I’ve known this guy, Chris Partridge,  for a number of years now. Not in the “let’s go hang out and grab a couple of beers” way of knowing a friend with whom you share a passion. More like a Cyber-Friend who lives in England with whom I’ve shared many interesting discussions over the years on various Yahoo Groups. That kind of friend.

I would just love to have the opportunity and the resources to get over to Europe again and truly spend some time with all of my English boating buddies.

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Posted: May 7th, 2009 under Human Powered Vessel.
Comments: 1

A dual Mirage drive powered, two person launch

Sometime back, I encountered an ex-pat American, now living in Melbourne, Australia, by the name of Mack Horton. Mack wanted to build a two-person boat for cruising the harbor and waterways of his hometown, Melbourne. He was looking to propel his boat with a twin setup of the wonderfully innovative Hobie Mirage drive designed by Greg Ketterman. I really liked that idea as I had already done a few different boats that were Mirage capable, but they were all solo boats. This design concept opened a new door for me, as it would allow me work out the balance and weight issues for a twin drive and once built, I could also discover how much more speed potential might be available beyond a solo drive.

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Posted: December 23rd, 2008 under Human Powered Vessel, Mirage Drive.
Comments: 1

Nagare  (nah-ga-ray) is a Japanese word meaning Flow. The two boats in this group are 17 and 21 feet in length and are known simply as the Nagare 17 and the Nagare 21. Both designs make use of the popular Hobie Mirage drive for principal propulsion with the 21 footer being a double Mirage setup and the 17 relying on a single Mirage. Both of them are configured as trimarans with fairly small and unobtrusive amas designed to give the boats remarkable stability in a wide range of conditions.

 The Nagare sisters also have incredibly narrow waterline beam numbers that, when coupled with their fairly long hulls provide for multihull type easily driven hull forms for very high efficiency per unit of energy applied. 

I expect both boats to operate at the very high end of commercially available paddled boats of the same length, beam and weight. So, yes, they can go pretty quickly, but that’s not the real purpose.

The real benefit of the design motif is in the ease with which they are propelled at any given speed, compared to other boats of their size. This efficiency translates directly to those using the boats.

Because the propulsion is derived from the largest muscles in your body, the leg muscles, rather than the arms and shoulders, there will be less fatigue for each mile traveled. Because leg muscles are so much bigger than arms, they will be able to do more work in a given period of time, making for longer possible trips, as well as the mentioned lower fatigue issue. With a less fatiguing effort, more people will be able to enjoy the experience of being out on the water for daylong adventures.

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Posted: June 24th, 2008 under Human Powered Vessel, Mirage Drive.
Comments: 6