Why even paddle when you can attach a solar powered motor to your kayak. Now there's no need for that $450 carbon fiber paddle.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/27/solar-powered-kayak-attachment-nixes-need-for-paddling/
Watt?
They’ve only got 10 little watts of power going there. They could easily double that on the surface in front of the motor. You could parallel at least 30 to 60 more on top of the boat and outrigger. Let’s get serious and have some real power if you’re gonna do it!
Watts to HP
If memory serves, 1 horsepower = 745.7 watts.
Therefore they offer 0.0134 HP. That ought to make a kayak plane!
Jim
Zoom, zoom
Actually, it runs off of a deep-cycle battery that is being charged by the panels. Still, 10W won’t add many hours of steady running. The two panels mounted on that rig are the same panels as the little 5W panel I use to maintain a battery over the winter. I have a 15W on my travel trailer and add-on plugs that I can parallel the 5W and more if I had them while camping. 20W charging all day pretty much makes up for any lights I might run during the evening and the furnace fan to take the chill off in the morning. If I forget and leave the frige on 12V instead of switching it to gas the battery drains in a hurry.
I guess it’s ok but this is how I did it
The center hatch is just big enough for two 33 amp hour, sealed, gel type deep cycle batteries laying on their sides. I still paddle it but with the batteries it can tool me around for at least five hours. Maybe more but I wear out before the batteries anyway ! I modified the motor by shortening the length of the shaft and turning the head around 180 degrees, and being designed for bow mounting, and being mounted on the stern, the buttons for left and right on the remote control pad are reversed. I also installed two runners made out of hacksaw blades that prevent the motors tilt mechanism from locking to allow the business end to ride up over rocks and bars. It does inhibit the function of turning the motor around to back up without the motor propelling itself up out of the water and splashing and all. The ability to have the motor ride up over obstacles rather than get stuck in shallow fast water is worth the drawbacks. When you want to back up that is when I paddle ! To be able to call this a solar powered kayak is easy, just use a solar panel to charge the batteries when your not on the water. That solar powered gimmick will not charge the cells as fast as you are using up the juice.
http://picasaweb.google.com/rickersnumber1/PimpedOutRide?authkey=-8033Hi8OJQ
Come on, if you’re going to do it . . .
Go all the way. I’m thinking, Honda V-Tec 16valve minimum. Why leave any water behind your yak as you move from one fish to the next? lol
I put a 15 hp johnson on a coleman
crawdad just for fun once and it was freaking scary fast, and an accident waiting to happen on anything but glass.
Is the trolling motor 24 Volt?
This contraption
would look amazing on a Pamlico 140 - almost like it was made for it!! LOL!!!
Looks like a Perception.
Jet Powered
http://www.jetkayak.co.uk/splash.htm
Saw this on TV recently.
Think I’ll stick to a regular paddle…
Jim
My electric motor is 12 volt.
I had my boat on a big wide stretch of river when the wind came up and made it hell to paddle. I just wanted to get the heck off the water as fast as possible. I was doing a leisurely fishing float just drifting with the current until the wind whooped up. That little electric motor saved my wrists and elbows, (arthritis), from a week of recovery and turned something that could have been an agonizing ordeal fighting the wind and waves into a fun adventure !
I just took a real good look !
at that solar contraption and it is ridiculous !
How would one be able to steer it with that stupid tiller way back there. That is the reason I used the remote controlled Motor-Guide trolling motor for my electric kayak project. Plus having the motor mounted on center line on the stern makes for very good performance and control.