Many years ago growing up around my grandfathers cottage on Grand Lake, I often thought about how cool it would be if I could build a boat that I could pedal around the lake like a normal boat. Being only 12 or 13, I didn't have the money for a real boat, and certainly didn't have the knowledge to get around the mechanical aspects of building a pedal powered boat. Several years after this, working for a family member in a garage, I thought back to this and mentioned it to a frequent visitor, who mentioned they used to build these for duck hunters but not many people bought them because they were slow and cumbersome.
Now many years later, and having sold my boat while I was in school 6 years ago to help pay for the bills, I've come back to thinking about building a pedal powered boat. When I starting searching Google, it was quick to see there are a lot of sites on pedal powered boats or more commonly known as human powered boats. The majority of these boats are built for racing using kayak hulls and single gear pedal to propeller setup. I've always thought a real boat ( 12 - 14 foot boat ) with seats to take passengers, fishing gear etc.
As I searched online I found more and more information on these boats, and some instruction sites on how certain aspects were geared up. From there I also found many incredibly interesting sites on human powered vehicles. From snow machines to 4 wheeled bicycles with car bodies, all giving me ideas for future projects.
After many many hours of researching on boat plans (there is an abundance of free boats plans from popular mechanics from the 50's to private businesses that will sell you designs cheap and very simple to build. I downloaded a set of plans for a 12 foot wooden boat that uses 1/4" plywood and fiberglass cloth and resin to hold it all together. Pretty simple. I found another site ( I should say THE ONLY site I found) on how to build a propeller from scratch. Most of the Human powered boats (HPB for short) use remote control air plane propellers as normal boat propellers (what I've read from a mulitude of sites) are very inefficient for HPB's not to mention extremely expensive.
The other mechanical challenge I was faced with, was to find a way to turn the chain 90 degrees so I could connect a propeller to it. Sitting sideways (facing out the side versus facing forward) wasn't an option to me. I came across a site that talked about the compact twisted chain theory. If the chain is long enough, you can twist the the sprocket/chain on one end and the chain will stay on. there were some other points on this site about using a tube and a specific sprocket so that the chain wont derail or use miter gears which can be costly again from some of the sites that I've checked out.
After taking a lot of time thinking, dreaming and drawing things out, I decided I would go ahead and try and build this project with my Son who's 10 and very mechanical for his age (not to mention he can't get enough time with my tools and things he can take apart without getting in trouble....LOL) and we call it Project Green Marine........
Here are a bunch of sites on HPB's
http://www.humanpoweredboats.com/
http://www.pedaltheocean.com/
http://www.adventuresofgreg.com/24hour.html
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