Big progress over the last couple of days. It is Saturday morning now, and I am pretty sure that tomorrow she will be ready for her maiden voyage if I can find some unfrozen chunk of lake somewhere.

Here are a pile of images showing progress over the last few days:

My buddy Manny from Rhomec Industries contributed this jewelry for the suped up pedal boat. Two complete drive units consisting of a CNC machined propeller from Rick Willoughby’s computer file, a bearing tube that hold two glass bearings, an aluminum nose cone, tail cone, U-joint and 3/8″ shaft that runs to a coupler that is connected to the MitrPak right angle gear box.

Manny made me some interchangeable gears for the gear box. These collars will hold any standard Shimano rear cassette gear.

This is the MitrPak right angle gear box with a 13 tooth gear mounted on the input shaft and the 6 foot long prop shaft mounted with a coupler onto the output shaft of the gear box.

This is my seat frame sitting on the top deck of the boat hull. I was able to fit the hull into my shop, but the bow and stern are jammed into two corners of the room.

This is the rudder tube after I added the additional carbon reinforcement layers

The rudder tube bonded to the rear bulkhead

Before the top deck went on, I filled the compartments with water to check for leaks

Water filled compartment in the hull

Some very small leaks. I am going to pressurize the hull with air (with the top deck on) and wash soapy water over the hull and look for bubbles which I will mark. Then using a bit of vacuum pressure, I will apply epoxy to the pin holes that were marked from the soap test to fill the holes. We are going to spray a final coat of paint on her, so that will definitely help seal her up.

This is the deck after it was removed from the vacuum bag. We used CoreCell core material + 1 layer of 5.8 oz carbon on the top and 1 layer of 5 oz fiberglass on the back.

The deck has been bonded to the hull using a bit of micro and some epoxy. I clamped the deck onto the flange at first, but we got more even pressure around the flange using weights and duct tape.

Ben is filling my outriggers with expanding foam

Temporary setup showing the seat and pedals

The drive unit is mounted to the seat frame and everything is temporarily clamped to the deck. It all worked!

The SRM power meter chain ring with Dura Ace chain running to a 14 tooth gear on the Mitrbox gear box.

I welded a 2″ wide, 1/4″ thick aluminum plate to the bearings tube, then bent it. It will be bolted to the flange.

Top view of the boat

The gear box is mounted to the seat frame with a 1/4″ thick aluminum plate welded to the seat frame. The slotted holes allow me to tension the chain.

The 6 foot long, 3/8″ stainless steel shaft runs from the gear box down to a U-joint which is connected to a short shaft which runs through the tail cone, bearing tube holding two glass bearings, the prop and finally the nose cone (spinner). I still need to fair the strut with a grinder. The large flanges on the U-joint is my back-up U-joint. I am able to make 2 complete sets of drives – the main drive will use a small 3/8″ diameter u-joint which could be the weak point of the whole drive. For the back-up unit, I decided to use the larger U-joints.

This is what I am dealing with in the middle of May! All the lakes around Calgary are still frozen over. Stefan was telling me that this is the first time in over 20 years that the reservoir hasn’t opened during the first week of May.

Progress updates:

You can now follow my micro updates by subscribing to the PedalTheOcean Twitter feed. I am thinking of updating this feed during the 24 hour record attempt every hour. The advantage of following a Twitter feed is that you can choose to receive updates on your cell phone, text messages, email or follow using the Twitter web site, the AdventuresOfGreg web site (upper right hand corner), or my FaceBook page (status updates).

As with everything in life there is always give and take, pros and cons, good with the bad. Very seldom is anything easy and straight forward. The new 24 hour record attempt human powered boat build is going really great – too great in fact. Something needed to offset all this great progress and that something is the Greek sea-god Achilles.

My Achilles tendon on my right leg is swollen and very, very sore and is becoming an issue for me.

My weekly long training rides alternate between an ultra-long, but moderate paced ride which progressively grows longer each 2nd week as I near the record attempt date and a 5-hour, very intense, hard ride. Today’s 5 hour ride was supposed to average 200 watts and I made it to 3 hours and had to quit because my Achilles tendon was too sore.

It’s been getting worse over the last few weeks and I continue to hope that it will just disappear. Last weeks 10 hour training ride outside with my buddy Greg Bradley was very painful for the last 4 hours of the ride. Today, I didn’t make it past 3 hours. I need to get this problem resolved!!!

My buddy Chad who is an Ironman triathlete and also an MD, suggested I purchase this cool portable home ultra sound device called Sonic Relief:

I’ve been using it aggressively in combination with a topical anti-inflammatory cream and it seems to reduce swelling. I will keep at it.

What I really need to do is to give my foot a break for a couple of weeks to allow the Achilles to heal, but I am afraid that I will lose too much fitness and won’t be able to stick to my scheduled 24 hour human powered boat distance record attempt for late June. We have a pretty busy summer, so it will be tough trying to schedule the record attempt for July or August.

Since postponing the Atlantic crossing until December of 2009, I now have time for other athletic pursuits, so I signed up for Ironman Arizona in November. I really have to get this 24 hour record attempt done and finished with by July at the latest so I can recover and switch training focus back to Ironman. My goal for Ironman in November is to make it back to World Championships in Kona! I have a special reason for going back to Kona, Hawaii in October of 2009 – more on that at a later date.

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24 hour record boat progress

Above is a computer model of what the new boat will look like. Click to enlarge. My recumbent seat sits on a 10″ wide, hollow carbon fiber hull that is 24 feet long. There are two, light weight carbon outriggers for balance that typically sit a few inches ABOVE the water line while underway. My forward momentum should be enough to keep the narrow main hull balanced without the extra drag of the outriggers.

The main hull is 2 layers of 5.8 oz carbon fiber + 1 layer of 6 oz carbon+Kevlar weave. To add stiffness and strength, I inserted six bulkheads which I cut out from a left-over section of the carbon fiber sandwich board frame for Critical Power. I think it is cool to have part of Critical Power in this boat. (Critical Power is the name of my human powered vehicle that I set a 24 hour distance record with in the summer of 2006).

I kept the cut-out sections of this sandwich board frame for Critical Power
and used them for the bulkheads for the new boat

I was very surprised when I weighed the hull with the outriggers because it was one pound LESS than when I pulled it off the mold. Even with the carbon bulkheads bonded in, it is only 13.5 pounds. It will weigh more when the top deck is on, but this is a good start!

You can see the Kevlar (gold) with the carbon weave.
Kevlar will prevent the hull from ripping apart if it is holed.

The top deck will be a 24 foot long piece of closed cell foam core called CoreCell. CoreCell is what we are building the new ocean crossing boat WiTHiN out of.

The CoreCell will be covered with 1 layer of carbon each side, then cut to fit onto the flange of the hull.

The short sections of CoreCell are joined with tabs that are epoxied over the seems. This should also provide a bit more stiffness to the top deck.

The rudder tube is an old carbon tube that I had. It wasn’t quite strong enough, so I reinforced it with a wrap of carbon. After the carbon went onto the tube, I wetted it out with epoxy resin, then wound a tight layer of electrical tape around it. I poked holes in the electrical tape to allow excess epoxy to seep out.

24 hour human powered boat record:

This boat is going to be fiendishly fast!

First you have to check out this work of art that my buddy Manny from Rhomec Industries made for me:

It’s the aluminum prop, spinner, bearing tube and fairing cones for the drive for the new 24 hour record attempt boat. VERY SWEET!

I want to keep the exact configuration of the drive unit proprietary for a little while, so I’m not posting any drawings of it here. I am aware of another group who has indicated to me that they plan on challenging my 174 km pedal boat record from last summer and I don’t really want to give away any of our secrets just yet. I am not **repeat NOT** attempting to break my own 174 km pedal boat record – I am attempting to break Carter Johnson’s 245 km kayaking record! I am aware that there is a big spread between 174 km and 245 km, and this boat that was designed by Rick Willoughby is capable of at least 245 km in 24 hours. If I am able to go farther than 245 km in 24 hours on a flat lake, then it will be the farthest any person has ever travelled in 24 hours on water under their own power.

Rick is helping with design and engineering direction, Manny from Rhomec is contributing his wicked machining skills to make the prop and drive unit parts, the right angle gear drive was donated by my buddy George and PedalTheOcean sponsor MitrPak, and my right hand man Ben is helping out in the shop. I’ll have a cast of other friends helping with officiating, observing and other help like last year – it is TRULY a collaborative effort and I am VERY grateful for all of the support these friends are providing.

My original intention was to invite Carter Johnson to Calgary and stage a race and possibly a new world record by either Carter or I. I’m not sure that is going to work because lake conditions for a record need to be nearly perfect – very calm and flat water. That means I need to race on a day with little to no wind which means that I can’t schedule an exact date for the record attempt. My intention is to be ready to go and watch the weather closely, then when a suitable weather window opens up, just DO IT.

Ben came over today and we made some progress on the main hull. This hull is 24 feet long and 9″ wide at it’s widest point. The Styrofoam plug was CNC machined by Jarrett Johnson in Saskatchewan and delivered to me in 4 parts. I had to build a 24 foot long FLAT table to place the hull onto deck side down.

I am going to use the same composite layup method that I used for one of the outriggers – that is to cover the entire foam hull with packing tape, lay down the carbon, wet it out with epoxy and vacuum bag & cure for 8 hours. Then pull the carbon hull OFF the foam hull. The thin carbon shell will then be reinforced with some bulkheads and a thin sandwich panel deck will be bonded to the top.

I did this for one of the outriggers and it worked, but there were millions of pin holes in the 2 layers of 6 oz carbon I put on. These holes leaked water like a sieve – not exactly what you want for a boat. For the main hull, we are letting a base coat of epoxy on the taped hull get semi-hard before applying the carbon and wetting out. I am also applying two additional layers of composite fabric – 2 layers of 5.8 oz carbon weave, 1 layer of 6 oz carbon/Kevlar weave and an outside layer of 5 oz fiberglass for sanding. I am also going to apply LESS vacuum pressure this time which won’t suck out all the epoxy through the fabric which leaves the nasty pin holes.

Ben and I are pulling a length of string tight to make sure that the
4 foam sections are assembled in a STRAIGHT line

We covered the foam plug with packing tape. When the carbon cures,
I can pull the boat hull right off the foam plug leaving the foam plug for future use.

2 layers of 5.8 oz carbon, 1 layer of 6 oz carbon/kevlar mix the 1 layer 4 oz fiberglass on the exterior. We set the vacuum pressure high enough to press the wet fabric against the form, but not to remove too much excess epoxy.

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Follow AdventuresOfGreg 24 hours a day!

Yes! Your dreams have been answered. If these casual updates are just not enough AOG for you, then I have some exciting news. With my new Twitter feed, you can follow me 24 hours per day. That’s right – imagine it! All day long, every day of the week, 4 weeks per month, 12 months per year, year after year after year! Yeah!!!! You’ll know when I brush my teeth, take out the garbage, and cut my finger in the shop. It will be like you are there – right in the thick of the action!

Seriously – I have a Twitter feed that I’ll be updating every day – or more often depending on what I’m working on that could be semi-interesting. You can follow it at the AOG main blog page (upper right hand corner of the page):

http://www.adventuresofgreg.com/HPB/HPBmain.html

Or at my Twitter page: http://twitter.com/pedaltheocean

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 it is looking.

I took a .dxf file of the basic hull shape from Rick who converted it from Stuarts drawing and imported it into my 3D software where I added hatches and windows and other details. The construction method will be based on developable surfaces. First, we create flat panels which are carbon over varying thicknesses of core material (probably something like CoreCell). Then computer cut the flat panels and join them together around the bulkheads to create the boat.

This flat panel method of construction is fast and less expensive than the traditional CNC machined foam plug/mold method. It’s also very strong and according to Ricks computer simulations, just as efficient as a compound curved hull.

With the two hatches on the roof, I will be able to sit up on the top deck

or kneel on the sea-anchor locker which is behind my seat to
deploy the sea anchor or a drogue

The aft top deck hatch also makes it easy to enter the sleeping cabin

Another ‘living position’ is to sit on the sea anchor locker top and
look out through the aft top deck hatch

After the seat is rotated out of the way, I can stand up
through the sliding pilot hatch

There is a hatch separating the cockpit and sleeping cabin

This view shows the sleeping cabin hatch open and resting
on top of the sea anchor locker

A view into the sleeping cabin. There is a rear port light window to
see behind, and two round port lights on each side.
The monitor that you see hanging down from above is
the AIS radar monitor

This is a view out the front window. The port lights on the sides open IN and DOWN.

There will be enough room to crouch to access the
bow locker and to remove the drive leg

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Earthrace has started!!!

Look at this awesome looking beast! It’s Pete Bathune’s Earthrace – a 100% biodiesel powered wave piercing boat that departed today from Spain on it’s way to set a new round the world power boat speed record.

You can follow Earth Race progress here: http://www.earthrace.net/ The race tracking map and data is presented by none other than my buddy Pat Brothers from Racerecon (now Rushdigital).

You can support the record attempt for as little as $10 by buying a nautical mile at the Earthrace web site.

I just finished reading Pete’s best selling book about their first failed attempt to set the record last year. Earthrace – Futuristic Adventures on the High Seas is a GREAT read and I can really identify with how difficult it was for Pete and his team to even make the start line! I think just getting to the start line is more than half the battle.

112th running of the Boston Marathon

After twelve Ironman triathlons including the world championships in Hawaii, seventeen marathons, and three 24 hour cycling events (one world record attempt and two world records), the Boston marathon on Monday was one of my most memorable races. It was truly an incredible event.

25,319 runners qualified to run the Boston marathon this year by finishing in the top 10% of their age groups in qualifying marathons from around the world. It is indeed a great honor to compete with the greatest amateur athletes in the world. The last time I was lucky enough to compete in a world-class event like this was at Ironman World Championships in Hawaii in 2006 where I learned a very valuable lesson. My goal and sole focus for three gruelling years leading up to Ironman Kona was to place in the top 5% of my division at an Ironman triathon and win a qualifying slot for world championships in Kona, Hawaii. When I placed 4th in my division at Ironman Arizona in 2006, I had accomplished that goal. (the blog report is here) Ironman Hawaii that October ended up being a long and miserable day because I was suddenly goal-less. I had made it to Kona and simply ‘doing’ the race made it almost impossible to push past the agony of the distance, repressive heat, humidity and relentless wind. I really suffered in Kona.

I learned that a man without a goal is like a ship without a rudder, and I wasn’t about to make the same mistake in Boston. I needed a reason to give Boston everything I had in me and I found that reason in a book I picked up at the race expo which I read in the few days leading up to the race. “Duel in the Sun” by John Brant is about the 1982 Boston marathon where two American favorites Alberto Salazar and Dick Beardsley raced neck and neck to the finish line. In a speech given by Dick Beardsley 20 years later to a group of runners at the Victoria marathon, he offers this golden piece of advice:

“Tomorrow at your marathon, you’re going to give it your all. When it’s over, you can look back on a job well done. You’ll be able to relax. You’ll be finished.” In applying this bit of wisdom to our everyday lives, Dick goes on to add: “Every morning, I feel like I’m getting up to run the Boston Marathon all over again.”

So that is exactly what I decided to do. I was going to run this race “balls to the wall” right from the start gun. There are two start waves – the first wave is finishers with qualifying times faster than 3:30 and it started 30 minutes before the second wave. Helen was in the second wave, so I decided that since it was chip timed anyhow, I would just start with Helen in her wave. This meant passing thousands of runners which was quite a challenge with 25,000 runners on the road! I finished the first 10 km in 47 minutes and I was felling pretty good. I started to make deals with myself. “Just hold this pace until 20 km, then you can coast for the remaining 24 km”. I reached the 20 km mark in 1:32 which I was quite happy about. I was starting to feel the pain in my quads from the hills, so my second deal was to make it to 20 miles holding my current pace, then relax for the last 6 miles to the finish line. After 20 miles my legs were SCREAMING at me!! All of the pounding from the hills was taking it’s tole. It took everything I had to block my mind from focusing on my pain, and to keep my pace up. At this point I figured I could possible make it another mile before slowing, so I held onto my painful pace.

The crowds in Boston are like nothing I have ever experienced in any race. Non-stop cheering from spectators lining the race route for all 26.2 miles. The screaming and cheering reached ear-plug levels for the last 6 miles with fans 3 to 4 deep lining the course! This was my fuel that got me to the finish line without giving into my agony. The motivating cheers from the crowds in Boston is like nothing I have experienced in any race before.

I finished with a personal best of 3 hours, 15 minutes, 51 seconds placing me a humbling 943 out of 2773 in my division and 3422 th over all. Helen had a great race also and broke 4 hours.

Training lessons:

Denis Waitley said “You must learn from your past mistakes, but not lean on your past successes.” I try to learn something from all of my races, and recording the lessons in this blog is a great way to retain the education and possibly help others who might be in the same boat.

Training for the Boston marathon was to be a bit of an experiment. I was still injured with a sore calf and hamstring from last summers 24 hour HPB (human powered boat) record attempt, so I decided to ease back on my run training distances leading up to Boston. I am also training for another shot at the HPB record for sometime this summer, and I didn’t want to sacrifice any of my bike training with additional running that might further injure my hamstring and jeopardize my HPB record attempt. I limited my running to one run per week which was my long run – and limited my intensity to VERY easy. My longest run was 3 weeks ago, and maxed out at 3 hours at a very slow pace. The following week I did a 2 hour fast run at race pace with short rests every 30 minutes, then last week a 1.5 hour very fast run. That was it aside from about 12 hours a week spend on my bike. Typically when training for a PR marathon, I will run at least 4 times per week consisting of a short distance speed intervals workout, a tempo workout, a moderately fast long run and at least one easy recovery run.

According to conventional training wisdom, I was VERY under prepared for Boston. Yet, I ran a personal best. Go figure. I think the lesson in this is to not underestimate the power of a good, multi-year base, and fully rested and recovered legs. I now appreciate the true power of a “less is more” strategy in a training program.

My training schedule and journal are here if you are interested:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pDb9rwFGq6A0C-mP0CU8meA

Here is a table showing all of my previous race results:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pDb9rwFGq6A0C-mP0CU8meA&output=html&gid=4&single=true

Race Results:

Am I destined to end up as yet another Sea Biscuit?

After hearing the 100th story about the Sea Biscuit from the locals in Tofino, Murray and I decided to do some investigating and learn more about this ill-fated world circumnavigation in an eight foot sail boat.

Sea Biscuit is a 8-foot (yes, as in EIGHT feet long from bow to stern) sailboat that Floridian Harley Harlson built to circumnavigate the globe, nonstop. Construction details here. Previously, the smallest boat to circumnavigate the globe is 12 feet long, sailed by Serge Testa. I highly recommend his book called 500 days. A really great read! In my opinion, Serge really knew what he was doing – I’m not so sure about Harley, but then again, perhaps people are saying that about me.

Harley arrived in Tofino to start his world circumnavigation in August of 2006. He made it from the trailer to the public boat launch dock where he discovered a foot of water in the bottom of Sea Biscuit that leaked in through his rudder bolts. Failing to repair the leak, and missing his weather window, Harley returned home and docked Sea Biscuit at the marina at the end of Olsen Road in Tofino where Murray and I found her on Sunday.

The two stories we heard from the locals were: “He was lying in a wet bed pan for 2 weeks bailing water out with a sponge” and “The coast guard seized his boat and wouldn’t let him go”. Neither story was true. It’s funny how a story sort of has a life of it’s own that may only be loosely connected with the truth.

I am not sure just how much testing Harley did previous to his failed launch in Tofino. I did read in an interview that he tested Sea Biscuit in a lake, but I am really not sure about how much open ocean sailing he did with her. That might have been a good idea.

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I have said this before and I think I need to repeat it – if not just to re-confirm my own objectives regarding this record attempt. About 1 year ago in my blog, I said:

I want to make this clear – this challenge is NOT about doing a solo, unsupported survival adventure across the Atlantic ocean. I have the highest respect for those who do that like current ocean crossers Roz Savage, Jason Lewis, Bhavic, Ralph Tuijn and previous ocean crossing expeditions Leven Brown, Greg Spooner, Colin and Julie, and the many others I follow and have followed.

My ‘thing’ is the combination of technology and human performance. A fully supported human powered Atlantic speed record attempt is exactly what this expedition is. The support / safety boat will accompany me and provide supplies, traffic lookout, water making, equipment backups, communications, repairs, food, company and even occasionally a safe place to escape to (if ocean conditions allow). This allows me to focus on designing and building the fastest, most efficient human powered ocean boat possible, and my ability to pedal the machine 3000 miles across the Atlantic ocean in less than 40 days.

Since then, I have decided that a “fully supported” speed record isn’t a fair comparison to the existing unsupported Atlantic crossing record of 43 days set my Emmanuel Coindre, so my support boat will be a safety boat only, and will not be used for support of any kind unless there is an emergency in which case my unsupported crossing either becomes a supported one, or I am rescued and have to abandon the crossing.

I certainly hope that this project is viewed by others as a serious endeavour to demonstrate the potential of something long forgotten – our human power in all of it’s forms. PedalTheOcean is a physical, mental and emotional challenge unlike anything I have ever set out to do.

Seeing Sea Biscuit falling apart in a pile of seaweed under the dock at the end of Olsen road, is a really good reminder of how I could potentially be viewed by the people of Tofino – those who saw me on TV, read about me in the paper, or have seen me come and go from the WeighWest marina.

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Like every worthy challenge, there is always more to it than you can ever imagine or can possibly plan for. At times like this I need to remember this bit of greeting card wisdom: “Persistence prevails when all else fails”. Following are a few of the “learning experiences” that I am dealing with right now:

EXPERIENCE: After Mondays 9 hour training session on the water I know first hand how important gaining the appropriate experience will be in my ability to succeed at this challenge. The best kind of experience will be time spent in WiTHiN on the ocean – there would be no substitute for that. Murray and I discussed this during the drive back from Tofino, and what I would like to do when the new boat is finished (calling it “Ocean WiTHiN” for now) is dock it in Tofino fully equipped and provisioned for multi-day trips. Then I can fly out from Calgary which is a very easy and inexpensive flight and head out to sea in WiTHiN. I could start with a day trip similar to what we did with Matahil’s support boat, but do it on my own. Then I could slowly advance to an over night trip, then a 3 day trip, etc. I would experience all kinds of weather and ocean conditions and I think this kind of training would be very good for me.

Sea sickness: They say it can’t be trained, but I doubt that, as I know from many others that 2 to 3 days is usually when the body gets accustomed to this alien rock and roll environment and stops getting sick. That is basically what training is. There was an episode of Myth Busters a while ago where they tested sea sickness cures. They found only 2 cures that worked: Ginger and medication. I will experiment with both, as well as some trampoline training. I used to be a gymnast in high school and was very surprised at how dizzy I got doing simple flips on a trampoline a while ago. I am certain that I can train this motion sickness away by simply doing trampoline flips every day. If that’s the case, perhaps there will be some residual inner ear / spacial awareness that I develop that will carry over to the ocean environment.

OW (Ocean WiTHiN) design: One of the causes of motion sickness is a miss-match between where the eye registers the bodies location in space, and it’s actual location in space. As soon as I looked away from my small front window, I got sick. I also found it very difficult to see anything outside – I rarely saw Matahil and he was always close to me. I think I would like to re-visit the sliding canopy idea for the new boat design. The Naval architect Stuart Bloomfield designed opening hatches and a small sliding pilot hatch on the roof, but I don’t think this is enough to provide me with the ‘livable’ open environment that I want in the cockpit. I would like to ‘really be there’ – not watching everything from the detached view point of a closed-in cockpit. The advantage of a sliding canopy cover is that I always have the option of sliding it over for really bad weather or big seas. Of course, the sleeping cabin is closed off with a bulkhead and hatch, as is the bow storage locker, so with the bilge pump on the cockpit floor, even if WiTHiN flooded, I would still be capsize safe.

Stuart Bloomfield and Ricks closed canopy/hatch design (click to enlarge)sliding cockpit cover

I noticed how much work it took to stay on my bearing and I think I will look into installing a small autopilot. This should not only make my forward progress a bit more efficient (always on track), but will also ease the work load for me. If anyone knows of a small, very efficient autopilot, let me know. The smallest I have found is this Simrad TP10.

Support boat: Being the optimist that I am, I always thought that I would be able to find someone sailing from the Canaries to Barbados who would be willing to accompany me as my safety boat. I know now that this is a lot to ask, as staying even in the broad vicinity of me in the middle of the ocean takes a lot of work. After speaking with a few boat brokers and yacht management companies, my best bet is to arrange my own crew, and buy a yacht capable of a trans oceanic voyage, then sell it at my destination. My friend Stefan Dalberg has volunteered to skipper the support boat, and I hope I can find a few more crew interested in the experience.

Spanish coast guard: This is a problem. I have heard from others who tried to deal with the coastguard, that they do not negotiate with individuals. Letters and attempts to contact them go unanswered for months. So far, every independent ocean rower who has departed from Canary Islands has left at night incognito. One option is to join the Atlantic rowing race in December of 2009 which includes a support boat shared by all of the race participants, and Spanish coast guard clearance. I like this option because of the community and the publicity opportunity. Speedy WiTHiN is an interesting contrast in amongst all the sluggish row boats.

Shipping WiTHiN: I had budgeted about $7000 to ship WiTHiN to the Canary Islands. Because she is over 20 feet long, she has to go in a 40 foot container which is twice as expensive as a 20 foot container. Plus, it will take up to 2 months for delivery! OUCH. And another $14,000 to ship back to Miami.

Schedule: December of 2008 is definitely OUT. There is no way I can get proper training, finish building WiTHiN, test her and ship her this year. Looks like December of 2009 for Canaries to West Indies route, or I could leave as early as June of 2009 if I were to change routes and head across the Pacific instead (this is an option that I am considering, as it also eliminates my shipping problems. More on this later).

We have made some serious progress since I made that comment about the support boat a year ago, but I still have very far to go. I need to remember that it’s all about the journey, not the destination. This journey will be a long one, and I need to stop every once in a while and remember to enjoy it.

Cheers,
Greg

Here are a few more photos from Mondays sea trails in Tofino:

Soon after we left the dock, I started to over heat. With the new keel, standing up in WiTHiN is no problem

Leaving the Weigh West marina at sun rise

Long Beach

WiTHiN leaving Tofino with the town in the background

We got home just in time – just missed a big winter storm!

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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 barfing my guts out for the third time in a brutal 9 hour
training session 20 km into the pacific ocean off the west coast of
Vancouver Island, I was having serious doubts about what I was setting
out to do.

It was an amazing experience – one that I will never forget, but also
a real eye opener for me.

My buddy Murray and I met Matahil for breakfast at 7:00 am at the
WeighWest marina in Tofino, BC where WiTHiN was docked, and we were on
the water by 8:00. Matahil has a 24 foot open aluminum boat that he
built himself and agreed to support me for a full day out on the
Pacific. My friend Murray from Houston, TX kindly agreed to come along
and help out (he didn’t know what he was in for). I had been watching
the surf report closely for the week leading up to our sea trials, and
I was anticipating some 5 meter (15 feet) waves further west off the
coast. This would be my opportunity to experience some real open ocean
conditions in WiTHiN – I was excited and ready.

Packed on board was 7 liters of drinking water and a few packs of
dehydrated meals with my JetBoil camp stove. I was wearing my life
jacket with a personal emergency locator clipped on and had my GPS,
SRM power meter, and iPod charged up and ready to go . I was in 2-way
radio contact with Matahil and Murray, and I had a cell phone for back
up. The objective was to get as far west off the coast in 4 hours as
possible, then turn around and pedal back.

I was immediately impressed with the visibility through my front
window. During my last trip to Tofino, I had to use my video camera
monitor system to see outside because my window fogged up on the
inside, and water drops collected on the outside. This time, I had
installed a manual window wiper, and my doctor buddy Chad gave me a
bottle of his special surgery liquid that stops fogging on optics.
Both worked perfectly and I had clear vision through the front window
for the first time.

We cleared the northern tip of Wickaninnish Island and headed west out
to sea. The swells started to grow and within the first hour we were
in 12 footers. I was apprehensive at first, but I didn’t find them too
scary. After a couple of hours the waves grew bigger and started
coming in from different angles and my comfort level had grown
considerably. I had my top hatch off and both side windows open for
venting. As the water mountains grew in size, I became increasingly
comfortable with how WiTHiN and I were handling the conditions.

The new keel really helps dampen the rocking and it’s all I need for
stability to stand up without tipping over. My speed was about 7 kph
on 150 watts into an oncoming sea. The wind was low and there is a 1
knot current that runs from south to north along the coast for about
200 km from shore which I was cutting directly across. My speed ranged
from 5 km/hr riding up the swells to 12 km/hr surfing down. I headed
West for 4 hours at an average speed of 6.4 km/hour and reached 20 km
west of the coast.

After 2 hours I started to feel a bit queasy, at 3 hours I felt very
nauseous. It took every bit of concentration on the horizon to avoid
throwing up. At 4 hours we reached a pod of feeding hump back wales
(watch the video – truly AMAZING shots by Matahil and Murray from the
support boat!) and as soon as I stopped moving I got violently ill.
Serious projectile vomiting over the open top hatch – repeatedly until
there was nothing of my breakfast left. I felt horrible. How was I
going to make it back to shore now – maybe it would go away.

Nope. I got sick 2 more times – each just as violent as the first, but
the last time there was nothing left in my stomach so I just choked
after each dry heave. By 6 hours in I had eaten exactly NOTHING and
drank about a liter of water all day. Typically on long training rides
I eat 300 calories per hour to keep my muscles fueled and my blood
sugar levels up. I was TRULY running on empty – an empty stomach, low
blood sugar and dehydrated. And on top of that, I felt like I was
going to die. – no, I felt like I wished I would die. We couldn’t tow
at this point, as the ocean was just too big and it would have been
too dangerous – this was obvious. I just had to suck it up and keep
pressing on back to shore.

I think Murray had it worse. He started to feel sick almost as soon as
we reached the open ocean and he was sick for almost the whole 9 hour
ordeal. When I saw him at the half way point I thought he looked like
Fred Flintstones green Martian friend Kazoo. When Murray saw me he
wondered if he looked as bad as I looked, and I was wondering the same
thing about myself. Dam it, there goes another new friend. My friend
burn rate is pretty high these days.

When we reached the protected waters of the coast Matahil used a rope
and a bucket as a drogue which he tied to my stern and he towed meback
to WeighWest marina. I was completely spent.

Total time spent pedaling was about 8 hours, total time spent on the
water was 9 hours. The distance traveled west out to sea was 19.88 km
from the far northern tip of Wickaninnish Island. The distance I
ACTUALLY traveled as measured by my GPS track was 20.7 km. The 4%
additional distance actually traveled is due to how much WiTHiN was
veering off course due to directional stability issues caused by waves
and surfing. You could call this a 4% “wobble factor”. If I had to
travel a 4000 km straight line, I would actually have to travel an
additional 160 km due to the wobble factor.

My moving average as measured from the GPS was 6.4 km/hour and my
average watts of power was about 125 watts as measured by my SRM power
meter. That compares to about 7 km/hr without the keel.

Overall, it was a pretty thrilling experience. The ocean is one wild
place – very humbling. We saw sea lions, a bunch of sea otters,
numerous whales, an albatross, and some seals. Matahil was impressed
with the average speed I maintained, and the fact that within a few
hours we were 20 km out to sea in my human powered boat WiTHiN, which
at it’s basic essence is just a tandem kayak. He thought that pitching
is a problem as is the directional stability. In some of the video
footage, I can see the bow swing from right to left as waves push it
around. He also thought that WiTHiN could benefit from a dagger board
which would help her track straight when surfing down a wave. He
noticed WITHiN veering right or left in the troughs rather than
pushing straight through. Because my situational awareness inside
WiTHiN is so poor, I really have no feedback aside from watching the
heading indicator on my compass fluctuate wildly. Matahil said that
ANYONE would get sick in WiTHiN in the conditions we were facing. It
was really rocking and pitching quite a bit.

Where do I go from here? I just don’t know at this point. I need some
time to digest these recent events, as it seems that there are many
problems with this expedition and solutions aren’t exactly obvious. I
will expand on that later.

“Life is a series of experiences, each of which makes us bigger, even
though it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop
character, and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we
endure help us in our marching onward.”
Henry Ford

Cheers,
Greg K

Here is the SBS TV, Korea documentary on human power featuring Pedal The Ocean in Tofino during sea trials. Pat and I were very impressed with producer Jin-Kyu Yoo and his camera man Sang-Ryun Woo. They even spent the effort and expense to produce a custom computer animation of WiTHiN for the special.

gk

V11G outrigger shell in the vacuum bag

V11G outrigger shell pulled off the foam plug

My first carbon outrigger popped off of the Styrofoam plug nicely. The general shape is very true, but there are small imperfections on the surface finish due to the release film creases and some imperfections in the styrofoam. These could be sanded off, but I think I would be worth adding a 5 oz layer of fine fiberglass weave for sanding. Then i think the surface would be very smooth.

This is a great way of using Styrofoam as a re-usable male mold (plug). Just cover it with packing tape.

I will probably leave about 1/4″ of the flange around the edge to bond a thin top deck to it. The top deck will be carbon over a 1/4 inch sheet of Styrofoam or core material for the top deck. To stiffen the outrigger, I’ll add a bulkhead to the middle. I will also fill in the inside nose and tail with some micro to give it some strength.

Getting ready for sea trials
—————————————

Dates for the second set of sea trials have been finalized. I am heading out this Saturday with Murray. We arrive in Tofino on Sunday and launch WiTHiN. Monday morning we meet up with Matahil Lawson and his boat. I’ll be spending at least 8 hours on the water. The objective is to head WEST as far as I can for 4 or 5 hours, then turn around and head back. Mat also knows of some great areas to get into some chop and swell and other various challenging conditions, so maybe we’ll play around a bit. Tuesday will be more of the same – two 8-hour days in a row out in the Pacific.

I need to establish a speed profile for WiTHiN. I need to know how fast she goes into varying degrees of head wind as well as from abeam and from astern. Knowing the differences in efficiencies between the prototype version and the new ocean crossing boat, I will be able to predict a speed profile for the new ocean boat.

This is sort of important, as I need to get a better understanding of how WiTHiN will perform in adverse wind/sea conditions. Most of the ocean rowing boats can’t make headway in moderate onshore winds. This is one of the reasons why they have had difficulties in the past getting away from California for ocean rowing expeditions to Hawaii and Australia.

One of the things I needed to fix on WiTHiN is the nose ring thing. There is a steel tube that runs through the bow and the stern. During the last trip to Tofino, we ran a rope through this tube for towing and tying up at the dock, but the rope was cut from rubbing on the sharp edge of the tube.

Since being able to accept a tow is a very important safety issue during sea trials, I decided to fabricate a bridle to tie the line to. This won’t stress the rope like the old set-up did.

I made a couple of foam inserts for the Dorade vents. These will be used to stop road crap from being blown into the vents during the drive, and – more importantly, to stop water from leaking into the boat when I tip her over beside the dock to mount the keel.

Another addition to WiTHiN is the new nifty clamp fan. It really blows, and I can mount it in a variety of places using the handy clamp – to face the window to de-fog, or face me for cooling.

All I have left is to re-build our rotten wooden boat stand on the trailer. This got so wet during the first Tofino trip (snow and constant rain), that it started to fall apart. I’m going to weld a steel one to replace it.

Training
—————-

Tomorrow I have an 8 hour INSIDE training ride – UGH!!! It’s snowing and minus 17 degrees C right now, so an outside ride is NOT in the cards unfortunately.

After a rest week last week, I attempted a new 20 minute power test today and I was pleased to find a 15 watt increase over my last test. My goal is to get up to 270 watts for 20 minutes and I’m pretty sure with another set of CP 20 intervals over the next 6 weeks, I’ll be able to achieve that – and more, once I get outside. My peak CP20 power was 300 watts a couple of years ago on my tri bike. It’s always lower on the recumbent – I think 280 was my PR on the bent.

My new friend Murray Flanagan stopped by my shop this morning to meet me and see WiTHiN and Critical Power. We had a really nice chat, and then, of course, I put him to work! I seized the opportunity and recruited Murray to help out with the carbon work on the first outrigger.

Rick Willoughby and I have been discussing ways to use the CNC machined foam hull and outrigger forms as plugs that could be re-used. The advantage is not only having the original foam plug available to make another copy of the V11G (24 hour record boat) hull, but mostly, the resulting carbon hull will be SUPER light without any Styrofoam inside.

So, what we did was tape packing tape all over the foam outrigger plug. This worked out better than I expected – it was very smooth and glossy, and *hopefully* will allow me to pull the carbon part off of the plug leaving the outrigger plug in tact. I say hopefully because it’s curing right now. I’ve never had any problems in the past with pulling composite parts off of duct tape or packing tape, so I’m confident this won’t be an issue. But you never know – I’ve been through too many “surprises” to know better than to assume anything!

To strengthen the finished part, I’ll insert a couple of foam bulkheads (with carbon) and place a flat carbon top over the hollow, topless outrigger hull.

We’ll do the same with the V11G hull – cover it with packing tape, lay on 3 layers of 5.8 oz carbon, vacuum bag and pop it off the foam plug. Then insert some structural carbon panels, and a flat panel top deck. This will result in a part that is very light weight and hopefully strong enough. THANKS Murray!

Training
———————–

I have been tiring of training in a slightly different geometry on the M5 than in my trainer downstairs, so I welded up some seat extensions for the M5 and resulted in a duplicate seat position – basically a MUCH higher seat bottom which puts my feet below my heart at the peak pedal stroke. This has helped keep blood flowing through my feet – a problem that I have suffered with for years. See the comparison seat position photo below (click to enlarge).