Re: [Paddlewise] Concrete Canoe

--Bob wrote about the McNeese State University's  concrete canoe. Readers
might be interested in the concrete canoe's I designed for a number of
schools. The first was designed for the University of Virginia a few years
back

Here is what they said.

"We won, We won! And the canoe rocked - it was the fastest thing I have
ever seen. The other schools had been practicing paddling for much longer
than us, and we were still able to win two of the three races. And then we
swept the other parts of the competition. It is the first time in eight
years that anyone other than Virginia Tech has won. We are all very, very
excited and thank you for all of your hard work and effort in making our
canoe such an incredible success."

And, after the Nationals;

"We got 14th in the country, which was significantly better than our 24th
place finish from a year ago and one place higher than our goal of 15th.
Needless to say we were very excited about the finish, and I think we
showed a lot of promise. Unfortunately our paddlers were not as dedicated
as the rest of us and we were unable to get any points in the racing
portion. Without much practice it was difficult for the paddlers to keep
the canoe going straight. We did, however, have the quickest turns at the
competition. (I don't think going straight was a problem at regionals
because we were a lot more patient and in the lead for a majority of the
races. Trying to come from behind at Nationals, I think we may have been
pulling very quick and ultimately ineffective strokes.)"


Since then about ten schools have used variations of this boat and done
extremely well. This year the rules changed a bit so I should have changed
the design.

I have supplied designs and consulting services for this competition at
cost for several years and have really enjoyed working with the students.
Used to have a web page up on the topic. Most students know nothing about
boat design but they are eager and have a lot of fun. If you are an alumnus
of an engineering school you should think seriously about donating money to
their efforts as they all run on a shoe string.

Cheers,
John Winters
Redwing Designs
Specialists in Human Powered Watercraft
http://home.ican.net/~735769/



***************************************************************************
PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List
Submissions:     paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net
Subscriptions:   paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net
Website:         http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/
***************************************************************************