I took the pedal drive prototype out yesterday in relatively light winds to see how our pop-up sail system would interface with the pedal drive. As expected, not very well. The flippers add enormous drag to what is otherwise a surprisingly swift sail, despite its tiny size. There’s also just way too much risk...
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Video: Walkthrough of the pedal drive canoe outfitting
Sound on for narration! Here I’m outfitting the pedal drive canoe prototype for rough water trials and self rescue practice. ___ This post was originally featured on our Instagram feed. See the original post and discussion here. Follow Cape Falcon Kayak on Instagram »...
Video: Testing the reverse function of the Hobie 180 Mirage Drive
Here’s a quick look at the reverse function of the Hobie 180 Mirage Drive. Basically you reach down and pull a lever and the flipper fins flip backwards, and then you can pedal in reverse. It’s a cool mechanism, but I’m not sure how much it makes sense for our application. For me reverse...
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Video: Comparing three different “flipper” drives
Yesterday we tested three different “flipper” drives in the Prototype Pedal Drive Canoe. The first one is a generic copy of the older Hobie design that is no longer under patent protection. At less than half the price of a newer Hobie Mirage drive it’s definitely tempting, but there is a massive difference in...
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Doing some surgery on the pedal drive box for the next round of testing
The next step for the Pedal Drive Canoe is to test it with all of the available “flipper” drives and a few different fin sizes. I already bought the standard Hobie Drive and also a cheap knock off of their older design, so this week I pulled the trigger ($1080 ouch) on the Hobie...
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Next steps for the pedal-drive canoe
Let’s talk about the next steps for the drive canoe: Right now the plan is to spend the next two weeks testing and upgrading the prototype with and without the drive installed. I need to purchase the Hobie reversible drive with turbo fins to try both of those features and modify the drive box...
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Video: More from the first test of the pedal-drive canoe
Before I share the specs on the pedal drive canoe prototype I just want to make it clear that this is not the size I would normally build for myself. (our building system will let you build any size canoe) I deliberately undersized this canoe to try to find the lower limit of canoe...
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Video: First look at the pedal drive canoe
Here’s a first look at the pedal drive canoe system in action. As always, there are many things I’m planning to change for the final version, but overall the launch went surprisingly well. The canoe is fast, maneuverable, sufficiently stable, and most importantly can be transformed back into a normal canoe in about 90...
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Timelapse: Rigging the pedal-powered canoe
A quick word about the music on these videos: regardless of what type of music I use, someone is always upset about it, so if that’s you today, please send me your suggestions for appropriate, licensable music that you would like to hear on a time-lapse video. Thanks! Moving on, yesterday I installed the...
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Timelapse: Building the seat for the pedal powered canoe
Sound on! Here I’m finishing up the seat for the pedal powered Canoe. Normally I just purchase canoe seats because it’s far more cost-effective than building, but the pedal canoe requires a longer see a higher back so I have to build it. Plenty of small changes to be made on the next version...
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Timelapse: Skinning the pedal drive canoe prototype
Sound on! I put the skin on the pedal drive canoe yesterday, and shot a few updates for our online skin-on-frame canoe building course. This time I ended up using my buddies Grex pneumatic stapler, which was much easier on the hands than the good old Stanley T50. Skinning canoes is always nice because...
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Installing the pedal drive base plate
Today I took the plunge and install the base plate for the pedal drive. After 20 years of managing to avoid the stuff, I’m still feeling pretty indignant about all the epoxy work in this new modification. Unfortunately I just don’t see any way around it. On the positive side, I think there’s a...
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Video: a super-simple test rudder
Super simple test rudder for my pedal-powered canoe project. This is just screwed together with a quick coat of oil because there is zero chance that the final version will look anything like this and I just wanted to basic platform to figure out blade area and overall geometry. Once I figure out the...
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Timelapse: More progress on the pedal drive canoe
More progress on the pedal drive canoe. This nonsense is just an over engineered plug for the box to see if I notice a difference in drag while sailing with the pedal drive removed and the hole in the bottom plugged versus non-plugged. It would have to be a pretty noticeable difference to add...
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Finally a bit more progress on the pedal power canoe
Finally a bit more progress on the pedal power canoe. I spent the last week measuring and testing the seating geometry of every pedal drive kayak I could get my hands on. Next I made a final decision on drive location, which was pretty brutal and amounts to nothing more than a coin toss,...
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