How Shallow Can You Go?

A new Dragonfly Drive from Hobie? Hardly. This composite picture shows how the fins operate when they are "fluttered". First note that the length of our fins makes very little difference here. Also, you can see that the fins operate above the horizontal plane (about 2.5" in the Adventure shown here). Depending on the boat, the Drive is capable of even greater angles:


By splitting the pedal position fore and aft (shown below) and operating the pedals within about a 2" range, about 4.5" of fin movement is achieved, as the top picture shows. This keeps the fins about 2" (or less depending on the model) within the actual depth of the Drive in the water. Notice the fin tip sticking out from just under the boat:



What's your draft (hull depth)? Getting a fix of your actual draft is easy. Of course, it varies according to the specific boat and how much weight it carries.

To get started, the Drive sticks out a little less than 1.5" from the bottom. However far the water comes up in your drivewell, PLUS 1.5 inches is your draft. You can mark a simple scale with dots or numbers as shown below:


In this case, the 5" mark is 3.5" up from the hull bottom added to the 1.5" Drive depth and represents the minimum floating depth for me in my Adventure (Drive installed) with no heavy gear (bait tank, etc).

Adding it together: In order to pedal using the flutter technique, all I need is 7" of water. Or I can paddle with Drive inserted and stowed in place down to 5". The Adventure has probably the shallowest draft of any Hobie owing to its flat bottom and lack of rocker. Anybody can determine their depth requirement, but I would guess that the deepest of any of the boats, including tandems can operate easily in about 10" or less of water using this technique.


Putting it to the test: It is commonly believed that the Mirage Drive needs a couple of feet of water to run. It's also common knowledge that the Adventure, at 16" long, is the least able to navigate small spaces. Lets find out!

For this test, we'll explore a small seasonal feeder stream for Lake Hodges here in Escondido in the Adventure.

Looking for the creek entrance:


Found it!


Looks like a serious blockage ahead. For this I stowed the Drive in place and used the paddle to position the boat to the far right while skirting around the obsticle:


Nearing the end of the line. There are some very shallow rocks here so I again bungeed the Drive and broke out the paddle:


This is it; time to turn around:


Or maybe maybe I'll just turn myself around for now and drift out -- will turn the boat when I get to the next passing lane:


Wow -- look at all this room!


A couple of picturesque shots as the lake opens up:




Finally out of the woods and back in familiar territory:


That's about it. I never got out of the boat and never needed to pull the Drive. If you get to know your boat's limitations you can take a Hobie, even an Adventure just about any place there is water. I don't know of another boat of any size or style that would go in any shallower or skinnier water!

Roadrunner great post and oh so accurate as well.

I just returned from a trip in the 10,000 Islands in S.W. Florida. I left The Everglades National Park West Coast Ranger Station in Everglades City through the Chocoloskee Bay down the channel to Indian Pass and on to Indian Key for a group kayakers meetup. I returned with the tide and fished in many skinny areas as little as 1 foot deep and had to skim over oyster bars and sand bars. I was grateful to have my depth/fish finder to see the shallowing conditions. Fluttering the fins works like a charm. It was a 14 mile trip including the back bay mangrove fishing areas. You are not limited to depth by the mirage drive in an way .. Well maybe 6" or less. I never pulled the drive and never broke out my paddle.
I also found it amazing the Mirage drive got me back against a 3-4 MPH current flow in a narrow channel to retrieve a lure caught in a mangrove branch .. tough going but got back to it.

Thanks for the informative post RR.

_________________
I would rather be kayaking and think about work than to be at work thinking about kayaking.
A Thrill Ride is being dragged around in your kayak for 40 minutes by an extremely large fish.