Hatches & port lights on, not painted yet, no electronics, no equipment – still TONS to do, but she is ready to see water for the first time! This is a view from inside the cockpit facing the stern. You can see the cabin hatch which is open to the side (like a door). This […]
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I cannot believe that we will actually be ready for the very first lake trials on Sunday! By looking at these shots taken today, you might not believe it either, but we are much closer to finishing than it might appear. There won’t be any paint on WiTHiN, or electronics or equipment aside from the […]
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me in the bow storage compartment turned guest room I had a great idea the other day while on a hike up Big Mountain. It occurred to me that WiTHiN is easily big enough to hold TWO people – one could sit in the cockpit and pedal while the other relaxes in the cabin spotting […]
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WiTHiN upside down on a new stand. The bleeder protective covering has now been removed from the hull bottom As far as big jobs go for right now, all that is left is building the drive leg / keel bay, carbon taping the exterior seems, and joining the cabin top. Paint & body work, sealing […]
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I’ve been posting fewer blogs showing progress of the human powered expedition boat WiTHiN, not because we haven’t been making progress, but the progress isn’t visually as impressive as it once was when we were making the big parts. Now it’s small things that take a lot of time. For example, it took a couple […]
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Here is a nifty little animation I whipped up showing the computer model of WiTHiN blending into the actual boat in my shop. And the big news for the week is the drive leg is here! MitrPak built it and they did an awesome job! The ‘T’ gear box at the top has a Shimano […]
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We got the seat panels inserted into the expedition boat and just as a double check, I placed my recumbent seat onto the carbon seat panel and used the cranks and drive from Critical Power 2 to check where the pedals will be. It all fit perfectly. We also got the port light (windows) holes […]
Read More...The lower hull jig is finished and we have the first panel in! First, my training progress for the Northface Endurance Challenge Gortex 50 mile run June 6: My last long run weekend consisted of a 6 hour run on Saturday followed by a 3 hour run on Sunday. Both went very well and my […]
Read More...Well, we have the cabin top assembled! This is pretty cool because it’s the first thing we’ve made that actually looks like Ocean WiTHiN! We’re also pretty psyched to see that Stuart Bloomfields design magic works like a charm. After building the cabin top jig and fitting the 3 cabin top carbon panels into position, […]
Read More...We have completed all but two panels and we realized that we had miscalculated the amount of epoxy resin we were going through. The raw Corecell panels were soaking up way more epoxy that we had originally expected, so I placed an order for more MAS brand epoxy from Noahs in Montreal and we have […]
Read More...Building Ocean WiTHiN – a human powered ocean crossing boat My last blog post called “how it’s done” was a step by step attempt to show you how we are building Ocean WiTHiN and it was received with a bit of confusion. I realized that I could do a much better job, so after four […]
Read More...Ken and I are now like a well oiled machine. A carbon sandwich panel making machine. Yesterday we finished side B of our first panel containing seat parts, and BOTH sides of the next panel which consists of the bulkheads. We have a pretty good system down, and so far the panels are coming out […]
Read More...After only 2 days into my Peru trip, I got a text from Ken with the bad news that we got kicked out of the hanger that my friend Steve so kindly offered to us as to build the new ocean crossing human powered boat – Ocean WiTHiN. I guess the owner of the Citation […]
Read More...Finally some real progress on the new ocean crossing boat! The image above is a model that Ken made using the developed panels designed by Stuart Bloomfield. This is basically how the new boat will be built. The first step is to create the flat panels which are carbon over Corecell closed cell foam core. […]
Read More...Click on any of the images below to enlarge. Naval architect Stuart Bloomfield from Bloomfield designs is making good progress on the design of next version of WiTHiN – the speed demon that I will human power across the Atlantic ocean. It’s still a work in progress, but I thought I would show you how […]
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Watch this video in HD – click here! “At first you are afraid you are going to die. Then you are afraid you are not going to die”. This is what my support boat driver Matahil Lawson says about sea sickness. I can now attest that it is completely true, and in the midst of […]
Read More...As promised – another new keel-girl photo. This time I talked her into wearing her bikini for the shot. You are welcome. To keep the keel from twisting and shearing off the two bolts holding the keel tube onto the stub tube, I welded a couple of stainless angles to make a notch for the […]
Read More...I said “Hey Helen, can you take a break for a sec and come help me in the shop?” She said sure, and I told her to do stand beside over the freshly bondo’ed keel as I grabbed the camera. She claimed I was shamelessly using her to get BLOG traffic! Anyhow, this 100 lb […]
Read More...I figured you were probably getting sick of seeing my (just turned 47 year old) face on the blog, so I got Helen to pose with the new keel for you. You are welcome. The keel consists of a 3.5″ diameter stainless steel pipe welded to a 3 foot long stainless tube. The tube slide […]
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