Maiden Voyage!

In preparation for the maiden voyage I decided to make some higher spacers to test with the outriggers. Searching my garage for some likely materials, I found a couple of 2x4s, including some pressure treated lumber, but thought that this stuff was pretty heavy. Going over to a box of would-be firewood, the pieces in there were too thin or the wrong shape. What to do?

All of a sudden I had an idea: The big hunk of phenolic honeycomb I had picked up years ago from a friend would be perfect!

This was a 5 foot by 2 foot by 4 inch thick piece that had a taper cut off the one corner of the long dimension, but was otherwise perfectly rectangular in shape. It was also just small enough to fit in my bandsaw to cut a chunk that could then be sized to fit as a sandwich between the deck and the outrigger support.

It was a little tougher to cut than I thought. The material tended to bind the bandsaw blade and the blade came come off the wheels a couple times. Eventually I figured out that I needed to cut the material at an angle rather than through one cell at a time.

The results were pretty good. Positioning and drilling the holes was a little strange as you can't really mark the center of a hole to be drilled when it is in air, though upon reflection it could be done using a sacrificial sheet of paper. Anyway, holes were drilled and things fit quite nicely. Unfortunately, none of the 1/4-20 bolts I had available were long enough to reach. A trip to the hardware store was necessary - but that wasn't going to happen until *after* the trip to the water. Oh, well.



The boat fit quite well on top of the Toyota Matrix with the Thule racks, with the stabilizer floats lashed to the second set of saddles. The propeller dangled several feet beyond the stern, but a safety flag was added to make sure it was legal.

After driving to Idylwood Park my wife and I carried the boat and the rest of the stuff to the shore in two trips, resting the boat on a picnic table by the beach. Assembly of the outriggers went quickly. The foam for the lower seat back was a bit of an issue. I ended up folding some closed cell foam and duct taping it to the seat back so it wouldn't come apart, fall off or get in the way of the steering cords or the grab tubes.



A safety canoe paddle was duct taped to the side of the seat for insurance.

After setting up the camcorder on its tripod and giving my wife last minute instructions for the camera, we carried the boat into the water.

Even though we have not had much warm weather this year, the temperature of the water was not too cold. With the propeller just above the bottom of the lake the bow was a couple of feet from the shore. I was able to lift myself up onto the seat cushion and then put my bike shoes on the Speedplay Frog pedals.












The boat was slightly lower in the water than called for in the original plan, with the stabilizers both touching the water at their tails up to about the midpoint of their length. The honeycomb spacers should be just about perfect to keep them above the water.

Gently pedaling in reverse I backed away from the shore. Clunk, clunk, clunk went the propeller and shaft.

After getting about 50 feet from shore I tried pedaling forward, with the port rudder fully deployed. The boat headed almost straight back to shore. Uh-oh - this was not good!

I reversed direction. At first there was a moderately significant effort to pedal, but suddenly it shifted into an easier mode. Did something break or fall off?

No, but it is possible that the propeller blades swung into fully deployed mode. I was soon going in reverse at 3.5 mph.

I tried steering while going in reverse. That was nearly worthless, too. Going forward again, the boat slowly turned before reaching shore.

One more time and I was finally parallel to the shore, and ready to start the speed trials.

By this time I realized that the seat back cushion was a bit too thick, and that the cranks were too close to the seat back. My legs were not having proper leg extension. I'd have to make adjustments when I returned to shore where the wrenches had been left.

Meanwhile, I pushed on. The pedaling action was quite stiff, but soon things seemed to smooth somewhat. According to the Garmin 305 GPS watch the boat reached 7.5 mph ridiculously quickly. At that point the speed seemed to bounce all over the place. It dropped to 7, went up to 8 and back down to 7.5 mph. It was pretty strange, so I decided to ignore it and concentrate on steering and other boat handling aspects.

The lake was pretty calm, though once in a while a ski boat zoomed by off in the distance. So, in general, the lake was flat and the breeze was perhaps a couple of mph from the north.

I tried turning to port, pedaling somewhere around 7 mph, and fully deploying the rudder. The boat was very slow to respond, so I tried leaning over to the side to see if that helped. If it helped I couldn't detect much of a difference.

Eventually the boat managed to make a complete circle and I headed back to shore. It was actually quite a bit of effort, and there was a definite bow wave produced.

At the beach I got off and reported my findings to my wife and a young couple that had been curious about the boat. I offered a ride to them and the man agreed to go. He took off his shoes, put on the PFD, and pedaled away from shore.

He made a semicircle trying to head back, leaned too far and found himself in the water! Oh, no!

It didn't take him too long to swim with the boat back to shore where we had a towel waiting for him.

I prepared the boat to go out again, found that I needed another wrench to adjust the gearbox position (rats!), and cleared the ball of milfoil he had collected from the propeller. This was going to be the last run of the day and I wanted to go a mile or so around the north end of the lake.

After paddling in reverse with my hands away from shore I turned the boat around and headed north. I then headed northeast through the 1.5 foot wake generated by a passing ski boat. The sharp hull and deck sliced through the water like a knife, and there was enough lift generated that the hull was raised enough to slap down on the surface beyond the waves. This was not too bad.

The action of the rear positioned stabilizers will take some getting used to, however. Not seeing the source of the lifting action against the floats and having the boat jostle one way or the other was a little unnerving.

Anyway, I turned around and aimed back toward the park. Going in reverse to try to ensure no weeds were on the prop and then forward I quickly got up to speed. Again, the top speed was about 7.5 mph, though the stabilizers were dragging somewhat. My cadence was about 76 RPM, which is a little slower than I would like for the level of effort being expended. My heart rate was in the upper 130's to low 140's, so this was a pretty significant improvement over the performance in a Cadence pedal boat.

There was a light breeze on my face as the boat seemed to race through the cottonwood seeds floating on the water. This boat could move pretty well!

With no rudder deployment the boat tended to turn towards starboard. Leaning to port had little effect. The port rudder had to be used quite frequently to maintain a proper heading.

I soon reached the park - just in time for a set of ski boat waves to hit the beach. No problem - I back off a little and waited for it to settle before enlisting my wife in getting the boat from the water.

Conclusions?
1. This boat is not as stable as a Cadence with outriggers
2. It seems to be about 1 to 1.5 mph faster than a Cadence with outriggers
3. The draft is significantly deeper than that of a Cadence
4. The deck is far, far better in sloughing off waves
5. The steering is far, far worse than almost any other boat I've been in
6. I need to figure out ways to launch it, load it on the car and take it off by myself
7. I need to sand it in broad daylight rather than in the garage. I was amazed to see the number and distribution of resin drips, etc., that I missed sanding.
8. The steering deployment using cords and stretch cord return worked flawlessly, as did the prop strut.
9. The prop shaft needs to be redone completely. I think there was excess friction in the stuffing box, and the flopping shaft robbed energy that could go into propulsion.