Bradford asked: >>>>>>>1. How many horsepower does one dragonboat generate? 2. Do paddlers develop asymmetrical/lopsided bodies?<<<<<< Is it a trick question? The dragonboat doesn't generate any horsepower at all. It just generates drag when horsepower moves it. To answer the question you likely meant based on what I think is the horsepower that a very strong paddler could generate. The 20 paddlers times about 1/5 of a horsepower generated by each paddler would generate about 4 horsepower total. Horsepower = drag in pounds x speed in knots x 0.003069 (I think). Since we know the time (108.74 seconds) for the winner over 500 meters. and distance we should easily get that converted to the speed in knots. I get about 9 knots as their speed. About what a top single Olympic kayak paddler can do. The hard part working it out that way will be to figure the drag. Does anyone know the waterline length and width of a dragon boat? Knowing the wetted surface and draft as well would be even better but I could probably make a pretty good estimate of the wetted surface from the waterline length and width. Using 40 feet as the waterline length, 4 feet as the waterline width, 5000 pounds as the displacement, .8 as the prismatic coefficient and then stretching the limits of my drag spreadsheet in doing so, I'm going to estimate there is 120 to 150 pounds of drag at 9 knots on a dragon boat. If HP=speed in knots times drag in pounds times .003069 then that gives between 3.3 to 4.1 horsepower needed to move the boat that fast. Sorry to be so long getting this done. I've been working double time to try to catch a kayak thief. Matt Broze www.marinerkayaks.com *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Sun Sep 30 2007 - 14:54:22 PDT
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