New Boats at the HBBR Thames Raid (1)

One of the great points of interest of any UK Home Built Boat Rally is that there is always at least one new boat, and on the Thames Raid there were lots, with many being designed by the builders too.
Here is Tim O'Connor propelling his new self-designed canoe Zelva across the lake at Beale Park using the the elegance and power of a Hobie Mirage flapper drive.
Zelva incorporates a bunch of ideas from Tim's previous boat Wotnext, but enlarged into a luxurious camp-cruiser. The hull is glued clinker, double ended, and steered by a flexible rod attached to a yoke on the rudder.
Both ends are decked to provide a huge amount of stowage and sleeping space. The high-backed slatted seat (amazingly comfortable) is taken from Wotnext, and removes at night to allow a tent to be rigged over the cockpit and the bed laid.
In the travelling configuration, a pair of Tim's patented storage boxes are positioned either side of the seat so everything is to hand. In fact, once set up he doesn't have to get off his buns from departure to arrival as far as I can see.
The workmanship is fabulous, the design is stylishly curvy but entirely practical and Zelva deservedly won the 'most innovative design' prize at Water Craft's Amateur Boat Building Awards.

A Home Built Boat with Mirage drive

The Home Built Boat Rally rallied to the Cotswold Water Park over the weekend and brought the sun out. It rained on Saturday morning before I got there and was turning a bit nasty on Sunday afternoon when I left. Just how I like it.
The star exhibit was Tim O'Connor's Wotnext, a Walt Simmons canoe which he has fitted with a Hobie Mirage drive.
The Mirage drive has a pair of pedals driving flippers under the boat, flapping round like demented turtles. It is an incredibly elegant mechanism, just a couple of chains/cables transferring the power from the pedals to the flappers. And it drives the boat along lickertispit, as the video shows. Apologies for the camera shake, but he was at the other side of the lake and it's a long zoom.
I had a go myself later, and after just a little practice you develop a nice easy action that could keep you going forever. Tim has also designed and built a stylish seat based on the shape of seats on recumbent bikes, which is amazingly comfortable.
It is great to be able to keep on going while you take photographs, wave to boats you are overtaking or lift a nice glass of something to your lips. Tim seemed to be very keen on the idea of making sandwiches on the move, but that may just be the diet talking.
The big drawback to the Mirage drive is that you have to order it specially from the US and you won't get change from £500. As Tim points out, nobody who is into home built boats is going to buy a rotomoulded Hobie so they wouldn't cannabalise their kayak market by making the drives available to buy more easily and cheaply.