2nd Voyage

A week ago I took the boat out after dinner on Lake Sammamish. The boat is way too heavy, and even with the dolly I used previously with the Cadence it is quite cumbersome to cart from the parking lot to the beach. It probably would be as much of a problem if the gearbox and seat back didn't make the boat so top heavy.

Anyway, this particular beach at the state park had a rather soft, mucky bottom with a lot of weeds. Most of the weeds were eurasian milfoil. Using a canoe paddle to get to deeper water was pretty straightforward and effective.

The 3 inch higher position for the stabilizers (using the honeycomb spacers) in the rear was way too high. The boat was very unstable and flopped to one side or the other. I didn't bother trying to go any distance with them in that position.

After moving the stabilizers to the grab tubes things were a bit better. Unfortunately I drilled the hole for the port stabilizer a bit too far forward, causing the bow of the stabilizer to point slightly downward. When moving forward at any decent speed this acted as a dive plane if I leaned even slightly to the left. I managed to flip the boat a full 180 degrees to the port while turning to the starboard while going at maybe 6 or 7 mph because of this.



No, the seat back does not prevent the boat from flipping completely over. Part of this might have been due to my clipless pedal not releasing my left cycling sandal without a bit of a struggle. Regardless, after placing weight on one of the stabilizers it was possible to right the boat and then carefully climb back on board.

I was able to get back in the seat after the capsize, but from my memories of trying to get back in the Cadence without outriggers in 2+ foot seas and the similar (not quite as bad, but close) roll instability of the V15-6m, I think it could be problematic. Practice will be needed to do this more smoothly and quickly.

The reworked prop shaft has far less friction and operates much more smoothly than before. I was able to get it to turn without clunking for only one sprint - and then it was as smooth as butter and seemed to need very little power to get to over 7.5 mph. Every other time, however, it seemed to go clunk, clunk, clunk at all speeds, or get tangled in weeds that just wouldn't let go.

Yes, weeds wrapped around the shaft, the propeller blades and even the prop strut. Even so, it seemed the boat was able to go 5.5 to 6 mph with quite a ball of stuff on it.

I tried various methods of freeing them using the cranks, forward and/or reverse motion, stop pedaling abruptly, reverse pedaling abruptly, having the blades vertical while coasting, horizontal, at angles, etc. The milfoil manages to wrap itself so tightly that it takes manual intervention to remove.

As an aside, I managed to pick up some weeds on the vertical leading edge
of the bows of the stabilizers, too. Only by stopping would they fall off.
Newer designs with a rounded bow or an angled leading edge would help.


The shaft at the gearbox is not the source of the clunking. The joint there is rotating smoothly. The problem is definitely at the propeller end of the shaft.

My first thought was that weeds were the cause of the clunking, but this happens even with a weed-free prop and strut.

So, now I am thinking of wrapping the strut support with an inner tube in case it is due to the strut moving up and down.


As an aside, reverse seems less effective than with the longer and straighter shaft. It at least 20 or 30 rapid turns of the crank to reach 3 mph.

So, I think I'll go back to the original height of the stabilizers in the rear position. The boat seemed to be much more stable with them there, with their tails dragging slightly. In addition, I think the addition of some short wings near the bows of the stabilizers angled upward will help when moving at speed to keep the stabilizers from digging into the water when downward forces are applied to them. It was somewhat nerve wracking to get going to a nice speed (7+ mph) and then have to back off because the stabilizer was starting to dive into a really minor wave - and keep going under.

On my last run I made sure there were no weeds on the propeller and shaft, trying to pedal in circles and still it clunked. It could be the shaft not finding a good fixed position in the stuffing box. If so, then adding a Delrin plain bearing might just do the trick.

So, if the stabilizer wings and Delrin bearings don't work, I'd have to say that I wouldn't trust taking this boat on any but the tamest waters, and certainly not on anything lengthy. No photography from the boat, either - at least not until I get a purpose-built waterproof camera. Right now I wouldn't trust this boat and the Ewa Marine waterproof case enclosed camera.

Steering is not much different from the first trial. I'll try Rick's suggestion of tweaking the angle of the prop strut to apply a constant course correction to the port.