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The pictures below show the Hoppekat from Flensburg Waterbike Team
Germany. By jumping up and down the boat moves forward! A flapping
tale is placed right below the water surface. The vertical motion causes
the tale to make a fish like movement in vertical direction. This idea has
been implemented before. However, the movement of the two ducks is quite
good! Hardly any longitudinal trimming rotations are visible from which
one can conclude that the centre of gravity and the centre of buoyancy are
positioned exactly above one another. Also the slender hulls make a good
vertical amplitude possible. Next could be optimising the speed.
 
Hoppekat (click to enlarge) |
If you take a good look at Hoppekat you might
notice that she has looks of ducks with a bite of some tiger stripes. She
has a complete innovative redesigned propulsion of the former "Tiger Duck".
A photo of Tiger Duck in Zagreb 1999 is shown at the Design
Topics.
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Remember Tabasco from the design topics area? With it's special
propulsion system! A man that came down from the Swiss Alps with a
marvellous propulsion concept, The INVERTA
system. This system built into the Tabasco made the waterbike
team from Bremen, Germany, winner of the Innovation Price in Delft,
1998.
They were also at the IWR in Genoa.
Tabasco (click to enlarge) |
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"5 for 12" from the waterbike team of Flensburg was
built for the IWR 2000. The steering unit has been renewed and look
at the nice paint. The paddle wheel unit looks nice from an art
point of view. And with it's cover plate and position a good
designers' choice.
5 for 12, Waterbike team Flensburg, Germany
(click to enlarge)
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Short hull low top speed. But.. nice looking and working
very well!! The main goal was comfortable cruising and fun. The boat
consists out of two inflatable tubes, a good propeller and is easy to
transport.
Built and driven by Andreas Schlief, Organiser of many World Championships
and European Championships.
Andreas Schlief (marvellous event organiser),
Hamburg, Germany
Fhuntastic has round tube hulls, made from glass fibre
reinforced plastic and styropor foam in order to minimize weight. The
propeller at the aft can rotate 360 degrees and makes this waterbike both
fast in forward direction as well as backwards. Last year, the team from
Flensburg, Germany, that built this boat, tested two new propellers,
especially for the sprint and the bollard pull.
Fhuntastic, Waterbike Team Flensburg, Germany
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One of the older ladies, miss Froude Interceptor with her
pre-historic look. Built in 1994 and sailing beautiful again in the year
2002! Unfortunately one of the peddles showed some failure. But hey,
sometimes the lady needs some care.
Go to: see
how the peddling works.
Froude Interceptor (click to enlarge)
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Donatella,
Trieste Waterbike Team, Italy |
Donatella (Dona = Italian for woman) is a tri-maran
erected from a K1 canoe hull. It took the Trieste Waterbike Team, that
built it, about a month. This is rather short compared to some other boats
that sometimes took 2 years starting from scratch on paper. But don't
assume it didn't take blood sweat and tears to build it. Things have been
considered well and at her first appearance during the IWR of 2001 in
Hamburg it finished all competitions without technical failures. Maybe
this boat becomes a real competitor in the near future.
So watch us, we'll
be watching you next time!
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Anemos, Waterbike team Athens, Greece
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Wederwood, Delft Waterbike Technology,
The Netherlands
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"Unidentified waterbike"
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Who are these waterbikers? Where do they come from? what
is the name of their boat? If you have some info please send me an e-mail.
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Article part 1,
part
2, part
3,
results,
boats,
price
giving, party
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