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July 04, 2007
White Rock Lake -- Trimaran boat testing
I woke up really early this morning -- 6am -- and took my home-made trimaran watercraft to a popular nearby lake, White Rock, and successfully paddled for about an hour. I mounted my GPS and digital camera (placed in Tupperware to keep the water out) so that I could track my paddling speed and review it later (which would be at this very moment, as I write this entry).
Side note: I should exercise early in the morning more often. There are so many healthy and beautiful-looking people (ahem, with particular attention to the ladies) out there jogging, biking, etc.
I wore my trusty PFD ("please-keep-me-floating" device) in case my ride fell apart . . . like it did once during pool testing.
I really like how my watercraft is super-narrow and allows me to keep my paddle strokes very close to my body. Unfortunately, I think I underestimated the amount of drag that would be introduced by the various protruding and/or blunt shapes throughout my otherwise-narrow craft. On the positive side, the waterline was pretty much where I expected it to be. Basically, my butt stayed wet the entire time, which I figured would happen if I wanted the two center pontoons to stay submerged in the water. I like the custom seat I fabricated to conform to my very own behonkas.
No matter how hard I paddled, I couldn't get my craft to move faster than 2.5 mph. Arrgh. Maybe my butt dragging in the water caused too much, uhh, drag. What a drag. Dag-nabit.
At rest, 0.0 mph:
about 2.5 mph:
almost 3 mph? I couldn't quite tell what the GPS was reading:
I noticed that the foam blocks in the front and on top of the primary (center two) pontoons were creating lots of disturbance. I could see lots of water being pushed forward and to the sides.
I guess it's time to build version 4 of my personal watercraft. Or is it already version 5 or 6?
Back to the drawing board.
Oh, another side note. Here's my first lawyer-joke T-shirt:
Posted by will at July 4, 2007 10:23 PM