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(William R. Watt) wrote in message ...
Stephen Baker ) writes:
William Watt says:

no moreso than paddling kills your arms.

Not so - paddling kayak-wise uses a full movement of the arms, ending with the
paddle being withdrawn and the other arm starting to work. No jarring.
Having a blade come out of the water while still under full power, then (say)
half a revolution until the other blade hits is going to be..... hmmmm -
looks for marine analogy.... like NOT having a throttle-man on an offshore
powerboat. The prop will come back into the water after a jump with the engine
spinning maddly, suddenly get loaded and break the shaft/blade whichever. Not
good. ;-(

I'm not actually looking for a continous kayak-style power, but a
discontinuous canoe-style or a discontintuous oar-stlye power. I've seen
foot-operated oars in a film on Southeast Asia.

I'm not looking at a bunch of little blades churning up the surface, but
two larger blades deeper in the water like on a canoe. I want the boat to
go smoothly and silently like a canoe, not making a lot of noise like the
peddal paddle boats I've seen. A slower action with larger, deeper blades.
Low rpm's, larger blades, more effective power.

I don't think the kids peddal shaft allows enough piston action in the
legs to work the large paddles.

I have often thought of using a track like a snowmobile that ran most
of the length of the boat, it could run under the boat and be pretty
shallow. You would have constant power, forward and reverse, and if
you kept the track under the boat, you could probably make it pretty
quiet. Also maybe using a softer material for the "paddles" you could
make it quiet too. If I were going to build it I would probably use
some sort of canvas with leather or rubber blades every 6-8 inches or
so. For a small boat, you would not need very big blades and this
could almost be done within the exterior limits of the hull itself
without even hanging out the bottom of the boat like a prop or paddle
wheel. What do you all think of that??
Scotty from SmallBoats.com