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Design Topics Introduction
in Waterbike designs - December 2001 And some of the boat designers appear also to be great artists! As an example "Tiger Duck" from Flensburg Waterbike Team Germany has been lifted out of it's natural environment to highlight it's beauty.
Tiger Duck, Flensburg Waterbike Team Choosing a conceptBecause of the different disciplines, different performances are required for a boat to be the quickest human powered boat. Therefore choosing a concept is quite difficult. For example, a flying boat can have a very high top speed when flying. However, at a longer distance race in floating condition (e.g. the 10 kilometer distance at the International Waterbike Regatta, IWR), is far from optimal. The foils and the hull are generating a lot of resistance in the water. Besides this, the propeller is very likely to be over loaded, so the efficiency of power supply is likely to be poor also. Then a catamaran could be much faster. Or a mono-hull...
These are just illustrative aspects of the many things
you will face when building a boat with a good performance. Of
course one can also focus on one discipline. |
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| Bollard Pull Clock, Zagreb, Croatia 1999 (click to enlarge) | |||||||||
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Conceptual ideas "Dragonfly" has an air propeller for transforming human energy to propulsion power. The boat is built from carbon reinforced reinforced plastic and is the winner of the Innovation Price in 1996 and 1997
"Froude Interceptor" was built in 1994 at the institute for Naval Architecture, University of Hamburg. The hull is made of wood and the mechanic with parts of cars and bikes. The crew powers eight oars over a crank set. In 1994 they won the construction price, 1st place. From then until now, the year 2001, the Froude Interceptor is taking place at races, proving the reliability of this boat.
Another example of peddling power elegance is this boat from the Zagreb Waterbike Team Croatia. This boat participated for the first time at the International Waterbike Regatta (IWR) in Zagreb, Croatia 1999.
"Tabasco" from Bremen Waterbike Team, University of Bremen Germany, is propelled by... The INVERTA propulsion system. Describing how it works is rather difficult. Just having a look explains a lot:
Have a look how she sails during the International Waterbike Regatta in Genoa, 2002: Have a look at the Tabasco. World of Waterbiking
Our intention in the future is to provide some more technical feedback
about waterbike technology. So more people are infected by this pleasant
fever which is healthy and very educative. Greetings,
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World of Waterbiking
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