Nos bateaux pour les plans d'eau intérieurs
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Nos bateaux pour les plans d'eau intérieurs |
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Winsome
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Our Winsome pedal boat was launched in August 2006. This unique boat offers a fun, relaxing and eco-friendly way to explore rivers, canals, city docklands and estuaries. The crew sit opposite one another (in sociable fashion) with their hands free so they can chat, sip champagne (or a flask of hot soup in winter!), take photographs or simply watch the world glide by. Length: 5.3m (17ft 4ins) Beam: 1.1m (3ft 7ins) Special Introductory Price: £4,995 inc VAT (for orders placed in 2006)Coque en composite mais peut être en CP/Epoxy
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| During the development period, our Winsome prototype has been tried and enjoyed by many different people - both boaters and non-boaters. We have also cruised her over 200 miles - exploring the River Thames, River Severn, Teifi Estuary, Norfolk Broads and the Welsh canals. She is well suited to simply pottering along in the sunshine as well as longer cruises using riverside B&B's. Four mph is Winsome's typical, leisurely, cruising speed but she can achieve 6-7mph if her crew are energetically inclined! Winsome was inspired by David Williams of Horning, Norfolk who built a boat like this 40 years ago for his own enjoyment and is still using it. The boat is moulded in double-skinned glass fibre for optimum strength, stiffness and weight. The crew sit facing each other and pedal the boat via a central gearbox where patent nylon gears drive a 12" propeller at about 300 rpm. The boat is steered using a fingertip tiller connected to a balanced rudder. Winsome's sleek (17' by 3') hull is flat-bottomed for stability and minimal wake, and cuts effortlessly through the water with minimal disturbance. She has substantial buoyancy chambers fore and aft, as well as a forward water ballast tank to trim to boat for one-person operation or uneven crew weight. |
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| Blue Sky |  |
This is another long-distance small boat. Bill Hayward built his "Blue Skies" from this plan and took her from the Milk River in Alberta to the Missouri, and down the Mississippi. He pedaled along the Gulf coast to Florida and up the Intracoastal Waterway to New York, then on up the Hudson River to the St. Lawrence. He eventually ended his journey in Halifax, Nova Scotia, after travelling for eighteen months. At the price of some mechanical complexity, pedal driven boats offer remarkable efficiency. This one has proved itself capable of sustained hard usage.
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"Blue Skies" is an oddball little boat that we built several years ago with and for our oddball friend Bill Hayward. Bill got hooked by the idea of pedal power after many years of rowing and was looking for a boat to do some long distance cruising. To add to the challenge he needed liveaboard accommodation and the ability to operate on fast flowing rivers and in shallow water without damage to the drive system. A tall order to say the least, but the boat has proved most successful and logged thousands of miles around the waterways of North America. Her lines and specifications are in the plan catalog. She was built canoe fashion, cedar strip over a temporary mold, glassed inside and out. There is a 6 ft. 6 in. sleeping cabin forward; accommodations are extended by a bimini top with side curtains over the cockpit. The drive consists of a bicycle crank turning a shaft through a 6:1 bevel gear running in an oil bath. The shaft is fitted with a universal joint where it exits the hull and the outer shaft is supported by a pivoting skeg that folds up into a trunk in the stern. The skeg extends under the propeller so that on grounding it kicks up without damage. Both skeg and rudder can be hoisted for beaching. |
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