this summer. while passing an apartment building, I spied a discarded
kid's pedal car in the rubish corner which got me thinking. I came back a
couple of days later and ripped the pedals out of the toy and took them
home. I playied around with the dimensions and some ideas. The main
obsitcal is to get sufficietn clearance inside teh boat for the pedals and
feet the axel has to be mounted 10" - 12" above the bottom. Not only is
that too tight a fit for teh interior of a kayak, but the height means the
feet are held up at an awkward, tiring angle. The peddler would have to be
sitting well above the bottom of teh boat to be comfortable peddling. The
boat I would be intsalling the peddals in is a narrow boat without a deck
with 10" fo freeboard on 12" topsides. I could perhaps iostall a seat 6"
above the bottom to use the peddals.

I would also not use a paddle wheel as they mostly just stir the water
into a froth. I would use the peddals to move a longer paddle through the
water, one shaft with a paddle on each end. A posting in the
rec.boats.building newsgroup on the dyanamics of paddles confirmed its
effectiveness. This also solves the shallow draft problem as the paddle
can be brought to rest parallel to the and above the waterline. I've
worked out the dimensions of the paddles.

I only need to scrounge a few materials to make and test the paddles but
I'm currently more interested in working out the math for the design of a
solo pocket cruising sailboat so I doubt the paddles will get made for
some time.

many who lurk in this newsgroup will be delighted to read that the paddles
would not work well with sponsons, at least on the boats I have.
--
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