers separating from each other, or separating from the core.
To break the 1.25" diameter core sample took almost every weight I had - a total of 276 lbs!
This is a photo of Ken looking down the pattern. The exact length on the print-out was about 20 mm short of what it is supposed to be, so we are going to ask the printers to re-print them.
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Helen and I are off on a hiking trip to Peru to visit Machu Pichuu on Saturday. It's an organized hiking trip from lodge to lodge as we make our way from Cusco to the legendary ancient civilization of Machu Pichuu. I am going to take the opportunity to fit in plenty of trail running at altitude in preparation for my 50 mile ultra marathon in June.
Helen and I are off on a hiking trip to Peru to visit Machu Pichuu on Saturday. It's an organized hiking trip from lodge to lodge as we make our way from Cusco to the legendary ancient civilization of Machu Pichuu. I am going to take the opportunity to fit in plenty of trail running at altitude in preparation for my 50 mile ultra marathon in June.
Labels: boatbuilding, expedition
Marathons, Motivation, Making Boats & Most Extreme
3 Comments Published by Adventures of Greg on Thursday, February 05, 2009 at 10:48 AM.
Surf City Marathon
Cindy had a great race and she qualified for the Boston marathon! Way to go Cindy! Kevin ran his first half marathon, and Helen successfully finished her 15th marathon - whew! I had a good day as well with my 2nd best time of 3:17, 11th in my division and a Boston qualification.
Ultra Marathon
As you might recall, I am planning a possible attempt at the indoor velodrome 1 hour unfaired recumbent record for some point next Spring/Summer. However, since my training for the Surf City marathon went so well, I have decided to also plan something that I've been wanting to do for many, many years now - a 50 mile (80.5 km) Ultra Marathon. Yikes! I haven't picked the race yet, but it will be in June which gives me about 4 months to train. My training started on the day after the Surf City Marathon with an attempt to run which was quite laughable. More like a very enthusiastic hobble than a run. Boy was I sore from that marathon!
Training for the ultra will consist of short runs almost every day with two back to back long runs each week consisting of 3 to 4 hours each. I am actually looking forward to the challenge.
New Web Site www.Human-Power.com
My speaking career has been keeping me very busy. I was in DC a couple of weeks ago to speak to Nutricia Corporation and that was a TON OF FUN! They are a GREAT group and I got a super enthusiastic response from them. Future bookings include a potential presentation for a Winter Olympic sponsor event in Vancouver!
A lot of my business is generated by Google search, and my web site www.human-power.com place on organic google search for keywords "motivational speaker" in very important. To improve my position, I need to start to generate links from other web sites to my human-power.com web site.
You would be doing me a huge solid if you could link http://www.human-power.com from your web site - possibly with the linked text "motivational speaker" Many thanks, and I would be happy to link back to yours from this blog in return.
Also, if there is anything at the speaking web site that you care to comment on, please email me your thoughts at greg@human-power.com. Sometimes we are so close to our trees, that it become difficult to see our forests if you know what I mean. I have worked very hard with my mentor - motivational speaker Steve Donahue, on staying relateable in my actual presentation which I think has resulted in a very impactfull but honest presentation. Your comments - both good and bad are appreciated.
PedalTheOcean.com progress
Ken and I have ordered and received all of the carbon and core supplies and we are ready to sart construction of the new ocean crossing boat. We are just waiting for final details on the drawings from naval architect Stuart Bloomfield.
As you may recall, last year I made a 30 mile trip out into the Pacific ocean from Tofino, BC with the prototype version of WiTHiN and encountered some 15 foot swells and I got so sick I thought I was going to die. Link to that blog post here. I really love the wild west coast of Vancouver Island and was so inspired during the two sea trials that I conducted there, that I decided to look more seriously into a new route for PedalTheOcean.
I contracted weather expert Rick Shema at www.WeatherGuy.com to do an analysis and comparison of both routes, and Rick thinks the new route is doable. I have a PDF report if anyone is interested in reading it. A departure window of May/June is required, so I am looking at possibly June of 2010. This gives me this winter and spring to finish construction and this summer, and next winter for sea trials and experience building.
Most EXTREME
OK - check this out. Ollie Hicks has departed from Tasmania on his ultra extreme ocean rowing quest - to be the first person to circumnavigate the planet by rowing. He is circling Antarctica via the Southern ocean. Ollie is rowing 18,000 miles of the most hostile marine environment on earth. He will will encounter freezing temperatures, 50 foot waves - OMG! You can follow his progress here. I will certainly be watching.
Jennifer Figge is attempting to become the first women to swim across the Atlantic Ocean. Figge is a 56-years-old mother, ultra runner, and swimmer. A few weeks ago she dove into the Atlantic ocean with the goal to swim across 2100 miles from the Cape Verde Islands off the African coast to Barbados. According to Jennifer, her epic swim should take about two months, swimming around eight hours a day, but the math doesn't add up. An average endurance swimmer can swim about 3 km / hour (on flat, calm water - not in rough, open ocean!). 8 hours per day * 3 km/hr = 24 km per day. 2100 miles converted to km is 3300 km. 3300 km / 24 km pr day is 137.5 days! that's about 4 1/2 months, not a couple of months. Still, I wish Jennifer the best of luck and I will definitely be following. Here is Jennifer's FaceBook page.
Labels: boatbuilding, expedition, soapbox, training
Strutless bizarreness
4 Comments Published by Adventures of Greg on Tuesday, June 17, 2008 at 4:37 PM.
I went out to a new lake today and the test results were enlightening. I think I can narrow down the speed difference between what we measure at Elbow lake and both Glenmore reservoir and today's Ghost lake to a preferential current flowing through Elbow lake.
I'll explain: At Elbow, I noticed that my average speed doing a counter clockwise loop around the lake was 11.7 and my speed doing a clockwise loop was 11.1 (km per hour). I assumed this was due to some natural left hand turn tendency of the boat that I was fighting when turning right.
We also assumed that the average speed would be slightly higher when moving in a straight line. At yesterdays Glenmore test and today's Ghost Lake test, this was NOT the case - it was slower in a straight line. We figured that must be due to less drag while turning left and started looking into issues like the strut possibly not aligned and acting like a rudder, recalculating the amount of rudder required of offset the side thrust, and looking at the hull itself.
I repeated a short, 1/2 km loop in both directions today at Ghost lake and was very surprised to measure the same average speed in both directions which was 11.5 kph. This pointed to a current at Elbow being the issue. My average speed over BOTH directions at Elbow just happens to be 11.4 kph - very close to my average today. If we add .1 kph for the smaller flexible shaft to the 11.4 Elbow speed, both speeds are exactly the same.
Elbow valley lake is fed by a small river flowing into the West end. There is a levy that runs under a bridge at the south west side of the lake. The direction of water flow would be from the river then south then south across the lake over the levy. A counter clockwise loop would be taking advantage of this flow whereas a clockwise loop would be fighting the current for at least 1/2 of the loop. There is PLENTY of water flowing right now, as the spring melt is happening. The water level in Glenmore and Ghost lake is very low in preparation for the spring melt from the mountains. Stefan tells me it is creating all kinds of strange eddies and currents. Not the most ideal testing conditions.
This Elbow current result is good news and bad news. The bad news is that my REAL average 150 watt speed is 11.5 kph, not 11.8 like I thought. This could be worth as much as 7 km over 24 hours if I could maintain an ending average of 150 watts (which would not happen). More likely, the difference is probably worth 4 to 5 km over 24 hours. The good news is we found the problem and it isn't anything I can do anything about.
This is bizarre: During today's trouble shooting session at Ghost, I wanted to eliminate the prop strut as the cause of the problems so I just took it off. That's right - there was NO strut holding the prop to the boat - just the shaft. The prop was dangling off the end of an unsupported shaft coupled to my gear box.
The two-blade pusher prop is self-stabilizing meaning that each blade corrects it's attitude when the other blade slips due to changes in the angle of attack (or something like that - I'm regurgitating what Rick told me). I may not be explaining it correctly, but I understand what is happening. This means that the prop will simply start pushing against the shaft and find a horizontal attitude on it's own.
And it works! There was no perceptible difference in feel when I removed the strut, and there was a .1 kph increase is speed due to removing the drag of the strut. Very strange. If you saw it you would laugh and think it is a joke.
I'll explain: At Elbow, I noticed that my average speed doing a counter clockwise loop around the lake was 11.7 and my speed doing a clockwise loop was 11.1 (km per hour). I assumed this was due to some natural left hand turn tendency of the boat that I was fighting when turning right.
We also assumed that the average speed would be slightly higher when moving in a straight line. At yesterdays Glenmore test and today's Ghost Lake test, this was NOT the case - it was slower in a straight line. We figured that must be due to less drag while turning left and started looking into issues like the strut possibly not aligned and acting like a rudder, recalculating the amount of rudder required of offset the side thrust, and looking at the hull itself.
I repeated a short, 1/2 km loop in both directions today at Ghost lake and was very surprised to measure the same average speed in both directions which was 11.5 kph. This pointed to a current at Elbow being the issue. My average speed over BOTH directions at Elbow just happens to be 11.4 kph - very close to my average today. If we add .1 kph for the smaller flexible shaft to the 11.4 Elbow speed, both speeds are exactly the same.
Elbow valley lake is fed by a small river flowing into the West end. There is a levy that runs under a bridge at the south west side of the lake. The direction of water flow would be from the river then south then south across the lake over the levy. A counter clockwise loop would be taking advantage of this flow whereas a clockwise loop would be fighting the current for at least 1/2 of the loop. There is PLENTY of water flowing right now, as the spring melt is happening. The water level in Glenmore and Ghost lake is very low in preparation for the spring melt from the mountains. Stefan tells me it is creating all kinds of strange eddies and currents. Not the most ideal testing conditions.
This Elbow current result is good news and bad news. The bad news is that my REAL average 150 watt speed is 11.5 kph, not 11.8 like I thought. This could be worth as much as 7 km over 24 hours if I could maintain an ending average of 150 watts (which would not happen). More likely, the difference is probably worth 4 to 5 km over 24 hours. The good news is we found the problem and it isn't anything I can do anything about.
This is bizarre: During today's trouble shooting session at Ghost, I wanted to eliminate the prop strut as the cause of the problems so I just took it off. That's right - there was NO strut holding the prop to the boat - just the shaft. The prop was dangling off the end of an unsupported shaft coupled to my gear box.
The two-blade pusher prop is self-stabilizing meaning that each blade corrects it's attitude when the other blade slips due to changes in the angle of attack (or something like that - I'm regurgitating what Rick told me). I may not be explaining it correctly, but I understand what is happening. This means that the prop will simply start pushing against the shaft and find a horizontal attitude on it's own.
And it works! There was no perceptible difference in feel when I removed the strut, and there was a .1 kph increase is speed due to removing the drag of the strut. Very strange. If you saw it you would laugh and think it is a joke.
This is the strutless prop. No joke! It works!
A nano-second after tripping the shutter for this photo,
a gust of wind came up and blew the boat off the stand
into the water busting my rudder in the process!
a gust of wind came up and blew the boat off the stand
into the water busting my rudder in the process!
Speed data:
| date | lake | power watts | wind kph | waves | rudder | prop | loop size km | loop dir | hull | floats | other | SPEED kph |
| 06/05/08 | elbow | 150 | 5 | ripples | big | thin | .5 | counter | taped | norm | 11.1 | |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | calm | flat | big | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | 11.2 | |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | calm | flat | small | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | 11.7 | |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | calm | flat | small | thick | .5 | counter | painted | norm | 11.7 | |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | calm | flat | small | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | prop strut pulled into hull with cord | 11.6 |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | calm | flat | none | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | 11.8 | |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | calm | flat | small | thin | .5 | clock | painted | norm | 11.1 | |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | 10 | ripply | small | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | 11.5 | |
| 06/12/08 | elbow | 150 | 20 | waves | big | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | 11.0 | |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | 20 | waves | big | thick | .5 | counter | painted | norm | 10.9 | |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | 20 | waves | small | thick | .5 | counter | painted | norm | 11.3 | |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | 20 | waves | small | thin | .5 | counter | painted | skimmers | rods | 10 |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | 20 | waves | small | thin | .5 | counter | painted | skimmers | no rods | 10.2 |
| 06/16/08 | elbow | 150 | calm | flat | small | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 11.9 |
| 06/16/08 | elbow | 150 | calm | flat | small | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 11.8 |
| 06/16/08 | elbow | 150 | calm | flat | small | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 11.8 |
| 06/16/08 | elbow | 100 | calm | flat | small | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 10.3 |
| 06/16/08 | elbow | 200 | calm | flat | small | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 13.2 |
| 06/16/08 | Glenmore | 150 | calm | flat | small | thin | 2 | out&back | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 11.1 |
| 06/16/08 | Glenmore | 150 | calm | flat | small | thin | 2.6 | out&back | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 11.1 |
| 06/16/08 | Glenmore | 150 | calm | flat | small | thin | 1.35 | counter | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 10.9 |
| 06/16/08 | Glenmore | 150 | 10 | ripply | none | thin | .84 | counter | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 11.6 |
| 06/16/08 | Glenmore | 150 | 10 | ripply | big | thin | .8 | counter | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 11.1 |
| 06/17/08 | Ghost | 150 | 5 | ripply | small | thin | .8 | out&back | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 11.6/11.2 = 11.4 |
| 06/17/08 | Ghost | 150 | 5 | ripply | small | thin | .52 | counter | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 11.5 |
| 06/17/08 | Ghost | 150 | 5 | ripply | small | thin | .56 | clock | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 11.6 |
| 06/17/08 | Ghost | 150 | 10 | ripply | small | thick | 1 | out&back | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 11.7/11.2 = 11.4 |
| 06/17/08 | Ghost | 150 | 10 | ripply | small | thick | .7 | out&back | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub. NO PROP STRUT | 11.8/11.2 = 11.5 |
| Observations |
| 1. Every 5 kph of wind equates to .1 kph decrease in speed 2. Big rudder is .6 kph slower than small rudder. Small rudder is .1 kph slower than no rudder 3. Right hand turns dramatically slow the boat down. 4. Paint vs packing tape was worth a speed increase of .1 kph 5. Elliminating the prop strut is worth an additional .1 kph in speed. 6. Counter clockwise loops at Elbow Valley lake are worth an additional .2 to .3 kph average speed due to current (??? need to verify) |
Labels: 24hourHPBrecord, boatbuilding
New confusing speed data
5 Comments Published by Adventures of Greg on Monday, June 16, 2008 at 4:23 PM.
It was a perfect weather day today so I got the record boat out to Elbow Valley community lake and ran some test with the new short flexible shaft and free hub:
- #1 flex shaft, small rudder, freehub, 150 watts = 11.9 kph
- #2 REPEAT of #1 = 11.8 kph
- #3 REPEAT of #1 = 11.8 kph
- #4 100 watts = 10.3 kph
- #5 200 watts = 13.2 kph
The spring steel shaft felt good - about the same as the stainless shaft I had on before. My speeds were about .1 kph faster with the smaller shaft diameter and length.
The other good news was the freehub that I coupled to the shaft worked very well. It allowed me to coast without pedaling whereas before, when I stopped moving the pedals, the prop would stop also and cause drag. However, it did nothing to change the feel of the normal pedal action and I found that I missed not being able to pedal backward to clear weeds from the prop or to go in reverse. I don' think that the weight or complexity of the freehub is worth it for the record boat. I don't plan on coasting at all anyhow. Here is a video of the freeprop spinning:
I've been waiting for decent weather, so I took the opportunity and packed the boat up and went to Glenmore reservoir to test some longer, straighter runs with some disappointing results:
- #1 1 km out and back = 11.1 kph
- #2 1.3 km out and back = 11.1 kph
- #3 1.3 km big loop = 10.9 kph
- #4 .8 km loop, NO RUDDER = 11.6 kph (10 kph wind)
- #5 .8 km loop, BIG RUDDER = 11.1 kph (10 kph wind)
So why were my long runs at Glenmore so much slower than at Elbow?
Is it possible that at the small Elbow valley lake I am taking advantage of a counter clockwise flow in the lake? I doubt it because I don't really ever notice any kind of drift when sitting still.
My rudderless run at Glenmore was very close to the speed of the rudderless run at Elbow if I subtract .2 kph for 10 kph winds. Also so was the small loop big rudder run. The only difference was that the initial runs were either straight or a large loop. This makes me think that my slower speeds at Glenmore are due to the straight line route or very large loops that I did. Perhaps the boat is more efficient if it is making a small, constant left hand turn.
To confirm this, I need to get back out to Glenmore (or some other large lake) and repeat tests with various loop diameters and directions. Here is an updated speed table:
| date | lake | power watts | wind kph | waves | rudder | prop | loop size km | loop dir | hull | floats | other | SPEED kph |
| 06/05/08 | elbow | 150 | 5 | ripples | big | thin | .5 | counter | taped | norm | 11.1 | |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | calm | flat | big | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | 11.2 | |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | calm | flat | small | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | 11.7 | |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | calm | flat | small | thick | .5 | counter | painted | norm | 11.7 | |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | calm | flat | small | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | prop strut pulled into hull with cord | 11.6 |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | calm | flat | none | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | 11.8 | |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | calm | flat | small | thin | .5 | clock | painted | norm | 11.1 | |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | 10 | ripply | small | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | 11.5 | |
| 06/12/08 | elbow | 150 | 20 | waves | big | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | 11.0 | |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | 20 | waves | big | thick | .5 | counter | painted | norm | 10.9 | |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | 20 | waves | small | thick | .5 | counter | painted | norm | 11.3 | |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | 20 | waves | small | thin | .5 | counter | painted | skimmers | rods | 10 |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | 20 | waves | small | thin | .5 | counter | painted | skimmers | no rods | 10.2 |
| 06/16/08 | elbow | 150 | calm | flat | small | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 11.9 |
| 06/16/08 | elbow | 150 | calm | flat | small | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 11.8 |
| 06/16/08 | elbow | 150 | calm | flat | small | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 11.8 |
| 06/16/08 | elbow | 100 | calm | flat | small | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 10.3 |
| 06/16/08 | elbow | 200 | calm | flat | small | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 13.2 |
| 06/16/08 | Glenmore | 150 | calm | flat | small | thin | 2 | out&back | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 11.1 |
| 06/16/08 | Glenmore | 150 | calm | flat | small | thin | 2.6 | out&back | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 11.1 |
| 06/16/08 | Glenmore | 150 | calm | flat | small | thin | 1.35 | counter | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 10.9 |
| 06/16/08 | Glenmore | 150 | 10 | ripply | none | thin | .84 | counter | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 11.6 |
| 06/16/08 | Glenmore | 150 | 10 | ripply | big | thin | .8 | counter | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 11.1 |
| 06/17/08 | Ghost | 150 | 5 | ripply | small | thin | .8 | out&back | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 11.6/11.2 = 11.4 |
| 06/17/08 | Ghost | 150 | 5 | ripply | small | thin | .52 | counter | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 11.5 |
| 06/17/08 | Ghost | 150 | 5 | ripply | small | thin | .56 | clock | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 11.6 |
| 06/17/08 | Ghost | 150 | 10 | ripply | small | thick | 1 | out&back | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 11.7/11.2 = 11.4 |
| 06/17/08 | Ghost | 150 | 10 | ripply | small | thick | .7 | out&back | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub. NO PROP STRUT | 11.8/11.2 = 11.5 |
| 06/28/08 | U Kanan | 150 | 10 | waves, ripples, some calm | small | thin | 7.19 | out&back | painted | norm | flex shaft | 11 |
| 06/28/08 | U Kanan | 150 | 5 | ripples | small | thin | 1.19 | clock | flex shaft | 11.5 | ||
| 06/28/08 | U Kanan | 150 | 5 | ripples | small | thin | 1.13 | counter | flex shaft | 11.5 | ||
| 06/28/08 | U Kanan | 150 | 10 | waves, ripples | small | thin | 10.3 | giant loop of lake - counter | flex shaft | 11 | ||
| 06/28/08 | U Kanan | 120 | 10 | waves, ripples, | small | thin | 10.1 | giant loop of lake - clock | flex shaft | 10.1 | ||
| 06/28/08 | U Kanan | 120 | 5 | ripples | small | thin | 1 | clock | flex shaft | 10.5 | ||
| 06/28/08 | U Kanan | 100 | 5 | ripples | small | thin | 1 | clock | flex shaft | 9.6 |
| Observations |
| 1. Every 5 kph of wind equates to .1 kph decrease in speed 2. Big rudder is .6 kph slower than small rudder. Small rudder is .1 kph slower than no rudder 3. Right hand turns dramatically slow the boat down. 4. Paint vs packing tape was worth a speed increase of .1 kph 5. Elliminating the prop strut is worth an additional .1 kph in speed. 6. Counter clockwise loops at Elbow Valley lake are worth an additional .2 to .3 kph average speed due to current (??? need to verify) 7. remove the seals and backing off the lock-nuts on the gear box are worth an additional .1 kph average speed. 8. The narrowed 1/4" spring steel shaft compared to the 3/8" stainless shaft is worth .1 kph speed increase |
Labels: 24hourHPBrecord, boatbuilding
Grizzlies and a freeprop
4 Comments Published by Adventures of Greg on Sunday, June 15, 2008 at 6:00 PM.
Our climb up the Highwood
-----------------------Great training day on Friday with Dennis from Boulder CO and his friend Danfa from San Diego. We drove out to the start of highway 40, about 40 km east of Banff and cycled south about 150 km up and down the pass which is still closed to traffic until Sunday. It was a good, hard ride - they are both fairly experienced and capable cyclists and I was challenged to keep up with them climbing the pass. We saw mountain goats, big horn sheep and two Grizzlies.
Dennis and Dafna as we climb the Highwood pass
Mama grizzly bear and her cub at the side of the road
----------------------------------------
The problem with using the 3/8 stainless rod as a flexible shaft for the pro is that it will eventually fail. Rick calculated the stresses for a number of different materials and I think in order for a fail-safe stainless shaft it would need to be something like 10 feet long. The alternative is to use 2011 T8 aluminum or spring steel. We can't get the 2011 aluminum anywhere and I found 1/4 inch spring steel from a flexible drill shaft manufacturer and purchased some from them.
It's 1/4" OD rather than 3/8", so none of the couplers that Manny machined for me will work, so I just welded a 3/8" stainless length to the end where the prop hardware slides onto. I would plan to ask Manny to machine some nice parts for me, but I wanted to make sure that the spring steel shaft would work first (the length, depth, feel, etc).
I wanted to see what riding with a free wheel would be like so I cut apart this old Shimano freehub that I had and coupled it to the shaft. Now the ride should be more like a road bike than a fixed gear and I should be able to coast a bit without having the stopped prop add so much extra drag. Again, Manny can machine some nice parts for me to mount the freehub, but I wanted to make sure that this freeprop was something that is worth even adding - not sure about that yet - I need to give it a try.
Labels: 24hourHPBrecord, boatbuilding, training
I was visited by Dennis and his friend Dafna from Boulder, CO and San Diego respectively. Dennis has been following my progress for a while and was interested in meeting me. Dafna is a member of the Dewalt cycling team. They were passing through Calgary and stopped in to meet me, so I seized the opportunity and dragged them out to the lake to help me through another round of tests.
Since the weather was not as crappy as it's been lately (rather than high wind, cold and rain we have high wind and cold), the test for today would be to see if the thicker prop doesn't start to stall when powering into a headwind. After Manny finished milling the prop, he finished it smooth and ended up removing about a mill too much of aluminum from the mid section of the airfoil on the prop. According to the prop data, if it is 1 mil too thin, then it will stall very quickly if if exposed to higher RPM's. The new prop that I wanted to test today is an extra prop with some small flaws on it that hasn't been polished smooth, and is still 3 mils thick.
It made no difference to my average speed at 150 watts around my circular course, and the wind was REALLY blowing hard.
I compiled all of my speed data including today's results into a table which I will start keeping:
| date | lake | power watts | wind kph | waves | rudder | prop | loop size km | loop dir | hull | floats | other | SPEED kph |
| 06/05/08 | elbow | 150 | 5 | ripples | big | thin | .5 | counter | taped | norm | 11.1 | |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | calm | flat | big | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | 11.2 | |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | calm | flat | small | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | 11.7 | |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | calm | flat | small | thick | .5 | counter | painted | norm | 11.7 | |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | calm | flat | small | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | prop strut pulled into hull with cord | 11.6 |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | calm | flat | none | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | 11.8 | |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | calm | flat | small | thin | .5 | clock | painted | norm | 11.1 | |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | 10 | ripply | small | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | 11.5 | |
| 06/12/08 | elbow | 150 | 20 | waves | big | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | 11.0 | |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | 20 | waves | big | thick | .5 | counter | painted | norm | 10.9 | |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | 20 | waves | small | thick | .5 | counter | painted | norm | 11.3 | |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | 20 | waves | small | thin | .5 | counter | painted | skimmers | rods | 10 |
| 06/09/08 | elbow | 150 | 20 | waves | small | thin | .5 | counter | painted | skimmers | no rods | 10.2 |
| 06/16/08 | elbow | 150 | calm | flat | small | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 11.9 |
| 06/16/08 | elbow | 150 | calm | flat | small | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 11.8 |
| 06/16/08 | elbow | 150 | calm | flat | small | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 11.8 |
| 16/16/08 | elbow | 100 | calm | flat | small | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 10.3 |
| 16/16/08 | elbow | 200 | calm | flat | small | thin | .5 | counter | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 13.2 |
| 16/16/08 | Glenmore | 150 | calm | flat | small | thin | 2 | out&back | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 11.1 |
| 16/16/08 | Glenmore | 150 | calm | flat | small | thin | 2.6 | out&back | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 11.1 |
| 16/16/08 | Glenmore | 150 | calm | flat | small | thin | 1.35 | counter | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 10.9 |
| 16/16/08 | Glenmore | 150 | 10 | ripply | none | thin | .84 | counter | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 11.6 |
| 16/16/08 | Glenmore | 150 | 10 | ripply | big | thin | .8 | counter | painted | norm | flex shaft & freehub | 11.1 |
| Observations |
| 1. Every 5 kph of wind equates to .1 kph decrease in speed 2. Big rudder is .6 kph slower than small rudder. Small rudder is .1 kph slower than no rudder 3. Right hand turns dramatically slow the boat down. 4. Paint vs packing tape was worth a speed increase of .1 kph |
The other test we did was an idea from Warren Beauchamp who suggested that planing skimmers rather than displacement hull floats might be more efficient. He sent me instructions for building the skimmers that he made for his Necky kayak HPB. They are simply two strips of 1" thick Styrofoam. I was worried that they wouldn't provide enough buoyancy, so I added some pool noodle foam to the ends of the arms, but thin foam skimmers provided more than enough bouyancy without the pool noodles. I positioned the skimmers to just sit slightly above the water with the tails pushing down slightly to just below the water line. The tails were pushed down using two fiberglass tent poles.
In this photo you can see the fiberglass tent poles
pushing the tails of the skimmers down into the water.
Overall, because of the high winds today my speeds were about .4 kph slower than when it was calm. Over 24 hours that would add up to about 9.6 km if I were able to maintain 150 watts for the entire 24 hours which wouldn't happen. Also, the winds typically start up in the afternoon and die down after 6:00 pm. If it was very windy for 8 hours of the 24 hour day, and I lost an average of .3 kph, I would loose a total of only 2.4 km. That's not as bad as I thought it would be.pushing the tails of the skimmers down into the water.
Because I've done two wind tests, I can estimate that for every 5 kph of wind at 150 watts of power, it costs me .1 kph
Dennis going for a spin
Labels: 24hourHPBrecord, boatbuilding
I made a new rudder designed to keep the boat tracking straight. It is ridiculously tiny. The photo below does not do it justice. It's 1" wide, and it works like a charm. I found it very easy to make slow, gradual turns and keep the boat tracking in a straight line. Without any rudder at all, it wants to turn left, so this small little wonder works very well.
I also had the hull finished and painted. It is WAY smoother, and contrary to most of the advice I have been getting, is NOT responsible for any appreciable speed gains! I really don't think that at these speeds, surface finish is all that important.
The good news is that we are now very close to design specs for speed!
The good news is that we are now very close to design specs for speed!
I found that the only way to get accurate speed/power data was by doing large GPS speed averaged loops around the perimeter of the lake. They are VERY accurate. I was able to repeat the same configuration more than once and get the exact same average down to .1 kph. I use an SRM power meter connected to the cranks, so I am able to output a constant power level and record my average speed over a set course with a GPS. Repeating this with small changes to the boat allow me to quantify the effect those changes have.
Here are the results of today's testing:
For general touring around and training, the large rudder in the rudder tube works fine. For the record attempt, and testing where I will steer around a large, gradual, round course, the small rudder works fine and I don't even need the dipping rudder.
Here are the results of today's testing:
- thin prop, large rudder, left hand loop, 150 watts, no paint on hull, packing tape on hull (test from last week) = 11.1 kph
- thin prop, large rudder, left hand loop, 150 watts, painted hull = 11.2 kph
- thin prop, tiny rudder, left hand loop, 150 watts, painted hull = 11.7 kph
- thicker prop, tiny rudder, left hand loop, 150 watts, painted hull = 11.7 kph
- thin prop, tiny rudder, left hand loop, 150 watts, painted hull, prop strut pulled close to the hull by a cord ( I wanted to see what would happen if we moved the prop closer to the hull) = 11.6 kph
- thin prop, NO rudder at all, left hand loop, 150 watts, painted hull, = 11.8 kph
- (I had to stop and start the GPS 2 times to paddle correct course, but I don't think it mattered)
- thin prop, tiny rudder, RIGHT hand loop (counter to the way the boat naturally wants to steer), 150 watts, painted hull, = 11.1 kph (I had to use the dip steer rudder a couple of times to stay on course, but I still think this was slower because it went against the natural turn of the hull/prop)
- thin prop, tiny rudder, left hand loop, 150 watts, painted hull, windy (small ripples on water) = 11.5 kph
For general touring around and training, the large rudder in the rudder tube works fine. For the record attempt, and testing where I will steer around a large, gradual, round course, the small rudder works fine and I don't even need the dipping rudder.
Pulling the prop strut in tight to the hull using a cord did not do anything to correct the direction of thrust. In fact, I took a close look at the thrust direction when spinning the prop while held back to the dock and the thrust is very straight - I don't think that is the problem. I believe it is due to the thrust being at the side rather than right down the middle, and the cost of putting the thrust in the center would probably cost more than the couple of watts it probably costs now.
To summarize, the paint and body work added some weight because I had to add one washer to lift the outriggers, but the paint made it only .1 kph faster than packing tape, and the packing tape improvement over the unpainted hull wasn't quantified in the loop test, but the straight-line tests showed no difference. The small rudder compared to my large rudder is worth .6 kph (that's huge), and a bit of wind (maybe 10 kph) was worth a reduction of .2 kph. The wind effect could also be fairly significant because average wind speeds typically reach highs of 15 to 20 kph during mid afternoon around Calgary.
This is a cord we strapped to the rudder strut to pull it toward the hull. It didn't change the left steering tendency, and slowed it down (probably due to the drag of the cord) by .1 km/hr
Greg Bradley going for a spin
Labels: 24hourHPBrecord, boatbuilding
A little Aussie magic
4 Comments Published by Adventures of Greg on Sunday, June 01, 2008 at 5:10 PM.
Greg at about 150 watts of power and 11.5 kph
Success! With Aussie Rick Willoughby's help, we narrowed down the source of the speed problems, and it wasn't at all what we thought.
Before I get into that - some additional good news: I finished a 207 km training ride with Chad on Wednesday and my Achilles tendon was fine! It seems to have solved itself, thank goodness! Now I can slowly resume ramping up my mileage.
Rick is from Melbourne, Australia and is visiting Canada with his wife Rhonda. The timing of his vacation worked out perfectly because my human powered boat is basically an attempt to recreate his design - a culmination of many years worth of experimentation, trial and error resulting in what we believe to be the most efficient human powered water craft on the planet for longer distances. I've been having some problems reaching the speeds we should be seeing, and Rick was able to spend a couple of days with me in Calgary trouble shooting.
A single rowing skull is probably faster over shorter distances, and there are a some pedal powered boats that use hydrofoils that are even faster than a rowing skull. The world record for 100 meters is 34.2 km/hr set by a hydrofoil and pedal powered air propeller boat called Decavitator. The current record for the most distance in 24 hours is held by Carter Johnson who paddled his conventional kayak 245 km around a rectangular course on a flat, calm lake. The Surfski kayak that Carter used is very efficient for longer distances, but we believe that our V11 pedal and propeller powered boat has a slight edge over Carter's kayak.
Rick arrived at my house early on Thursday morning with his propeller. He was hopeful that his 'known-good' propeller would make all the difference. Rick was also concerned about the surface finish of my hull, so to test that, we covered the hull with packing tape to smoothen it out. We figured that the combination of the smooth tape covered hull and his prop would get me my 12 kph at 150 watts of power that the boat was designed to produce.
Before I get into that - some additional good news: I finished a 207 km training ride with Chad on Wednesday and my Achilles tendon was fine! It seems to have solved itself, thank goodness! Now I can slowly resume ramping up my mileage.
Rick is from Melbourne, Australia and is visiting Canada with his wife Rhonda. The timing of his vacation worked out perfectly because my human powered boat is basically an attempt to recreate his design - a culmination of many years worth of experimentation, trial and error resulting in what we believe to be the most efficient human powered water craft on the planet for longer distances. I've been having some problems reaching the speeds we should be seeing, and Rick was able to spend a couple of days with me in Calgary trouble shooting.
A single rowing skull is probably faster over shorter distances, and there are a some pedal powered boats that use hydrofoils that are even faster than a rowing skull. The world record for 100 meters is 34.2 km/hr set by a hydrofoil and pedal powered air propeller boat called Decavitator. The current record for the most distance in 24 hours is held by Carter Johnson who paddled his conventional kayak 245 km around a rectangular course on a flat, calm lake. The Surfski kayak that Carter used is very efficient for longer distances, but we believe that our V11 pedal and propeller powered boat has a slight edge over Carter's kayak.
Rick arrived at my house early on Thursday morning with his propeller. He was hopeful that his 'known-good' propeller would make all the difference. Rick was also concerned about the surface finish of my hull, so to test that, we covered the hull with packing tape to smoothen it out. We figured that the combination of the smooth tape covered hull and his prop would get me my 12 kph at 150 watts of power that the boat was designed to produce.
We covered the hull with packing tape
Surprisingly, the speed was a bit SLOWER due to Ricks prop and the taped hull! The CNC machined aluminum prop Manny made for me was actually slightly better than Ricks hand made prop. Rick's prop was grippier because it was designed for power at a lower rpm, but the speed it produced at various power outputs was slightly less than my high rpm prop.
After a few hours of experimenting, the last thing we tried was to remove the rudder. All of a sudden I got a significant .5 kph speed jump! Ah ha. The boat tracked fairly straight without a rudder and I used a paddle to turn. My speed was up to 11 kph compared to 10.3 before.
After a few hours of experimenting, the last thing we tried was to remove the rudder. All of a sudden I got a significant .5 kph speed jump! Ah ha. The boat tracked fairly straight without a rudder and I used a paddle to turn. My speed was up to 11 kph compared to 10.3 before.
Rick Willoughby working on the new
flexible shaft and super-thin prop strut
When we got back to the shop, we discussed reasons why the rudder might be the cause of this drag. Rick felt there was some unexpected interaction between my prop strut and the rudder. One difference between my boat and Rick's, is that Rick uses a curved flexible shaft rather than a rigid shaft with a U-joint. Rick calculated that we could temporarily substitute my rigid shaft for a flexible curved steel shaft to test out the elimination of the u-joint. I welded a couple of the shorter stainless shaft sections that I had together and we used a spare bearings tube that Manny made to rig up this very odd prop hanger. This is where the Aussie magic comes in, because if you saw this you would insist that it couldn't possibly work.
The prop hangs from the deck by a 1/16" thick (we're talking cardboard thickness here) by 1" wide flimsy strap of aluminum that has been filed down to a sharp point on both sides. Seriously - you can blow the prop under the hull with a good puff.
The reason this works is that the pusher prop is self stabilizing. When it starts to produce thrust, it maintains a level horizontal attitude and pushes against the angled shaft which forces it to curve up to the gear box. The cardboard prop strut isn't really even required aside from stopping the prop from slicing into the hull during turns.
The prop hangs from the deck by a 1/16" thick (we're talking cardboard thickness here) by 1" wide flimsy strap of aluminum that has been filed down to a sharp point on both sides. Seriously - you can blow the prop under the hull with a good puff.
The reason this works is that the pusher prop is self stabilizing. When it starts to produce thrust, it maintains a level horizontal attitude and pushes against the angled shaft which forces it to curve up to the gear box. The cardboard prop strut isn't really even required aside from stopping the prop from slicing into the hull during turns.
On Friday morning the lake was calm again and we got some good tests in. The combination of the new flexible shaft and elimination of the rudder produced the best speeds yet of 11.5 km/hr. We put the rudder back in and the speed slowed to just above 11 km / hr. I did a double loop of the circumference of the lake and averaged 11.1 km/hr on exactly 150 watts of power with the rudder in.
The first thing I noticed about the flexible shaft is how smooth the pedalling action was - way better than with the U-joint. Without the rudder, the boat tracked slightly to port, so we thought that a very small fixed rudder would help keep the boat tracking straight. For turning and course corrections, we came up with a dipping rudder idea that would normally be out of the water when not being used. This way, there would be minimal drag when travelling straight forward.
For optimal efficiency, I need to find a very large and sheltered lake where I can plan a huge circular loop consisting of many very small turns.
What next?
I am pretty sure that with some fine-tuning I can get my average speed up to 12 km / hr on 150 watts of power. The hull is now being surface finished by Dave Albreight - a local composites expert who built the University of Calgary solar car. Once I install the new small directional stability rudder, and the dipping steering rudder, and shave some weight off of the outrigger floats, I should be able to maintain 12 km / hr over straight sections.
Here are a few drawings of the dipping rudder idea that will be used to steer about the buoy markers:
I know from experience using the SRM power meter, that I am capable of maintaining power output of 150 watts over 24 hours. If we can achieve the design specifications, then 150 watts will equate to 12 km/hr - or a total of 288 km which would be a whopping 43 km over the current record which is 245 km. Unfortunately, because of power output reductions and slow-downs due to corners, periodic short breaks from pedalling, etc, my real over-all average watts including the 0's recorded when not pedalling, slowly works it's way down to between 100 to 120 watts. I believe that my ending overall average when I set the 24 hour human powered vehicle record was 120 watts, and my average at last summers 24 hour pedal boat distance record was around 100 watts. My 100 watt average speed is 10 km/hr which would equal 240 km (just shy of a record), and my 120 watt average speed is 11 km/hr which would equal 264 km - 19 km over the current record.
Of course, these speed estimates are based on perfectly calm lake conditions with a minimum of speed-sucking turns. This means that I definitely need to find a large, very sheltered, windless lake to make a record attempt on.
I found a database of wind speed averages at the Canadian Wind Atlas web site:
Average wind speeds for Southern Alberta and BC. Click to enlargeAccording to this map, my best chances of finding a windless lake is west of the great divide, or West of Banff in the shelter of the Rockie Mountains. Banff, Lake Louise, Field or Golden look good and they are not too far away from Calgary. Here are some photos and basic information for some possible lake venues:
Length: 2 km
Width: .5 km
Facilities: dock, hotel(s) near by
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Moraine LakeLength: 1.25 km
Width: 200 meters
Facilities: canoe docks and Moraine Lake Lodge
Comments: too small
----------------------------------------------------------
Comments: too small
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Johnson LakeLength: 1 km
Width: .25 km
Comments: too small
----------------------------------------------------------
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Bow LakeLength: 3.2 km
Width: 1.2 km
Facilities: Lodge on the lake
Comments: Big enough, but far from Calgary
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Comments: Big enough, but far from Calgary
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Vermillion LakeLength: .5 km
Width: .5 km
Facilities: town of Banff near by
Comments: Too small and shallow
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Comments: Too small and shallow
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Lake MinnewankaLength: 24 km
Width: 1 km
Facilities: town of Banff near by
Comments: Very large, but possibly windy location.
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Comments: Very large, but possibly windy location.
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Length: 5.3 km
Width: 1.2 km
Facilities: town of Banff near by
Comments: large, but far from Calgary
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Comments: large, but far from Calgary
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Length: 2.8 km
Width: .8 km
Facilities: nothing much near by
Comments: large, but far from Calgary
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Comments: large, but far from Calgary
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Labels: 24hourHPBrecord, boatbuilding
Another U-joint bites the dust
8 Comments Published by Adventures of Greg on Monday, May 26, 2008 at 2:18 PM.
I was out on Elbow Valley lake for a 2 hour training spin, and test of the new steering rig, U-joint and a crazy idea I had for the prop.
I sanded down the hull again and was able to sand off some of the weave texture. I also spread a thin coat of micro on the port side of the bow and sanded it smooth. I don't want to do any more because: A. I hate sanding - can't stand it, and B. I'm afraid of making the surface finish worse due to my total lack of ability in that area, and refer to A; my very poor attitude toward surface finishing.
If the reason for the missing 12% speed is due to the surface finish of the hull, then wouldn't you think that I might measure just a tiny bit more speed today after a some sanding and a slightly smoother bow? I didn't see any speed improvements at all. It's possible that I need a glass-like finish all over the hull and I will pursue this regardless. I'm just not going to be the one to do it, I'll probably job that out to a body shop or something. I'm just not convinced that is the reason for my speed issues.
I do not think that the hull is deforming. I reached down today while she was in the water and I was still able to press the sides of the hull in with my hand - meaning they weren't already depressed due to the water pressure. Also a more careful visual inspection resulted in no deformation that I could see.
The other purpose of today's ride was to test out my steering handle. It is a bit awkward to hold onto the steering cables, so I rigged up an aluminum stick and it worked really well. There is enough tension on the hinge for the handle to keep the rudder exactly where I leave it, so steering is MUCH easier now. I can let go and the boat tracks perfectly straight.
This might sound silly, but I had a dream the other night that I solved the speed issues by adding my second prop to the existing prop at the end of the shaft. I tried that today just for the hell of it and it surprisingly had very little effect. I had BOTH props on forming an "x". My speed with both props at 100 watts was 9.2 km / hr compared to 9.3 km / hr with one prop (about the same) , but my cadence was 71 rpm compared to 78 rpm. There was no spinner on the trailing end of the double prop configuration which could have been worth the missing 1 km / hr (but that could easily be error - it was a bit windy and the lake wasn't as calm as the first Elbow test).
The bad news is that after only 2 hours my new U-joint donated to me by Curtis Universal broke! This is strange because it is rated for maximum static torque inch-lbs of 100. Both Manny and Rick think this should be strong enough.
Strangely, I didn't measure any significant difference in speed from the new narrow profile u-joint compared to the old draggy u-joint with the fat flanges.
This boat is very fast - don't get me wrong regarding my constant bitching about the speed. To provide some perspective, the winning human powered boat at last years Hydrobowl finished the two km time trial with an average speed of 9.36 km / hr. Power output for an average person for 20 minutes might be around 200 watts or so which would equate to an average speed of about 11.5 km / hr in my boat. To average the hydrobowl winning speed of 9.36 km / hr in my boat would take only about 100 watts. At 100 watts of output power, you might be able to do the whole 2 km time trial with one leg.
BUT, let me put that into further perspective for you: On May 18th Lewis Laughlin won the Epic Kayak Molokai World Championships - a 32 mile surf-ski kayak race across the Molokai channel between the islands of Molokai and Oahu. He averaged a whopping 14 km / hr for 3 hours, 40 minutes. The stretch of water between Molokai and Oahu isn't exactly mirror flat either.
I have some work to do!
BUT, let me put that into further perspective for you: On May 18th Lewis Laughlin won the Epic Kayak Molokai World Championships - a 32 mile surf-ski kayak race across the Molokai channel between the islands of Molokai and Oahu. He averaged a whopping 14 km / hr for 3 hours, 40 minutes. The stretch of water between Molokai and Oahu isn't exactly mirror flat either.
I have some work to do!
A delivery guy just backed his van into my boat which was strapped to the roof-top carrier on the Suburban! He cracked the carbon near the stern, bent my rudder and forced the kayak cradle off of the roof rack. Idiot. And he wasn't even going to tell me about it. As I was signing for the delivery I noticed the boat was sitting DIAGONAL on the suburban. I looked at him and he fessed up to backing into it.
Oh - and one more thing (almost forgot!) - exciting news: My friend Roz Savage has departed for her Pacific ocean row from SanFransisco to Hawaii. I'll be following closely:
http://www.rozsavage.com/blog/
(I designed Roz's new logo for her)
gk
Oh - and one more thing (almost forgot!) - exciting news: My friend Roz Savage has departed for her Pacific ocean row from SanFransisco to Hawaii. I'll be following closely:
http://www.rozsavage.com/blog/
(I designed Roz's new logo for her)
gk
Labels: 24hourHPBrecord, boatbuilding
I'm just not sure that hull deflection is the reason my V11 is 12% slower than Rick's version. Marc calculated that I should be able to approximate the water pressure on the skin by placing a 2.5 ' long by 4" wide board with a 13 lb weight on the hull between the bulkheads and observe the deflection.
When I took a closer look at how much the skin deflected, I realized that it doesn't move at all on the curved part of the hull which is almost the entire hull aside from a small section of flat side walls under the water line. My water line is about 4" below the deck, and the amount of flat wall on the hull below 4" is only an inch or so. Even if that area was deflecting, it would represent a very small and possibly insignificant portion of the entire hull in the water.
To test, I was going to seal up the edges of the deck with fiberglass tape and epoxy, then pressurize the hull with air to stop the sides from deflecting. Easier said than done.
I had to seal the edges anyhow because they leak water when waves splash on deck, so I figured that it was a job worth doing regardless. After I had sealed up the edges, I hooked up my compressor and there are a million tiny air leaks through the flange where the deck is taped to the hull - the glas stape and epoxy didn't seal it air-tight. They aren't leaky enough to be concerned with much water getting in (that is good), but they do prevent me from being able to keep enough air pressure in the hull to do a water test for hull deflection. To go around and fix all the leaks would be a major pain and I just don't want to do it.
I had to seal the edges anyhow because they leak water when waves splash on deck, so I figured that it was a job worth doing regardless. After I had sealed up the edges, I hooked up my compressor and there are a million tiny air leaks through the flange where the deck is taped to the hull - the glas stape and epoxy didn't seal it air-tight. They aren't leaky enough to be concerned with much water getting in (that is good), but they do prevent me from being able to keep enough air pressure in the hull to do a water test for hull deflection. To go around and fix all the leaks would be a major pain and I just don't want to do it.
Many of you suggested placing air bags into the hull. Now that the top deck is sealed on, I don't want to cut it back out to place air bags in!
The other solution to deflection that has been suggested is to run some carbon reinforcement ribs longitudinally between the perpendicular bulkheads. Again, I would have to cut open the top deck to get in there, and I don't really want to bother with the effort and additional weight if it isn't really required.
Another idea suggested was to fill the compartments between bulkheads up with expanding foam. The reason I didn't leave the Styrofoam plug in the hull was to save weight. Foam would add substantial weight to the hull and I do not think this option is worth the additional displacement that the increased weight would cause. The hollow shell with the deck on weighs less than 20 lbs and if possible, I would like to keep it that way. Adding ribs wouldn't increase the overall weight that much, but I don't want to cut the deck open to add the ribs if they end up doing nothing to increase me speed.
The other solution to deflection that has been suggested is to run some carbon reinforcement ribs longitudinally between the perpendicular bulkheads. Again, I would have to cut open the top deck to get in there, and I don't really want to bother with the effort and additional weight if it isn't really required.
Another idea suggested was to fill the compartments between bulkheads up with expanding foam. The reason I didn't leave the Styrofoam plug in the hull was to save weight. Foam would add substantial weight to the hull and I do not think this option is worth the additional displacement that the increased weight would cause. The hollow shell with the deck on weighs less than 20 lbs and if possible, I would like to keep it that way. Adding ribs wouldn't increase the overall weight that much, but I don't want to cut the deck open to add the ribs if they end up doing nothing to increase me speed.
I do need to surface finish the hull - especially the first 6 feet or so. The surface is a bit rough and a thin application of micro with sanding would smoothen it out quite a bit. With the deflection of the side walls, I worry about being able to sand it flat.
One option that I am considering is to tip the boat on it's side, drill a small hole in the opposite side, then pour in a small amount of expanding foam. This foam would settle against the side wall and could provide enough additional structure to stop any deflection without adding too much weight. At least it would give me a more solid hull to micro and sand smooth. I could limit this foam wall to the first compartment which is about 6 feet from the tip of the bow to the first bulkhead.
One option that I am considering is to tip the boat on it's side, drill a small hole in the opposite side, then pour in a small amount of expanding foam. This foam would settle against the side wall and could provide enough additional structure to stop any deflection without adding too much weight. At least it would give me a more solid hull to micro and sand smooth. I could limit this foam wall to the first compartment which is about 6 feet from the tip of the bow to the first bulkhead.
My new super-strong stainless steel u-joints arrived yesterday. Manny did some research and found me a new u-joint that didn't have the draggy flange on it, and was rated to take the torque. I contacted Curtis Universal and it turns out that the President is a kayaker and really digs what I am doing, so he donated two of them to the project! That's pretty cool considering they are worth $130 bucks each! Thanks Curtis!
You can see the difference between the two joints in the photo above. I doubt that the more hydrodynamic Curtis U-joint is worth the missing 12%, but it will certainly help.
The next step is to try to somehow stiffen the side walls near the bow, then apply some micro and do some sanding to get the surface finish of the bow area smooth. Rick Willoughby is in Canada on a vacation with his wife, and is swinging by Calgary on Tuesday of next week. He brought his stainless steel prop with him, and we can substitute my prop for his and run a test to see if the culprit is my prop. I took a closer look at the prop today and it is very easy to bend by hand. Perhaps a thin aluminum prop isn't stiff enough to press back on the water as it spins at 400 rpm.
I have a sneaking hunch now that my problems could be due to the prop. Either it is too thick (Manny had to thicken it a bit to cnc machine), or it is too flexy.
You can see the difference between the two joints in the photo above. I doubt that the more hydrodynamic Curtis U-joint is worth the missing 12%, but it will certainly help.
The next step is to try to somehow stiffen the side walls near the bow, then apply some micro and do some sanding to get the surface finish of the bow area smooth. Rick Willoughby is in Canada on a vacation with his wife, and is swinging by Calgary on Tuesday of next week. He brought his stainless steel prop with him, and we can substitute my prop for his and run a test to see if the culprit is my prop. I took a closer look at the prop today and it is very easy to bend by hand. Perhaps a thin aluminum prop isn't stiff enough to press back on the water as it spins at 400 rpm.
I have a sneaking hunch now that my problems could be due to the prop. Either it is too thick (Manny had to thicken it a bit to cnc machine), or it is too flexy.
Labels: 24hourHPBrecord, boatbuilding
Photographic evidence!
11 Comments Published by Adventures of Greg on Tuesday, May 20, 2008 at 6:18 PM.
I think we have a break in the case of the missing speed.
click to enlarge
I was thinking more about Cyrille's comments (and others) about the hull skin deforming under the pressure of the water. The hull is made from 2 layers of 5.8 oz carbon and 1 layer of 6 oz carbon/Kevlar weave plus a final layer of 4 oz fiberglass. It's pretty thin - you can cut it with scissors. To add stiffness, I added 6 bulkheads running down the length of the hull:
You can easily indent the hull between bulkheads with a bit of pressure from your fingers. I didn't think that the water pressure could depress the skin because the pressure is distributed evenly around the hull. Imagine pressing one finger into an inflated balloon and then imagine evenly distributed pressure happening from all around the balloon.
I decided to see if I could find any evidence of deformation from the photos, and low and behold - I think I found something. It is very, very slight, but everywhere I thought I could see the water line moving away from a smooth, gradual curve was exactly between where the bulkheads are. I believe that the water is indeed depressing the skin between the bulkheads.
I have an idea how to easily confirm this. I can pressurize the hull with enough air to keep the sides from depressing in (any idea how much air pressure would be required?). First, I need to add some fiberglass tape and epoxy around the edge of the deck flange to seal off the leaks. When it is choppy, water washes over the bow and water leaks into the hull from gaps at the edges of the deck. Once this edging is on, and a few very small pin holes are filled with epoxy, the hull should be air-tight.
I would think that I could pressurize the inside of the hull with a bicycle pump, then quickly hop on for a speed test.
Wait a sec.... If the air pressure isn't enough to stop the deformation, or if I can't get it air-tight enough to hold pressure permanently, how will I get back under the deck to add additional reinforcement to the skin if I have already taped up the edges? I guess if I determine that air pressure would be enough to stop the skin from indenting, then I am sort of committed to that solution once I add my edge tape. Any other ideas?
Labels: 24hourHPBrecord, boatbuilding
Human powered boat lake test from Greg Kolodziejzyk on Vimeo.
This morning presented a VERY good environment for testing, and I think I learned a lot. Unfortunately though, she is still not any faster...
I met my brother in-law Cyrille out at the Elbow Valley community lake at 7:30 this morning before the wind started to blow the lake apart. The lake was mirror flat and it ended up being the perfect place to test, as it was easy to do a quick loop, pull the boat up to the dock, make a change and do another quick loop. There was no wind and no current, so the need to repeat every test with an averaged 'out and back' trip wasn't required. I would do a 100 watt 'out' leg, turn around and do a 150 watt 'return' leg back to the dock.
click to enlarge
Rick was exactly right about the self stabilizing features of a pushing propeller. The additional strut that I added to better support the prop actually INCREASED the vibration and made the boat slower due to the drag of that strut. It was faster and vibrated less when I removed the addition. In fact, we found that we could leave the prop strut bracket just sitting on the deck without any fasteners holding it in place, and the prop would still push the boat as fast as it would when the prop bracket was screwed down to the hull.
The additional prop strut was tested and removed
We also found that slight pitch changes to the prop made very little difference to the speed. Neither did slight changes to the direction (right to left) of prop thrust. I brought some clamps with me and we clamped the prop strut bracket down to the deck flange in a variety of different positions which changed the position of the prop. None of these off-center positions made much of a difference to the speed unless it was greatly exaggerated. We also changed the depth of the prop and that also made no difference. This leads me to believe that my prop is OK - it is producing exactly the right power at exactly the right rpm that it was designed to do, and it is able to do it consistently in various configurations. It seems pretty robust and if something in the drive system were responsible for the slower than expected speeds I would expect that the changes we were making today would have a far greater result than they did.
Using my spare prop, I decreased the degree of twist a bit (sorry Manny!). We mounted the 'more grippy' prop to the shaft and it was far less efficient. I produced more power at lower RPM, but the resulting speeds were all lower. Probably due to the inaccuracy of twisting the prop in a vice with wood blocks and a clamp. At least I know now, that the prop Rick designed and Manny CNC machined, is working perfectly as it was designed to.
So, here is where I am at:
1. The speed I need to break Carters record of 245 km in 24 hours is an average of 10.2 km / hr.
2. My average power output over 24 hours (including breaks, coasting, and zeros, etc) is 110 watts.
3. According to Ricks design and his V11, 110 watts should produce 10.8 km / hr which would result in a total of 259.2 km
4. Currently, my version of Ricks V11 goes 9.4 km / hour on 110 watts of power which would equal a total distance of 225.6 km which would be about 20 km short of Carters record.
5. At 150 watts of power, I am currently getting 10.5 km / hour and I am supposed to be getting 12 km / hr. I am about 12.5% slower than Ricks V11 design.
I now know that my lack of speed is probably NOT due to the drive or prop, but probably due to hull drag. The fastest I have been able to go is a little over 11 km / hr and the power required was over 200 watts. Input power over 200 watts produces very little additional speed. Rick can get his V11 up to 16 km / hr! This alone tells me that the drag of my hull, or overall drag is probably the culprit. Here is a speed/power plot - notice that my entire curve is lower than Ricks, which to me, suggests that the reason I am slower is due to my hull speed being lower which could be due to additional drag.
One of the causes of this additional drag could be the outriggers. I am finding it very difficult to balance off of the outriggers. Rick is on vacation right now, so he is unable to offer advice. I played around with trying to balance on the center hull today and found it very hard - even with my new low seat position. We played around with raising and lowering the outriggers and I could not get the boat balanced. You can see in the video that almost always, one outrigger is dragging through the water. The extra drag from this outrigger could be slowing me down, but is it responsible for the missing 12 % ?
Balancing act
Another cause of drag is the flanges on the u-joint that I am currently using. I have ordered a new u-joint that is the same diameter as the shaft and I will replace the fat draggy one when it arrives.
The last refinement regarding drag that need to look at, is the surface finish of the hull. It is far from perfectly smooth, and I wonder if the surface texture of the carbon fabric weave as well as a few bumps and wobblies could be responsible for my missing 12 percent? Also, one of Cyrille's concerns was that the skin of the hull is very thin, and between bulkheads you can depress the hull with your hands. I wonder if the water would have enough force to push the sides in and distort the hull shape? I wonder how I can test for this deformation?
We even placed rocks on the bow and stern to see if weight distribution made any difference. It made it slower.
Click to enlarge
Cyrille enjoying a spin
Labels: 24hourHPBrecord, boatbuilding
More mods, attempt at testing
8 Comments Published by Adventures of Greg on Thursday, May 15, 2008 at 7:48 PM.
I finished all my mods yesterday. What a BUSY, busy day! I can't believe I accomplished what I was able to do in just one day. My goal was to add some additional structure to the prop strut to stop it from vibrating, add a bushing half way down the shaft to stop it from vibrating, to lower my seat down to the deck, and to make a new mount for the outriggers (my old mount used the seat frame, and this is now cut off to lower the seat). I wanted to get the work finished and get out to the lake to test it all because I am out of town for the weekend and wanted to take advantage of the good weather.
I finished all my work by 4:00 pm. We were enjoying Calgary's first stellar spring day with high temperatures nearing 29 degrees C and no clouds in sight. But as luck would have it, by the time I got to the lake the wind started howling and the lake was covered with whitecaps. Everything I made seemed to work fine, but measuring speed and power was useless because of the waves. I was getting soaked and blown all over the place.
I hope to test these mods again next week, but even in the waves and wind, she didn't seem appreciably faster.
This prop strut brace is a 2" wide strip of aluminum that is fared to a taper on both sides. It wraps around the hull and is screwed to the main strut about half-way down. I also lowered the prop an additional 2" This was enough additional support to keep the prop from vibrating while spinning in the air. I know that I am adding some drag, but for now, I am looking for a large step in speed. When I find it, then I'll know what the culprit was and I can back-track and re-work things to refine it.
I added this nylon spherical rod end that I had. The 3/8" shaft fit perfectly through the ball. This did a great job in stopping the shaft from vibrating. It is located just high enough that it should be above the water line, so it shouldn't contribute to drag. However, in the wind, waves and chop from my test yesterday, it was definitely getting wet.
Labels: 24hourHPBrecord, boatbuilding
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.
-------------------------------
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.
-------------------------------
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
The new 24 hour record attempt!!!
2 Comments Published by Adventures of Greg on Friday, May 02, 2008 at 9:54 AM.
24 hour human powered boat record:
This boat is going to be fiendishly fast!
First you have to check out this work of art that my buddy Manny from Rhomec Industries made for me:
It's the aluminum prop, spinner, bearing tube and fairing cones for the drive for the new 24 hour record attempt boat. VERY SWEET!
I want to keep the exact configuration of the drive unit proprietary for a little while, so I'm not posting any drawings of it here. I am aware of another group who has indicated to me that they plan on challenging my 174 km pedal boat record from last summer and I don't really want to give away any of our secrets just yet. I am not **repeat NOT** attempting to break my own 174 km pedal boat record - I am attempting to break Carter Johnson's 245 km kayaking record! I am aware that there is a big spread between 174 km and 245 km, and this boat that was designed by Rick Willoughby is capable of at least 245 km in 24 hours. If I am able to go farther than 245 km in 24 hours on a flat lake, then it will be the farthest any person has ever travelled in 24 hours on water under their own power.
Rick is helping with design and engineering direction, Manny from Rhomec is contributing his wicked machining skills to make the prop and drive unit parts, the right angle gear drive was donated by my buddy George and PedalTheOcean sponsor MitrPak, and my right hand man Ben is helping out in the shop. I'll have a cast of other friends helping with officiating, observing and other help like last year - it is TRULY a collaborative effort and I am VERY grateful for all of the support these friends are providing.
My original intention was to invite Carter Johnson to Calgary and stage a race and possibly a new world record by either Carter or I. I'm not sure that is going to work because lake conditions for a record need to be nearly perfect - very calm and flat water. That means I need to race on a day with little to no wind which means that I can't schedule an exact date for the record attempt. My intention is to be ready to go and watch the weather closely, then when a suitable weather window opens up, just DO IT.
Ben came over today and we made some progress on the main hull. This hull is 24 feet long and 9" wide at it's widest point. The Styrofoam plug was CNC machined by Jarrett Johnson in Saskatchewan and delivered to me in 4 parts. I had to build a 24 foot long FLAT table to place the hull onto deck side down.
I am going to use the same composite layup method that I used for one of the outriggers - that is to cover the entire foam hull with packing tape, lay down the carbon, wet it out with epoxy and vacuum bag & cure for 8 hours. Then pull the carbon hull OFF the foam hull. The thin carbon shell will then be reinforced with some bulkheads and a thin sandwich panel deck will be bonded to the top.
I did this for one of the outriggers and it worked, but there were millions of pin holes in the 2 layers of 6 oz carbon I put on. These holes leaked water like a sieve - not exactly what you want for a boat. For the main hull, we are letting a base coat of epoxy on the taped hull get semi-hard before applying the carbon and wetting out. I am also applying two additional layers of composite fabric - 2 layers of 5.8 oz carbon weave, 1 layer of 6 oz carbon/Kevlar weave and an outside layer of 5 oz fiberglass for sanding. I am also going to apply LESS vacuum pressure this time which won't suck out all the epoxy through the fabric which leaves the nasty pin holes.
Ben and I are pulling a length of string tight to make sure that the
4 foam sections are assembled in a STRAIGHT line
We covered the foam plug with packing tape. When the carbon cures,
I can pull the boat hull right off the foam plug leaving the foam plug for future use.
2 layers of 5.8 oz carbon, 1 layer of 6 oz carbon/kevlar mix the 1 layer 4 oz fiberglass on the exterior. We set the vacuum pressure high enough to press the wet fabric against the form, but not to remove too much excess epoxy.
------------------------------------
Follow AdventuresOfGreg 24 hours a day!
Yes! Your dreams have been answered. If these casual updates are just not enough AOG for you, then I have some exciting news. With my new Twitter feed, you can follow me 24 hours per day. That's right - imagine it! All day long, every day of the week, 4 weeks per month, 12 months per year, year after year after year! Yeah!!!! You'll know when I brush my teeth, take out the garbage, and cut my finger in the shop. It will be like you are there - right in the thick of the action!
Seriously - I have a Twitter feed that I'll be updating every day - or more often depending on what I'm working on that could be semi-interesting. You can follow it at the AOG main blog page (upper right hand corner of the page):
http://www.adventuresofgreg.com/HPB/HPBmain.html
Or at my Twitter page: http://twitter.com/pedaltheocean
First you have to check out this work of art that my buddy Manny from Rhomec Industries made for me:
I want to keep the exact configuration of the drive unit proprietary for a little while, so I'm not posting any drawings of it here. I am aware of another group who has indicated to me that they plan on challenging my 174 km pedal boat record from last summer and I don't really want to give away any of our secrets just yet. I am not **repeat NOT** attempting to break my own 174 km pedal boat record - I am attempting to break Carter Johnson's 245 km kayaking record! I am aware that there is a big spread between 174 km and 245 km, and this boat that was designed by Rick Willoughby is capable of at least 245 km in 24 hours. If I am able to go farther than 245 km in 24 hours on a flat lake, then it will be the farthest any person has ever travelled in 24 hours on water under their own power.
Rick is helping with design and engineering direction, Manny from Rhomec is contributing his wicked machining skills to make the prop and drive unit parts, the right angle gear drive was donated by my buddy George and PedalTheOcean sponsor MitrPak, and my right hand man Ben is helping out in the shop. I'll have a cast of other friends helping with officiating, observing and other help like last year - it is TRULY a collaborative effort and I am VERY grateful for all of the support these friends are providing.
My original intention was to invite Carter Johnson to Calgary and stage a race and possibly a new world record by either Carter or I. I'm not sure that is going to work because lake conditions for a record need to be nearly perfect - very calm and flat water. That means I need to race on a day with little to no wind which means that I can't schedule an exact date for the record attempt. My intention is to be ready to go and watch the weather closely, then when a suitable weather window opens up, just DO IT.
Ben came over today and we made some progress on the main hull. This hull is 24 feet long and 9" wide at it's widest point. The Styrofoam plug was CNC machined by Jarrett Johnson in Saskatchewan and delivered to me in 4 parts. I had to build a 24 foot long FLAT table to place the hull onto deck side down.
I am going to use the same composite layup method that I used for one of the outriggers - that is to cover the entire foam hull with packing tape, lay down the carbon, wet it out with epoxy and vacuum bag & cure for 8 hours. Then pull the carbon hull OFF the foam hull. The thin carbon shell will then be reinforced with some bulkheads and a thin sandwich panel deck will be bonded to the top.
I did this for one of the outriggers and it worked, but there were millions of pin holes in the 2 layers of 6 oz carbon I put on. These holes leaked water like a sieve - not exactly what you want for a boat. For the main hull, we are letting a base coat of epoxy on the taped hull get semi-hard before applying the carbon and wetting out. I am also applying two additional layers of composite fabric - 2 layers of 5.8 oz carbon weave, 1 layer of 6 oz carbon/Kevlar weave and an outside layer of 5 oz fiberglass for sanding. I am also going to apply LESS vacuum pressure this time which won't suck out all the epoxy through the fabric which leaves the nasty pin holes.
Ben and I are pulling a length of string tight to make sure that the
4 foam sections are assembled in a STRAIGHT line
We covered the foam plug with packing tape. When the carbon cures,
I can pull the boat hull right off the foam plug leaving the foam plug for future use.
2 layers of 5.8 oz carbon, 1 layer of 6 oz carbon/kevlar mix the 1 layer 4 oz fiberglass on the exterior. We set the vacuum pressure high enough to press the wet fabric against the form, but not to remove too much excess epoxy.
Follow AdventuresOfGreg 24 hours a day!
Yes! Your dreams have been answered. If these casual updates are just not enough AOG for you, then I have some exciting news. With my new Twitter feed, you can follow me 24 hours per day. That's right - imagine it! All day long, every day of the week, 4 weeks per month, 12 months per year, year after year after year! Yeah!!!! You'll know when I brush my teeth, take out the garbage, and cut my finger in the shop. It will be like you are there - right in the thick of the action!
Seriously - I have a Twitter feed that I'll be updating every day - or more often depending on what I'm working on that could be semi-interesting. You can follow it at the AOG main blog page (upper right hand corner of the page):
http://www.adventuresofgreg.com/HPB/HPBmain.html
Or at my Twitter page: http://twitter.com/pedaltheocean
Labels: 24hourHPBrecord, boatbuilding
Sneak preview of the new boat!
5 Comments Published by Adventures of Greg on Sunday, April 27, 2008 at 11:18 AM.
Click on any of the images below to enlarge.
Naval architect Stuart Bloomfield from Bloomfield designs is making good progress on the design of next version of WiTHiN - the speed demon that I will human power across the Atlantic ocean. It's still a work in progress, but I thought I would show you how it is looking.
I took a .dxf file of the basic hull shape from Rick who converted it from Stuarts drawing and imported it into my 3D software where I added hatches and windows and other details. The construction method will be based on developable surfaces. First, we create flat panels which are carbon over varying thicknesses of core material (probably something like CoreCell). Then computer cut the flat panels and join them together around the bulkheads to create the boat.
This flat panel method of construction is fast and less expensive than the traditional CNC machined foam plug/mold method. It's also very strong and according to Ricks computer simulations, just as efficient as a compound curved hull.
or kneel on the sea-anchor locker which is behind my seat to
deploy the sea anchor or a drogue
The aft top deck hatch also makes it easy to enter the sleeping cabin
Another 'living position' is to sit on the sea anchor locker top and
look out through the aft top deck hatch
After the seat is rotated out of the way, I can stand up
through the sliding pilot hatch
There is a hatch separating the cockpit and sleeping cabin
This view shows the sleeping cabin hatch open and resting
on top of the sea anchor locker
A view into the sleeping cabin. There is a rear port light window to
see behind, and two round port lights on each side.
The monitor that you see hanging down from above is
the AIS radar monitor
This is a view out the front window. The port lights on the sides open IN and DOWN.
There will be enough room to crouch to access the
bow locker and to remove the drive leg
Look at this awesome looking beast! It's Pete Bathune's Earthrace - a 100% biodiesel powered wave piercing boat that departed today from Spain on it's way to set a new round the world power boat speed record.
You can follow Earth Race progress here: http://www.earthrace.net/ The race tracking map and data is presented by none other than my buddy Pat Brothers from Racerecon (now Rushdigital).
Naval architect Stuart Bloomfield from Bloomfield designs is making good progress on the design of next version of WiTHiN - the speed demon that I will human power across the Atlantic ocean. It's still a work in progress, but I thought I would show you how it is looking.
I took a .dxf file of the basic hull shape from Rick who converted it from Stuarts drawing and imported it into my 3D software where I added hatches and windows and other details. The construction method will be based on developable surfaces. First, we create flat panels which are carbon over varying thicknesses of core material (probably something like CoreCell). Then computer cut the flat panels and join them together around the bulkheads to create the boat.
With the two hatches on the roof, I will be able to sit up on the top deck
or kneel on the sea-anchor locker which is behind my seat to
deploy the sea anchor or a drogue
The aft top deck hatch also makes it easy to enter the sleeping cabin
Another 'living position' is to sit on the sea anchor locker top and
look out through the aft top deck hatch
After the seat is rotated out of the way, I can stand up
through the sliding pilot hatch
There is a hatch separating the cockpit and sleeping cabin
This view shows the sleeping cabin hatch open and resting
on top of the sea anchor locker
A view into the sleeping cabin. There is a rear port light window to
see behind, and two round port lights on each side.
The monitor that you see hanging down from above is
the AIS radar monitor
This is a view out the front window. The port lights on the sides open IN and DOWN.
There will be enough room to crouch to access the
bow locker and to remove the drive leg
-------------------------------
Earthrace has started!!!
Earthrace has started!!!
Look at this awesome looking beast! It's Pete Bathune's Earthrace - a 100% biodiesel powered wave piercing boat that departed today from Spain on it's way to set a new round the world power boat speed record.You can follow Earth Race progress here: http://www.earthrace.net/ The race tracking map and data is presented by none other than my buddy Pat Brothers from Racerecon (now Rushdigital).
You can support the record attempt for as little as $10 by buying a nautical mile at the Earthrace web site.
I just finished reading Pete's best selling book about their first failed attempt to set the record last year. Earthrace - Futuristic Adventures on the High Seas is a GREAT read and I can really identify with how difficult it was for Pete and his team to even make the start line! I think just getting to the start line is more than half the battle.
I just finished reading Pete's best selling book about their first failed attempt to set the record last year. Earthrace - Futuristic Adventures on the High Seas is a GREAT read and I can really identify with how difficult it was for Pete and his team to even make the start line! I think just getting to the start line is more than half the battle.
Labels: boatbuilding, expedition
Am I a Sea Biscuit?
9 Comments Published by Adventures of Greg on Saturday, April 12, 2008 at 4:19 PM.
Am I destined to end up as yet another Sea Biscuit?
After hearing the 100th story about the Sea Biscuit from the locals in Tofino, Murray and I decided to do some investigating and learn more about this ill-fated world circumnavigation in an eight foot sail boat.
Sea Biscuit is a 8-foot (yes, as in EIGHT feet long from bow to stern) sailboat that Floridian Harley Harlson built to circumnavigate the globe, nonstop. Construction details here. Previously, the smallest boat to circumnavigate the globe is 12 feet long, sailed by Serge Testa. I highly recommend his book called 500 days. A really great read! In my opinion, Serge really knew what he was doing - I'm not so sure about Harley, but then again, perhaps people are saying that about me.
Harley arrived in Tofino to start his world circumnavigation in August of 2006. He made it from the trailer to the public boat launch dock where he discovered a foot of water in the bottom of Sea Biscuit that leaked in through his rudder bolts. Failing to repair the leak, and missing his weather window, Harley returned home and docked Sea Biscuit at the marina at the end of Olsen Road in Tofino where Murray and I found her on Sunday.
The two stories we heard from the locals were: "He was lying in a wet bed pan for 2 weeks bailing water out with a sponge" and "The coast guard seized his boat and wouldn't let him go". Neither story was true. It's funny how a story sort of has a life of it's own that may only be loosely connected with the truth.
I am not sure just how much testing Harley did previous to his failed launch in Tofino. I did read in an interview that he tested Sea Biscuit in a lake, but I am really not sure about how much open ocean sailing he did with her. That might have been a good idea.
-------------------------------
I have said this before and I think I need to repeat it - if not just to re-confirm my own objectives regarding this record attempt. About 1 year ago in my blog, I said:
I certainly hope that this project is viewed by others as a serious endeavour to demonstrate the potential of something long forgotten - our human power in all of it's forms. PedalTheOcean is a physical, mental and emotional challenge unlike anything I have ever set out to do.
Seeing Sea Biscuit falling apart in a pile of seaweed under the dock at the end of Olsen road, is a really good reminder of how I could potentially be viewed by the people of Tofino - those who saw me on TV, read about me in the paper, or have seen me come and go from the WeighWest marina.
-----------------------------
Like every worthy challenge, there is always more to it than you can ever imagine or can possibly plan for. At times like this I need to remember this bit of greeting card wisdom: "Persistence prevails when all else fails". Following are a few of the "learning experiences" that I am dealing with right now:
EXPERIENCE: After Mondays 9 hour training session on the water I know first hand how important gaining the appropriate experience will be in my ability to succeed at this challenge. The best kind of experience will be time spent in WiTHiN on the ocean - there would be no substitute for that. Murray and I discussed this during the drive back from Tofino, and what I would like to do when the new boat is finished (calling it "Ocean WiTHiN" for now) is dock it in Tofino fully equipped and provisioned for multi-day trips. Then I can fly out from Calgary which is a very easy and inexpensive flight and head out to sea in WiTHiN. I could start with a day trip similar to what we did with Matahil's support boat, but do it on my own. Then I could slowly advance to an over night trip, then a 3 day trip, etc. I would experience all kinds of weather and ocean conditions and I think this kind of training would be very good for me.
Sea sickness: They say it can't be trained, but I doubt that, as I know from many others that 2 to 3 days is usually when the body gets accustomed to this alien rock and roll environment and stops getting sick. That is basically what training is. There was an episode of Myth Busters a while ago where they tested sea sickness cures. They found only 2 cures that worked: Ginger and medication. I will experiment with both, as well as some trampoline training. I used to be a gymnast in high school and was very surprised at how dizzy I got doing simple flips on a trampoline a while ago. I am certain that I can train this motion sickness away by simply doing trampoline flips every day. If that's the case, perhaps there will be some residual inner ear / spacial awareness that I develop that will carry over to the ocean environment.
OW (Ocean WiTHiN) design: One of the causes of motion sickness is a miss-match between where the eye registers the bodies location in space, and it's actual location in space. As soon as I looked away from my small front window, I got sick. I also found it very difficult to see anything outside - I rarely saw Matahil and he was always close to me. I think I would like to re-visit the sliding canopy idea for the new boat design. The Naval architect Stuart Bloomfield designed opening hatches and a small sliding pilot hatch on the roof, but I don't think this is enough to provide me with the 'livable' open environment that I want in the cockpit. I would like to 'really be there' - not watching everything from the detached view point of a closed-in cockpit. The advantage of a sliding canopy cover is that I always have the option of sliding it over for really bad weather or big seas. Of course, the sleeping cabin is closed off with a bulkhead and hatch, as is the bow storage locker, so with the bilge pump on the cockpit floor, even if WiTHiN flooded, I would still be capsize safe.
Stuart Bloomfield and Ricks closed canopy/hatch design (click to enlarge)
sliding cockpit cover
I noticed how much work it took to stay on my bearing and I think I will look into installing a small autopilot. This should not only make my forward progress a bit more efficient (always on track), but will also ease the work load for me. If anyone knows of a small, very efficient autopilot, let me know. The smallest I have found is this Simrad TP10.
Support boat: Being the optimist that I am, I always thought that I would be able to find someone sailing from the Canaries to Barbados who would be willing to accompany me as my safety boat. I know now that this is a lot to ask, as staying even in the broad vicinity of me in the middle of the ocean takes a lot of work. After speaking with a few boat brokers and yacht management companies, my best bet is to arrange my own crew, and buy a yacht capable of a trans oceanic voyage, then sell it at my destination. My friend Stefan Dalberg has volunteered to skipper the support boat, and I hope I can find a few more crew interested in the experience.
Spanish coast guard: This is a problem. I have heard from others who tried to deal with the coastguard, that they do not negotiate with individuals. Letters and attempts to contact them go unanswered for months. So far, every independent ocean rower who has departed from Canary Islands has left at night incognito. One option is to join the Atlantic rowing race in December of 2009 which includes a support boat shared by all of the race participants, and Spanish coast guard clearance. I like this option because of the community and the publicity opportunity. Speedy WiTHiN is an interesting contrast in amongst all the sluggish row boats.
Shipping WiTHiN: I had budgeted about $7000 to ship WiTHiN to the Canary Islands. Because she is over 20 feet long, she has to go in a 40 foot container which is twice as expensive as a 20 foot container. Plus, it will take up to 2 months for delivery! OUCH. And another $14,000 to ship back to Miami.
Schedule: December of 2008 is definitely OUT. There is no way I can get proper training, finish building WiTHiN, test her and ship her this year. Looks like December of 2009 for Canaries to West Indies route, or I could leave as early as June of 2009 if I were to change routes and head across the Pacific instead (this is an option that I am considering, as it also eliminates my shipping problems. More on this later).
We have made some serious progress since I made that comment about the support boat a year ago, but I still have very far to go. I need to remember that it's all about the journey, not the destination. This journey will be a long one, and I need to stop every once in a while and remember to enjoy it.
Cheers,
Greg
Here are a few more photos from Mondays sea trails in Tofino:
Soon after we left the dock, I started to over heat. With the new keel, standing up in WiTHiN is no problem
Leaving the Weigh West marina at sun rise
Long Beach
WiTHiN leaving Tofino with the town in the background
We got home just in time - just missed a big winter storm!
After hearing the 100th story about the Sea Biscuit from the locals in Tofino, Murray and I decided to do some investigating and learn more about this ill-fated world circumnavigation in an eight foot sail boat.
Sea Biscuit is a 8-foot (yes, as in EIGHT feet long from bow to stern) sailboat that Floridian Harley Harlson built to circumnavigate the globe, nonstop. Construction details here. Previously, the smallest boat to circumnavigate the globe is 12 feet long, sailed by Serge Testa. I highly recommend his book called 500 days. A really great read! In my opinion, Serge really knew what he was doing - I'm not so sure about Harley, but then again, perhaps people are saying that about me.
Harley arrived in Tofino to start his world circumnavigation in August of 2006. He made it from the trailer to the public boat launch dock where he discovered a foot of water in the bottom of Sea Biscuit that leaked in through his rudder bolts. Failing to repair the leak, and missing his weather window, Harley returned home and docked Sea Biscuit at the marina at the end of Olsen Road in Tofino where Murray and I found her on Sunday.
The two stories we heard from the locals were: "He was lying in a wet bed pan for 2 weeks bailing water out with a sponge" and "The coast guard seized his boat and wouldn't let him go". Neither story was true. It's funny how a story sort of has a life of it's own that may only be loosely connected with the truth.
I am not sure just how much testing Harley did previous to his failed launch in Tofino. I did read in an interview that he tested Sea Biscuit in a lake, but I am really not sure about how much open ocean sailing he did with her. That might have been a good idea.
-------------------------------
I have said this before and I think I need to repeat it - if not just to re-confirm my own objectives regarding this record attempt. About 1 year ago in my blog, I said:
I want to make this clear - this challenge is NOT about doing a solo, unsupported survival adventure across the Atlantic ocean. I have the highest respect for those who do that like current ocean crossers Roz Savage, Jason Lewis, Bhavic, Ralph Tuijn and previous ocean crossing expeditions Leven Brown, Greg Spooner, Colin and Julie, and the many others I follow and have followed.
My 'thing' is the combination of technology and human performance. A fully supported human powered Atlantic speed record attempt is exactly what this expedition is. The support / safety boat will accompany me and provide supplies, traffic lookout, water making, equipment backups, communications, repairs, food, company and even occasionally a safe place to escape to (if ocean conditions allow). This allows me to focus on designing and building the fastest, most efficient human powered ocean boat possible, and my ability to pedal the machine 3000 miles across the Atlantic ocean in less than 40 days.
Since then, I have decided that a "fully supported" speed record isn't a fair comparison to the existing unsupported Atlantic crossing record of 43 days set my Emmanuel Coindre, so my support boat will be a safety boat only, and will not be used for support of any kind unless there is an emergency in which case my unsupported crossing either becomes a supported one, or I am rescued and have to abandon the crossing.My 'thing' is the combination of technology and human performance. A fully supported human powered Atlantic speed record attempt is exactly what this expedition is. The support / safety boat will accompany me and provide supplies, traffic lookout, water making, equipment backups, communications, repairs, food, company and even occasionally a safe place to escape to (if ocean conditions allow). This allows me to focus on designing and building the fastest, most efficient human powered ocean boat possible, and my ability to pedal the machine 3000 miles across the Atlantic ocean in less than 40 days.
I certainly hope that this project is viewed by others as a serious endeavour to demonstrate the potential of something long forgotten - our human power in all of it's forms. PedalTheOcean is a physical, mental and emotional challenge unlike anything I have ever set out to do.
Seeing Sea Biscuit falling apart in a pile of seaweed under the dock at the end of Olsen road, is a really good reminder of how I could potentially be viewed by the people of Tofino - those who saw me on TV, read about me in the paper, or have seen me come and go from the WeighWest marina.
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Like every worthy challenge, there is always more to it than you can ever imagine or can possibly plan for. At times like this I need to remember this bit of greeting card wisdom: "Persistence prevails when all else fails". Following are a few of the "learning experiences" that I am dealing with right now:
EXPERIENCE: After Mondays 9 hour training session on the water I know first hand how important gaining the appropriate experience will be in my ability to succeed at this challenge. The best kind of experience will be time spent in WiTHiN on the ocean - there would be no substitute for that. Murray and I discussed this during the drive back from Tofino, and what I would like to do when the new boat is finished (calling it "Ocean WiTHiN" for now) is dock it in Tofino fully equipped and provisioned for multi-day trips. Then I can fly out from Calgary which is a very easy and inexpensive flight and head out to sea in WiTHiN. I could start with a day trip similar to what we did with Matahil's support boat, but do it on my own. Then I could slowly advance to an over night trip, then a 3 day trip, etc. I would experience all kinds of weather and ocean conditions and I think this kind of training would be very good for me.
Sea sickness: They say it can't be trained, but I doubt that, as I know from many others that 2 to 3 days is usually when the body gets accustomed to this alien rock and roll environment and stops getting sick. That is basically what training is. There was an episode of Myth Busters a while ago where they tested sea sickness cures. They found only 2 cures that worked: Ginger and medication. I will experiment with both, as well as some trampoline training. I used to be a gymnast in high school and was very surprised at how dizzy I got doing simple flips on a trampoline a while ago. I am certain that I can train this motion sickness away by simply doing trampoline flips every day. If that's the case, perhaps there will be some residual inner ear / spacial awareness that I develop that will carry over to the ocean environment.
OW (Ocean WiTHiN) design: One of the causes of motion sickness is a miss-match between where the eye registers the bodies location in space, and it's actual location in space. As soon as I looked away from my small front window, I got sick. I also found it very difficult to see anything outside - I rarely saw Matahil and he was always close to me. I think I would like to re-visit the sliding canopy idea for the new boat design. The Naval architect Stuart Bloomfield designed opening hatches and a small sliding pilot hatch on the roof, but I don't think this is enough to provide me with the 'livable' open environment that I want in the cockpit. I would like to 'really be there' - not watching everything from the detached view point of a closed-in cockpit. The advantage of a sliding canopy cover is that I always have the option of sliding it over for really bad weather or big seas. Of course, the sleeping cabin is closed off with a bulkhead and hatch, as is the bow storage locker, so with the bilge pump on the cockpit floor, even if WiTHiN flooded, I would still be capsize safe.
Stuart Bloomfield and Ricks closed canopy/hatch design (click to enlarge)sliding cockpit coverI noticed how much work it took to stay on my bearing and I think I will look into installing a small autopilot. This should not only make my forward progress a bit more efficient (always on track), but will also ease the work load for me. If anyone knows of a small, very efficient autopilot, let me know. The smallest I have found is this Simrad TP10.
Support boat: Being the optimist that I am, I always thought that I would be able to find someone sailing from the Canaries to Barbados who would be willing to accompany me as my safety boat. I know now that this is a lot to ask, as staying even in the broad vicinity of me in the middle of the ocean takes a lot of work. After speaking with a few boat brokers and yacht management companies, my best bet is to arrange my own crew, and buy a yacht capable of a trans oceanic voyage, then sell it at my destination. My friend Stefan Dalberg has volunteered to skipper the support boat, and I hope I can find a few more crew interested in the experience.
Spanish coast guard: This is a problem. I have heard from others who tried to deal with the coastguard, that they do not negotiate with individuals. Letters and attempts to contact them go unanswered for months. So far, every independent ocean rower who has departed from Canary Islands has left at night incognito. One option is to join the Atlantic rowing race in December of 2009 which includes a support boat shared by all of the race participants, and Spanish coast guard clearance. I like this option because of the community and the publicity opportunity. Speedy WiTHiN is an interesting contrast in amongst all the sluggish row boats.
Shipping WiTHiN: I had budgeted about $7000 to ship WiTHiN to the Canary Islands. Because she is over 20 feet long, she has to go in a 40 foot container which is twice as expensive as a 20 foot container. Plus, it will take up to 2 months for delivery! OUCH. And another $14,000 to ship back to Miami.
Schedule: December of 2008 is definitely OUT. There is no way I can get proper training, finish building WiTHiN, test her and ship her this year. Looks like December of 2009 for Canaries to West Indies route, or I could leave as early as June of 2009 if I were to change routes and head across the Pacific instead (this is an option that I am considering, as it also eliminates my shipping problems. More on this later).
We have made some serious progress since I made that comment about the support boat a year ago, but I still have very far to go. I need to remember that it's all about the journey, not the destination. This journey will be a long one, and I need to stop every once in a while and remember to enjoy it.
Cheers,
Greg
Here are a few more photos from Mondays sea trails in Tofino:
Soon after we left the dock, I started to over heat. With the new keel, standing up in WiTHiN is no problem
Leaving the Weigh West marina at sun rise
Long Beach
WiTHiN leaving Tofino with the town in the background
We got home just in time - just missed a big winter storm!
Labels: boatbuilding, expedition, training
V11G carbon outrigger #1
2 Comments Published by Adventures of Greg on Monday, March 31, 2008 at 7:22 PM.
V11G outrigger shell pulled off the foam plug
My first carbon outrigger popped off of the Styrofoam plug nicely. The general shape is very true, but there are small imperfections on the surface finish due to the release film creases and some imperfections in the styrofoam. These could be sanded off, but I think I would be worth adding a 5 oz layer of fine fiberglass weave for sanding. Then i think the surface would be very smooth.
This is a great way of using Styrofoam as a re-usable male mold (plug). Just cover it with packing tape.
This is a great way of using Styrofoam as a re-usable male mold (plug). Just cover it with packing tape.
I will probably leave about 1/4" of the flange around the edge to bond a thin top deck to it. The top deck will be carbon over a 1/4 inch sheet of Styrofoam or core material for the top deck. To stiffen the outrigger, I'll add a bulkhead to the middle. I will also fill in the inside nose and tail with some micro to give it some strength.
Getting ready for sea trials
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Getting ready for sea trials
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Dates for the second set of sea trials have been finalized. I am heading out this Saturday with Murray. We arrive in Tofino on Sunday and launch WiTHiN. Monday morning we meet up with Matahil Lawson and his boat. I'll be spending at least 8 hours on the water. The objective is to head WEST as far as I can for 4 or 5 hours, then turn around and head back. Mat also knows of some great areas to get into some chop and swell and other various challenging conditions, so maybe we'll play around a bit. Tuesday will be more of the same - two 8-hour days in a row out in the Pacific.
I need to establish a speed profile for WiTHiN. I need to know how fast she goes into varying degrees of head wind as well as from abeam and from astern. Knowing the differences in efficiencies between the prototype version and the new ocean crossing boat, I will be able to predict a speed profile for the new ocean boat.
This is sort of important, as I need to get a better understanding of how WiTHiN will perform in adverse wind/sea conditions. Most of the ocean rowing boats can't make headway in moderate onshore winds. This is one of the reasons why they have had difficulties in the past getting away from California for ocean rowing expeditions to Hawaii and Australia.
Since being able to accept a tow is a very important safety issue during sea trials, I decided to fabricate a bridle to tie the line to. This won't stress the rope like the old set-up did.
I made a couple of foam inserts for the Dorade vents. These will be used to stop road crap from being blown into the vents during the drive, and - more importantly, to stop water from leaking into the boat when I tip her over beside the dock to mount the keel.
Another addition to WiTHiN is the new nifty clamp fan. It really blows, and I can mount it in a variety of places using the handy clamp - to face the window to de-fog, or face me for cooling.
All I have left is to re-build our rotten wooden boat stand on the trailer. This got so wet during the first Tofino trip (snow and constant rain), that it started to fall apart. I'm going to weld a steel one to replace it.
Training
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Tomorrow I have an 8 hour INSIDE training ride - UGH!!! It's snowing and minus 17 degrees C right now, so an outside ride is NOT in the cards unfortunately.
After a rest week last week, I attempted a new 20 minute power test today and I was pleased to find a 15 watt increase over my last test. My goal is to get up to 270 watts for 20 minutes and I'm pretty sure with another set of CP 20 intervals over the next 6 weeks, I'll be able to achieve that - and more, once I get outside. My peak CP20 power was 300 watts a couple of years ago on my tri bike. It's always lower on the recumbent - I think 280 was my PR on the bent.
All I have left is to re-build our rotten wooden boat stand on the trailer. This got so wet during the first Tofino trip (snow and constant rain), that it started to fall apart. I'm going to weld a steel one to replace it.
Training
----------------
Tomorrow I have an 8 hour INSIDE training ride - UGH!!! It's snowing and minus 17 degrees C right now, so an outside ride is NOT in the cards unfortunately.
After a rest week last week, I attempted a new 20 minute power test today and I was pleased to find a 15 watt increase over my last test. My goal is to get up to 270 watts for 20 minutes and I'm pretty sure with another set of CP 20 intervals over the next 6 weeks, I'll be able to achieve that - and more, once I get outside. My peak CP20 power was 300 watts a couple of years ago on my tri bike. It's always lower on the recumbent - I think 280 was my PR on the bent.
Labels: 24hourHPBrecord, boatbuilding
Discovery Channel interview & sneak preview of the ocean boat!
5 Comments Published by Adventures of Greg on Friday, March 21, 2008 at 8:10 AM.
When Pat and I were out in Tofino for sea trials, my PR genius Mark Dusseault arranged a media day in Victoria for local media to shoot pictures of WiTHiN and interview me. The entire afternoon was spent with a crew from Discovery Channel filming a second interview. The first Discovery Channel show is here:
The second piece turned out well, but I think they kind of focused in too much on the window issue - it wasn't really that big of a deal. Over all the goal was to see how stable WiTHiN was in waves and chop, and it did OK. I think the biggest thing I learned was I wanted to see what a keel would do to mitigate the excessive rocking. We'll find out soon.
The second piece turned out well, but I think they kind of focused in too much on the window issue - it wasn't really that big of a deal. Over all the goal was to see how stable WiTHiN was in waves and chop, and it did OK. I think the biggest thing I learned was I wanted to see what a keel would do to mitigate the excessive rocking. We'll find out soon.
Speaking of the second sea trials, WiTHiN is pretty well ready to go. The keel is now finished, and the other day I added this manually operated windshield wiper. I had also replaced the PETG window plastic, so it's no longer frosted slightly with paint over spray like that last one. This should make it easier to see out the window.
You can see the handle to operate the wiper under the top deck.
Another problem I was having in Tofino was my vent fan falling off the Dorade vent. It was held in place with a Velcro-like fastener. The reason is so that I can rip it off and manually shut the valve on he vent if I had to. To keep it in place, I bonded 3 latches onto it. To remove it, I just flip the latches and pull it off.
The last item repaired was where the old stops were for the outriggers. I had to kick them off to get WiTHiN through the door of the pool when we pool-tested the keel. I grounded the rough fiberglass down smooth, and filled over with micro.
Ready to go! Now I just have to find a support boat. I made a call to a friend who works for the Canadian coast guard office in Tofino to ask about boat availability for a couple of days within the next week or so to support me during my trials. He says that whale watching season has just started and many of the whale watching boats are fully booked. He's making some calls for me.
Is anyone local interested in going with me to Tofino?
The 24 hour human powered boat record
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I just finished a 7.5 hour ride. Ugh! It was -10 C degrees this morning, but it was supposed to warm up later and the sun was up, so I figured I would break the day up by doing 5 hours outside, then another 3 inside. The outside ride was not fun. I froze my toes.
My hamstring started to get pretty sore. I'm not sure if it was because of Wednesday's KILLER AT intervals, or because the geometry on the M5 isn't exactly what I've been training on with the inside trainer. Anyhow - not a lot of fun.
One advantage that postponing the ocean crossing has is affording me a bit more time on other projects - including the 24 hour HPB record. I was thinking about an early June attempt, but I only get 1 month of unfrozen water here to train on. Glenmore res opens in May. That means that most of my training has to be either downstairs on the inside trainer, or outside on the M5. Outside is fine, but that really sucks when the temperature is less that 10 degrees C. I would much prefer a month or two of warm weather to alternate some long, 14 to 16 hour outside epic rides with some ultra long lake training days on the new boat. Scheduling the 24 hour record attempt and race for later in June would give me an additional month to train.
Boston marathon
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Helen and I have the Boston marathon next month and this will be an interesting experiment for me. I've been running only ONCE per week because of an old calf injury from last years 24 hour record. It's not going away, so I've cut my running way back. One long run per week - that's it. This week I did a 2.5 hour run and next week it will be 2.75. So far, it seems to be working. I have plenty of energy during that long run, and my calf hasn't been hurting. I wont be setting any personal bests in Boston that's for sure!
Ready to go! Now I just have to find a support boat. I made a call to a friend who works for the Canadian coast guard office in Tofino to ask about boat availability for a couple of days within the next week or so to support me during my trials. He says that whale watching season has just started and many of the whale watching boats are fully booked. He's making some calls for me.
Is anyone local interested in going with me to Tofino?
The 24 hour human powered boat record
-------------------------------------
I just finished a 7.5 hour ride. Ugh! It was -10 C degrees this morning, but it was supposed to warm up later and the sun was up, so I figured I would break the day up by doing 5 hours outside, then another 3 inside. The outside ride was not fun. I froze my toes.
My hamstring started to get pretty sore. I'm not sure if it was because of Wednesday's KILLER AT intervals, or because the geometry on the M5 isn't exactly what I've been training on with the inside trainer. Anyhow - not a lot of fun.
One advantage that postponing the ocean crossing has is affording me a bit more time on other projects - including the 24 hour HPB record. I was thinking about an early June attempt, but I only get 1 month of unfrozen water here to train on. Glenmore res opens in May. That means that most of my training has to be either downstairs on the inside trainer, or outside on the M5. Outside is fine, but that really sucks when the temperature is less that 10 degrees C. I would much prefer a month or two of warm weather to alternate some long, 14 to 16 hour outside epic rides with some ultra long lake training days on the new boat. Scheduling the 24 hour record attempt and race for later in June would give me an additional month to train.
The Styrofoam hull and outrigger floats for V11G are due in from Saskatchewan today. I will order my carbon, epoxy, and other supplies on Tuesday, then schedule a composites work day here maybe the following week - depends on if I can get all of my supplies.
Manny the CNC machinist extraordinaire has finished machining the new prop for V11G !! It is a piece of ART!
Sneak preview of WiTHiN-ocean!
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Manny the CNC machinist extraordinaire has finished machining the new prop for V11G !! It is a piece of ART!
Sneak preview of WiTHiN-ocean!
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Postponement of the 24 hour record has it's drawbacks - I am counting on this summer to complete all of the testing required for the new ocean crossing version of WiTHiN. Even with the postponement of the ocean crossing until next December (actually, it will probably be much earlier - like next JUNE. More on that later), I need this summer to complete all of the testing. This includes basic testing, as well as a few multi-day trips with the boat FULLY provisioned and equipped.
World record winning naval architect Stuart Bloomfield has completed some preliminary designs for the new boat. Check it out:
The big advantage to using the flat panel method of construction is speed and ease of building it. The panels can be made before hand using core materials and carbon on both sides. Then the panel shapes are laser cut from computer files. The carbon panels are seamed together to form the boat.
The front windshield is raked back, but there are two 'A frame' beams running from the roof line to the bow top deck. The beams are both structural and aesthetic.
World record winning naval architect Stuart Bloomfield has completed some preliminary designs for the new boat. Check it out:
The front windshield is raked back, but there are two 'A frame' beams running from the roof line to the bow top deck. The beams are both structural and aesthetic.
Boston marathon
---------------------------------
Helen and I have the Boston marathon next month and this will be an interesting experiment for me. I've been running only ONCE per week because of an old calf injury from last years 24 hour record. It's not going away, so I've cut my running way back. One long run per week - that's it. This week I did a 2.5 hour run and next week it will be 2.75. So far, it seems to be working. I have plenty of energy during that long run, and my calf hasn't been hurting. I wont be setting any personal bests in Boston that's for sure!
Labels: 24hourHPBrecord, boatbuilding, expedition, training
Keel-girl in a BIKINI this time!
16 Comments Published by Adventures of Greg on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at 4:18 PM.
As promised - another new keel-girl photo. This time I talked her into wearing her bikini for the shot. You are welcome.
To keep the keel from twisting and shearing off the two bolts holding the keel tube onto the stub tube, I welded a couple of stainless angles to make a notch for the keel fin to slide into.
After I finished all the Bondo and sanding, I tipped WiTHiN over onto her side and slide the keel onto the stub from my work bench to check the fit once again. Everything was good.
Then to see how strong (or lack of strong) my keel was, I got someone to hold onto the rudder and I rolled the work bench away while holding onto the keel and slowly letting more of it's 90 lb weight fall down.
Holding onto the hull at the keel causes some serious twisting of the hull which wouldn't be a stress that the boat would experience in water, so I didn't let it go all the way. The join to the hull was solid - no visual bending at all, and the keel tube wasn't bending, but I could hear some creaks coming from the fiberglass hull itself twisting.
Then to see how strong (or lack of strong) my keel was, I got someone to hold onto the rudder and I rolled the work bench away while holding onto the keel and slowly letting more of it's 90 lb weight fall down.
Holding onto the hull at the keel causes some serious twisting of the hull which wouldn't be a stress that the boat would experience in water, so I didn't let it go all the way. The join to the hull was solid - no visual bending at all, and the keel tube wasn't bending, but I could hear some creaks coming from the fiberglass hull itself twisting.
A few layers of paint to seal all the micro up.
And a finishing coat of black paint to hide all my bumpies and seal-up some of the non-stainless in the keel fin.
Now all I have left before sea trials is:
1. Make a foam plug for the Dorade vent (When i tip WiTHiN onto her side to slide the keel on, a bit of water leaks through the Dorade vent).
2. Cover over the holes where the old outriggers used to fit into
3. Install my new manual windshield wiper
4. Add a latch to keep the vent fan onto the Dorade vent. I used snap-loc before and it kept falling off
5. I need to make a stainless ring to fit through my nose ring holes to tie a line to. I used to run the tow line through the stainless tube that is inserted through the nose-ring hole in the bow (and stern), but the edges of the tube cut through the tow line.
Oh - and A brand new interview with me is due to air on Discovery Channel tonight! It's the one we shot out in Victoria during the first sea trials. Daily Planet if you are in Canada.
Labels: boatbuilding
Keel-girl back by popular demand
4 Comments Published by Adventures of Greg on Monday, March 17, 2008 at 5:33 PM.
I said "Hey Helen, can you take a break for a sec and come help me in the shop?" She said sure, and I told her to do stand beside over the freshly bondo'ed keel as I grabbed the camera. She claimed I was shamelessly using her to get BLOG traffic!
Anyhow, this 100 lb beast is almost done. To fill in the leading and trailing ends of the keel bulb, I mixed in my lead shot with Bondo and spread it into the steel sectioned nose and tail like I was baking Frankensteins birthday cake.
Then I tapered the keel tube aerofoil with Bondo, and smoothened over the lead-bondo areas and sanded it all smooth. Well, as smooth as it's going to get. I'm not making anything I expect to last a lifetime here, nor am I expecting any quality workmanship awards. I just need to get through about 20 hours of sea trial testing. This will do the trick.
I'll be heading back out to Tofino sometime within the next 3 weeks for more trials/training. One test I really need to do is to measure my power output, resulting speed and the exact wind speed so we can develop a power profile for WiTHiN to better predict her parameters in various wind conditions. It would be great to experience 30 to 40 knot winds.
I made some calls to see if I can hire a support boat to follow me out, and it might be tougher than I expected. When I was last in Tofino for the first sea trials, it was January and way-off season for the tourism industry. March is the start of Whale watching season, and I've been told that many of the boats are booked with tours.
Training
--------------------------------
I'll be heading back out to Tofino sometime within the next 3 weeks for more trials/training. One test I really need to do is to measure my power output, resulting speed and the exact wind speed so we can develop a power profile for WiTHiN to better predict her parameters in various wind conditions. It would be great to experience 30 to 40 knot winds.
I made some calls to see if I can hire a support boat to follow me out, and it might be tougher than I expected. When I was last in Tofino for the first sea trials, it was January and way-off season for the tourism industry. March is the start of Whale watching season, and I've been told that many of the boats are booked with tours.
Training
--------------------------------
Training is going great. I did a 6 hour ride INSIDE on Friday and it actually went by faster than I expected. In large part, this is due to my new iPod Touch. What a GREAT invention! I bought a water proof enclosure for it from OtterBox and a Ram mount. Brilliant! I can listen to an audio book, watch YouTube videos, listen to music, read and type emails, and browse the Internet - all right from my pilots seat.
I am planning on using the Ram mount in the new WiTHiN for the ocean crossing.
Later,
gk
Later,
gk
Labels: boatbuilding, training
I figured you were probably getting sick of seeing my (just turned 47 year old) face on the blog, so I got Helen to pose with the new keel for you. You are welcome.
The keel consists of a 3.5" diameter stainless steel pipe welded to a 3 foot long stainless tube. The tube slide over a stub tube which is welded to a 1/4" stainless steel plate which is bolted to the hull through the seat rails.
I welded a 1/16" thick steel fin to the keel strut. I'll fill the gap in with bondo and shape to an airfoil. Everything was going too well. I finished welding on my fin and went to slide the keel onto the stub post and it didn't fit! Then I realized that I forgot about the weld-through on the other side of my stainless tube! ARGH! It was a bead running about 12 inches down the inside of the tube - impossible to grind off with a standard grinding bit for the dremel.
I ended up having to make my own took to reach down in the tube to grind off that excess weld. It took me as long to grind that weld-through off as it did to make the whole keel!
The keel is bolted onto the plate on the hull with two bolts to nuts welded to the other side of the tube. To get the keel on, I will tip WiTHiN onto her side and from the dock, slide the keel tube onto the stub post, then screw in the bolts.
The big cylinder was filled up with lead shot. I purchased four x 25 lb bags (EXPENSIVE! They cost $50 a bag!). Unfortunately, only 50 pounds worth of shot filled the 24" long cylinder. I think the cylinder pipe itself + the keel strut, etc is probably worth another 20 lbs, so I'll have a total of about 70 lbs. I wanted 90 lbs, but I will have additional ballast on the floor of WiTHiN, so I'm pretty sure I can match the stability we experienced during the keel test at the pool last week.
To fair out the leading and trailing ends of the ballast cylinder, I welded some plate on to form a round leading edge and tapered trailer edge. I will fill them up with bondo mixed with lead, then sand smooth
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Expedition Progress:
Have you ever noticed that progress comes in bursts, and in between these bursts you slip backward? Right now I feel like I am stuck in an anti-progress eddy!
Quotes for shipping WiTHiN to the Canary Islands are coming in at around $14,000 one way! And I have to drive it to New York. This is about double what I had budgeted. Then another $14,000 to ship her back from Antigua to Miami, and again, I would need to drive to Miami to pick it up. I also found out that I need to allow 7 week delivery time.
If I am to meet Nick (my support boat) for a November departure, I need to have WiTHiN shipped out by the beginning of August. I set a deadline to have the new boat built by Early June, but that was based on getting plans finished two weeks ago.
We have to finish the drawings, contract a builder, have the entire boat built, install all the hardware, and equipment and supplies and then get it out to Tofino for sea trials - all before August first. Oh, and then I have to drive for 3 days to New York.
Postponing for 1 year is something that I am seriously considering. One advantage is more time to seek that elusive major sponsor, and another advantage is more time to develop that sea experience that I am so lacking thereof. If I did postpone departure for a year, I would definitely plan some intermediate challenges.
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Training
I had a 6 hour training ride scheduled for tomorrow, but the weather is going bad. Snow and a high of zero, so it looks like I'll be riding inside for the day. Yeah! fun fun fun.
The good news is I got an iPod Touch for my birthday, so I plan on watching some TV shows, podcasts and YouTube while sweating away downstairs in my basement for 6 hours. Maybe hour 1 I'll read my book (see what I'm reading on my FaceBook page - Greg Kolodziejzyk), hour two - play some Guitar Hero, hour 3 - a bit of email on the iTouch or Nomad, hour 4 & 5 - watch a DVD movie on TV, hour 6 - watch some YouTube videos on the iTouch. I can also listen to a couple of audio books I have started (Long Way Down and The Proving Ground), and some tunes.
Have you ever noticed that progress comes in bursts, and in between these bursts you slip backward? Right now I feel like I am stuck in an anti-progress eddy!
Quotes for shipping WiTHiN to the Canary Islands are coming in at around $14,000 one way! And I have to drive it to New York. This is about double what I had budgeted. Then another $14,000 to ship her back from Antigua to Miami, and again, I would need to drive to Miami to pick it up. I also found out that I need to allow 7 week delivery time.
If I am to meet Nick (my support boat) for a November departure, I need to have WiTHiN shipped out by the beginning of August. I set a deadline to have the new boat built by Early June, but that was based on getting plans finished two weeks ago.
We have to finish the drawings, contract a builder, have the entire boat built, install all the hardware, and equipment and supplies and then get it out to Tofino for sea trials - all before August first. Oh, and then I have to drive for 3 days to New York.
Postponing for 1 year is something that I am seriously considering. One advantage is more time to seek that elusive major sponsor, and another advantage is more time to develop that sea experience that I am so lacking thereof. If I did postpone departure for a year, I would definitely plan some intermediate challenges.
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Training
I had a 6 hour training ride scheduled for tomorrow, but the weather is going bad. Snow and a high of zero, so it looks like I'll be riding inside for the day. Yeah! fun fun fun.
The good news is I got an iPod Touch for my birthday, so I plan on watching some TV shows, podcasts and YouTube while sweating away downstairs in my basement for 6 hours. Maybe hour 1 I'll read my book (see what I'm reading on my FaceBook page - Greg Kolodziejzyk), hour two - play some Guitar Hero, hour 3 - a bit of email on the iTouch or Nomad, hour 4 & 5 - watch a DVD movie on TV, hour 6 - watch some YouTube videos on the iTouch. I can also listen to a couple of audio books I have started (Long Way Down and The Proving Ground), and some tunes.
Labels: boatbuilding, expedition, training
WiTHiN keel ballast pool test
4 Comments Published by Adventures of Greg on Saturday, March 08, 2008 at 8:33 AM.
The retractable outriggers on the prototype version of WiTHiN were never intended to be used on the actual ocean crossing boat, the design of which is now being drafted up by Naval Architect Stuart Bloomfield. Rick had envision using a keel with a ballast bulb at the end.
The danger of these retractable outriggers out on the Atlantic is the risk of the outriggers becoming damaged or jammed. The benefit of a keel is some damping of the constant rolling in the waves and swell, as well as lowering the center of gravity so that I can sit on the top deck or stand up without tipping over.
I am rocking from side to side as hard as I can and this is
as far as WiTHiN will roll over with 90 pounds on the keel
I want to get back out to Tofino for more sea experience, and we decided that it would be wise to install a keel on the prototype boat to see how much it helps smoothen out the rough ride in the chop.
The first step was to determine how much weight is required on the end of the keel. My calculations showed about 100 lbs is required to offset my weight while climbing in through the top hatch, and I needed to verify this with an actual test in a pool.
I met John Mackay, Ben Eadie, my dad Rudi and Pat Lor at the YWCA on Thursday afternoon. It was a job getting WiTHiN through the SINGLE DOOR to the pool! I can't believe we actually got it through that door. All of our measurements showed that it would be impossible, so we thought we would try it anyways. Unbelievably, we jammed it through that door!
Getting the bolt-on keel onto WiTHiN was super easy. Once she was in the pool, I just closed up the top hatch, and windows, rocked WiTHiN onto her side and used the pool deck to slide the keel onto the stub post already mounted on WiTHiN. I will use this same technique to mount the keel from the side of the dock when we get her out to the ocean again.
All of my weight is balanced over the side and
this is where WiTHiN stops her roll with 90 pounds on the keel.
To start with, I added 20 lbs to the keel, then sat on top and rocked back and forth. It was easy to roll WiTHiN all the way over to the point where water would run in through the open top hatch.
We added more weight and repeated the experiment until I could not dip the open top hatch - the result was 90 pounds. There was NO additional ballast on the floor of WiTHiN, as I had removed the battery and all of the equipment.
Now I will remove the temporary weight plate tube from the keel and weld on a 3" diameter x 24" long stainless steel tube filled with about 90 pounds of lead shot. Then I'll fair the keel strut and the ballast bulb, and it's back out to Tofino!
Now I will remove the temporary weight plate tube from the keel and weld on a 3" diameter x 24" long stainless steel tube filled with about 90 pounds of lead shot. Then I'll fair the keel strut and the ballast bulb, and it's back out to Tofino!
Labels: boatbuilding
Sea trials part Deux
2 Comments Published by Adventures of Greg on Monday, March 03, 2008 at 3:53 PM.
More sea trials:
According to the departure countdown widget in the upper right of this page, I only have 272 days, 8 hours and a few minutes before departure. YIKES!
I have a lot to do, but everything seems to be falling into place slowly, so I am still feeling relatively confident that I can make it to the start line in La Gomera, Spain in the Canary Islands in November.
One of my confidence builders is more time spent at sea in WiTHiN. I really feel like I need to experience some big seas - or at the very least, I need to spend a day pedalling for 8 hours straight up and over 2 to 3 meter swells which might be considered average Atlantic crossing conditions. High winds and some chop would be a bonus.
The keel is bolted to the seat rails which have been reinforced with kevlar and glass
For sea trials part 2, WiTHiN will feature a ballasted keel instead of relying on ballast in the bottom of the boat. In the short video clip below, you can see how WiTHiN is thrown around quite a bit in the chop.
We're hoping that 40 to 90 pounds of ballast suspended 3 feet below the hull will tend to soften the rough ride. It should also provide me with enough stability to stand up, enter and exit and I can get rid of those outriggers.
this is the keel mounting plate as viewed from below the hull. I will bed this in with epoxy and add a layer of fiberglass, then micro to fair the lip between the 1/4" stainless plate and the hull.
If this works, then I have faith that the new expedition boat which also uses a keel for stability is the right way to go.
The keel tube slide onto the stub on the mounting plate and is secured with a couple of bolts. I will slip WiTHiN into the water from a boat launch, then rotate the boat onto her side from a dock. With the hatch closed, she should be pretty water tight. This will allow us to slide the keel tube (with keel ballast bulb) along the dock and onto the stub.
In order to gauge how much weight to put in the keel, I have welded a temporary weight-lifting plate holder to the keel and I can slip on 10 to 25 lb plates onto the keel and test out stability while standing up in a pool somewhere. Once I figure out how much weight we need, I'll weld the 3" diameter stainless tube to the end of the keel tube and fill it with lead shot. Then I will round off the ends with bondo. It will be a bit draggy, but this prototype isn't build to set any speed records.
The plan is to get back to Tofino THIS MONTH for more sea trials using the new keel. I will hire an RIB for safety and head directly West out into the open Pacific for 4 hours, then turn around and head back. I should be able to make at least 50 km total.
NEW FRAMED PRINT:
Support Greg's quest to become thefastest human to cross the Atlantic ocean
under his own power with a
$250 "Across With Greg"
Small Business sponsorship that includes
YOUR LOGO on the boat "WiTHiN" + this super cool plaque.
Ordering is easy - click here: http://www.cafepress.com/sponsorgreg/3918769
under his own power with a
$250 "Across With Greg"
Small Business sponsorship that includes
YOUR LOGO on the boat "WiTHiN" + this super cool plaque.
Ordering is easy - click here: http://www.cafepress.com/sponsorgreg/3918769
Labels: boatbuilding
My little red Coroplast playhouse
3 Comments Published by Adventures of Greg on Thursday, February 14, 2008 at 2:55 PM.
The new design for the ocean crossing version of WiTHiN is here:
http://docs.google.com/View?docid=d5fpqr2_97f4fxz2fb
I am still working on nailing down the exact measurements, and in order to learn about what those measurements need to be, I built a wood and coroplast mock-up trainer:
The sliding canopy works exactly the same way it will on the actual boat.
I can reach my bow storage compartment by leaning forward and crouching right in front of the drive leg. I will cover the hatch opening with a pull-off kayak-type hatch instead of a hinged hatch because the swinging door would interfear with the drive leg.
I can access the stern sleeping cabin through a Lewmar hatch that I cut out of plywood by opening up the sliding canopy cover, standing up, turning around, opening the hatch door downward, and sitting with my legs through the hatch opening. If need-be, I can also enter the hatchway with the canopy closed by lying on my stomach and entering head-first.
The problem I had with entering the cabin head-first in the prototype WiTHiN was that once I was in the stern cabin there was no way to turn around again. I need to sleep with my head toward the hatch and the cockpit.
Behind the seat is an enclosed storage copartment that will hold the water maker, and sea anchor. One of the features of the sliding canopy cover is I can kneel up on the storage compartment to deploy the sea anchor to the stern. The forward wall of this compartment behind the seat is sloped with storage bins accessible while seated.
There is a smaller perimiter deck in the gunwales that will hold the steering handles and sliders. I can store things in these arm rests as well.
Since all supplies and equipment are kept in water-tight compartments, the cockpit can get wet, splashed with a wave, or completely flooded. There will be an electric bilge pump in the foot well which is the lowest part of the cockpit.
I still need to build-out the walls for the rear sleeping cabin and experiment with those dimensions to make sure that it is comfortable enough and that I can move around in there. I also need to figure out where the horizon line is when seated and looking out the front window so I can draw where the port lights (small side windows) need to go. I need to be able to see 360 degrees from my seat to spot other boat traffic. This doesn't mean that I need a contiguous window all around - I can move my head right to left and forward to back to expand my total field of vision through each window. I want to use a transparent hatch cover for the sleeping cabin so that I can see through it and hopefully see through the rear window as well - something else to experiment with.When moving around in the cockpit and into the rear cabin, the seat is in the way. I need to figure out some way of either easily moving it out of the way, or folding it down. I would rather move it right out of the way because it makes standing up in the cockpit and reaching things stored in the bow compartment a lot easier. Any ideas?
My seat is now higher also - in fact high enough off the hull bottom that I will be able to remove the seat to squat over a toilet bowl - something else to experiment with. No, I won't invite you over to train with me on that day.
Training - foot numbness, hours and power
And finally some really good news - with the new higher seat position, some super-lose shoes, and exagerated 'circling of my legs', my feet are no longer going numb.
My training hours in my little red playhouse are now up to about 10 hours per week. I am in base-building phase right now preparing for the 24 hour 'pedal vs. paddle challenge' in June. I always start each training season out with a maximum 20 minute effort which serves as a baseline to measure any fitness improvements as my training season moves forward. A sad 250 watts was measured - but I expected this. My peak 20 minute power output has been as high as 309 watts on my triathlon bike.
Pedal vs. Paddle Challenge
I am still moving forward with the Pedal vs. Paddle 24 hour human powered boat distance record attempt and race for early June. I have a new design from Rick for his fastest boat yet - V11G:
Jarrett Johnson from Innovention Technologies in Weyburn Saskatchewan is CNC machining the styrofoam hull and outriggers. My friend and PTO sponsor George from MitrPak is providing the gear box. I'll be doing the carbon fiber composite work, and metal fabrication myself.
I plan on building a web page to announce the race and make it official, but I think I want to get the boat finished first just to make ultra-double-extra certain that it is as efficient as it should be - that is, that I didn't make any construction blunders resulting in a sluggish boat. Not only is Carter Johnson going to join me in the race, but I am also interested in inviting a couple other types of human powered boats to race with us. A rowing skull, an outrigger canoe and maybe another kayaker. It should be pretty interesting!
New T-shirt design:
Be part of a WORLD RECORD Support Greg's quest to become the fastest human to cross the Atlantic ocean under his own power with a $100 "Across With Greg" sponsorship that includes YOUR NAME on his boat "WiTHiN" and this super-cool T-shirt!
http://www.pedaltheocean.com/sponsorship
Labels: boatbuilding, training
Guitar Hero training
1 Comments Published by Adventures of Greg on Saturday, February 02, 2008 at 3:28 PM.
I have been working on the design for the ocean crossing version of WiTHiN, and I've been making pretty decent progress. It occurred to me that before I went any further with the design, I had better know for sure that I can live within the dimensions! Something I learned from the Tofino sea trials is that the current prototype is WAY too small and it would drive me crazy spending days upon end in that tiny enclosed capsule.
I decided that I would build a mock-up that would double as an indoor trainer. I'll be able to train for the ocean crossing and the 24 hour record attempt in June, and as well, learn more about the space I need to live in there for 40 days.
Above is the overview design for the expedition boat. For details on the equipment on board, you can see the entire document here.
I will enclose the wood frame with coroplast and continue to build-out the stern cabin. Already I have noticed that I needed to raise the roof of WiTHiN by 4 inches so I can lean all the way forward to access the bow storage compartment. In the image you can see the working Lewmar Ocean 30 hatch above the para-anchor storage bin. All storage compartments and hatches will be working and made of wood and hinges. I'm even going to make the sliding canopy top with port lights and a windshield. This is the best way to design a working space. After an hour peddling in the simulator, I found a few additional places that would be good for storing things that I didn't notice in the 3D computer model.
After I finish my overview document, the next step is to hire a naval architect to go over our design and spec out material thickness, and other important construction details like which areas need to be reinforced, how to mount the keel on so it won't fall off, that kind of thing. If there are any NA's reading this and might be interested in helping, please send me an email.
After input from the NA, I will get Ben to model it all up properly in SolidWorks, then we need a builder. If you are a boat builder and might be interested in building the new WiTHiN, please send me an email.
Yes, the guitar I'm playing in the photo at the top is from the XBox game Guitar Hero. One of the benefits of indoor recumbent training is that you can do all kinds of other fun things with your hands, arms and mind to pass the time. It's unbelievable how fast time flies when I'm playing this game. Fav tune is "Holiday in Cambodia" by "The Dead Kennedy's" Try to do that on the indoor rower!
Below are some drawings I made for the new 24 hour record attempt boat. The design is by Rick Willoughby, and I consider it to be the most efficient human powered boat in the world for longer distances.
On the schedule for February:
I decided that I would build a mock-up that would double as an indoor trainer. I'll be able to train for the ocean crossing and the 24 hour record attempt in June, and as well, learn more about the space I need to live in there for 40 days.
Above is the overview design for the expedition boat. For details on the equipment on board, you can see the entire document here.
I will enclose the wood frame with coroplast and continue to build-out the stern cabin. Already I have noticed that I needed to raise the roof of WiTHiN by 4 inches so I can lean all the way forward to access the bow storage compartment. In the image you can see the working Lewmar Ocean 30 hatch above the para-anchor storage bin. All storage compartments and hatches will be working and made of wood and hinges. I'm even going to make the sliding canopy top with port lights and a windshield. This is the best way to design a working space. After an hour peddling in the simulator, I found a few additional places that would be good for storing things that I didn't notice in the 3D computer model.
After I finish my overview document, the next step is to hire a naval architect to go over our design and spec out material thickness, and other important construction details like which areas need to be reinforced, how to mount the keel on so it won't fall off, that kind of thing. If there are any NA's reading this and might be interested in helping, please send me an email.
After input from the NA, I will get Ben to model it all up properly in SolidWorks, then we need a builder. If you are a boat builder and might be interested in building the new WiTHiN, please send me an email.
Yes, the guitar I'm playing in the photo at the top is from the XBox game Guitar Hero. One of the benefits of indoor recumbent training is that you can do all kinds of other fun things with your hands, arms and mind to pass the time. It's unbelievable how fast time flies when I'm playing this game. Fav tune is "Holiday in Cambodia" by "The Dead Kennedy's" Try to do that on the indoor rower!
Below are some drawings I made for the new 24 hour record attempt boat. The design is by Rick Willoughby, and I consider it to be the most efficient human powered boat in the world for longer distances.
On the schedule for February:
1. I replaced the window in WiTHiN with some fresh PETG. One of my visibility problems in Tofino was because there was some over spray on the window. I have also ordered a manually operated windshield wiper to see if that helps. I have also removed the outriggers, and I need to build a keel. Then a pool test to figure out how much weight to suspend off the end of the keel, then another sea trial for March.
2. Find a naval architect and finish the design.
3. Find a builder and contract them to start building the new boat
4. Start work on the main hull and outrigger for the 24 hour record attempt boat.
2. Find a naval architect and finish the design.
3. Find a builder and contract them to start building the new boat
4. Start work on the main hull and outrigger for the 24 hour record attempt boat.
Labels: 24hourHPBrecord, boatbuilding
Sneak preview & some speed calculations
2 Comments Published by Adventures of Greg on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 at 5:34 PM.
I drove WiTHiN to the car wash today and pressure-sprayed her clean. She got pretty dirty from the long drive home from Vancouver Island. To top that off, it's been snowing here non-stop since we got back on Thursday night. I wish I had taken a photo of the boat on the trailer in my driveway with about 12" of snow piled high on the deck. Something just not right about that...
I am planning another trip out to Tofino for more fun in the ocean swells. But first, I'm going to make a few changes:
1. I am adding a ballasted keel to WiTHiN. From the sea trials last week, I realized that WiTHiN needs more rolling stability when the waves are all mixed up like they were the first day we had her out. A 3 foot narrow tube with a bulb containing anywhere from 40 to 100 lbs of weight in it will lower the center of gravity and increase the length of the moment arm. This should really help the boat stay vertical, even when sitting on a 'slanted' slab of water. This is what keeps sail boats from rocking right to left constantly. We were going to build the ocean crossing version of WiTHiN with a ballasted keel rather than outrigger anyhow, but I really need to test out how effective this keel will be in keeping WiTHiN stable enough to stand in, and not rolling around like she does now.
2. I am covering over that useless PETG window and inserting an opening port light window. This will be glass and will be inserted as close to vertical as I can get it. I will also be able to open it up for better venting, or to see in case it gets fogged up.
For the next sea trials, I would really like to get into some seriously windy conditions and I would also like to experience some larger swells. The plan is to go out with a support boat again for safety, and simply head west for a few hours. This should take me a good 20 km from shore. Then turn around and head back. I think two or three days of doing this will teach me quite a bit and will be great training.
Rick Willoughby and I have been incorporating what I learned from the sea trials last week into a design for the ocean version of WiTHiN. Here is a sneak preview:
The new ocean crossing boat will sport a sliding canopy top for fresh air. There will be a small window in the stern cabin so I can watch for traffic.
The stern sleeping cabin will be larger and taller which will allow me to sit up. The cockpit will be a 'wet area' which means that if a wave were to wash in, the bilge pump would kick in and drain it. The area behind my seat holds the water maker, para-anchor and water container. The gunwale compartments are also water tight and will hold a few days worth of food, and my various electronics.
The stern cabin is sealed off from the cockpit by a bulkhead with a hatch. I can enter the stern cabin through the hatch with the retracting canopy partially closed which should act as an awning protecting the cabin from water splashing in. The Bow compartment will hold spare parts, 50 days worth of food, tools, etc.
The new boat will be 30 feet long - check out the difference in size compared to the prototype. Because ocean WiTHiN will utilize a better hull shape, we expect the speed to be about 8 kph on 100 watts average daily power.
Here are my rough initial speed calculations:
La Gomera, Spain to Antigua = 4500 km
Ocean Surface Current = .8 kph x 24 hours/day = 19.2 km/day x 40 days = 768 km
Check out Chris Martin's most excellent analysis of the ocean currents for Dec/Jan/Feb months from the Canary Islands to the West Indies.
Here are my rough initial speed calculations:
La Gomera, Spain to Antigua = 4500 km
Ocean Surface Current = .8 kph x 24 hours/day = 19.2 km/day x 40 days = 768 km
Check out Chris Martin's most excellent analysis of the ocean currents for Dec/Jan/Feb months from the Canary Islands to the West Indies.
12 hours of pedalling per day @ 100 watts, 8 kph = 96 km/day x 40 days = 3840
Total = 40 days (new crossing record), 4608 km
NOTE: this does not take into consideration the pushing effect of the trade winds which blow from East to West. I am looking into what the averages are, and how they could effect a vessel like WiTHiN on the Atlantic ocean.
Total = 40 days (new crossing record), 4608 km
NOTE: this does not take into consideration the pushing effect of the trade winds which blow from East to West. I am looking into what the averages are, and how they could effect a vessel like WiTHiN on the Atlantic ocean.
I would like to finish today's blog by saying thanks again to everyone who has supported this endeavour by becoming a sponsor. We have sold a few logos on the boat for $250 and a whole pile of individual names/T-shirts for $100. I have a long way to go still, but TOGETHER, WE will get