First trip in the new pedal drive prototype was exceedingly pleasant, if not quite perfect. Just a recap of yesterday’s post, this new version is 33” wide and 15’6” long and can be used as a day trip tandem for lighter paddlers, or a solo capable of carrying quite a bit of weight. I designed it to sit on a 4 inch waterline with 300 pounds on board, but it’s actually sitting at 4 1/2 inches which pushes the flood level in the drive box 1/2 inch higher than I’d like.
I always knew this was a risk, but I deliberately undersized both this and the previous prototype to understand exactly where the lower size limits are, so I can give accurate sizing recommendations in the plans we are developing.
Our canoe building system will let you build any size canoe you want, so getting this right’s just a matter of changing the size to match the intended load. This same canoe 1 inch wider should be about perfect for 300 pounds and 2 inches wider and a foot longer should get us up to about 400. It’s important to get this right because the box should not spill water inside the canoe until the canoe reaches an angle of heel where you’re already tipping over anyway. Raising the height of the box isn’t really an option because it wouldn’t allow the reverse to function or give enough heel clearance for people with larger feet.
The position of the drive relative to the paddler position is a little close for people with longer legs, so I will keep that in mind for the next version. (Seat on this is higher than the last, which changed to geometry.)
The seats are set up to face each other, which I really enjoy for the ability to interact and also pass things back-and-forth easily, but the bow paddler can also remove the back rest to face the opposite direction to use the boat like a normal canoe.
Speed, glide, and maneuverability are all excellent and the steering system works flawlessly. It’s an absolute pleasure to be in and I was jealous of Liz in the drivers seat. I’ll let you know how it works as a solo tomorrow.
___
This post was originally featured on our Instagram feed.
See the original post and discussion here.
