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 Post subject: Pros and cons
PostPosted: Mon Oct 13, 2014 12:33 pm 
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I just pedaled my Revo13 115 miles down the Apalachicola River with 11 other standard paddle kayakers. this was the first time this group has seen anyone complete the trip in a pedal kayak. Here are some thoughts on the boat after 5 consecutive day's pedaling compared to the traditional paddle kayaks.
The kayak performed well in all water conditions. It slices through waves without any problem and is stable in rough water. That said, it is a heavy kayak and had trouble keeping up with the other kayaks, especially going against a tide. I wish Hobie could make a lighter version to keep it comparable to a sea kayak. Would love for Hobie to make a Mirage drive touring kayak.
The lumbar support in the seat was great. I also supplemented my seat with a gel Skwoosh pad which saved my rear end!
Would like to have had an 8" dry sack to drop in the center hatch instead of the tackle box.
Storage capacity was ample for 5 days of camping. The boat remained stable fully loaded.
I had no trouble with the Mirage drive or rudder. Wish Hobie would make a longer drive bag to store the drive in, especially when you have turbo fins.
It gave me a fine set of legs!


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 Post subject: Re: Pros and cons
PostPosted: Tue Oct 21, 2014 5:52 pm 
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Location: Omaha, Nebraska
That's what I say every time a soon-to-be kayaker is interested in my Hobie Outback …great drive, great stability, great rudder, great design, great customer service, TOO HEAVY.

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 Post subject: Re: Pros and cons
PostPosted: Tue Oct 21, 2014 6:37 pm 
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Location: Missoula, Montana
Fjones wrote:
Here are some thoughts on the boat after 5 consecutive day's pedaling compared to the traditional paddle kayaks.
The kayak performed well in all water conditions. It slices through waves without any problem and is stable in rough water. That said, it is a heavy kayak and had trouble keeping up with the other kayaks, especially going against a tide.

I'm curious what kind of paddle kayaks were on your trip. I think I can pedal my 13' Revolution faster, longer, and with less effort than any sit-on-top paddle fishing kayaks I'm familiar with. Were the paddle kayakers in long skinny sea kayaks?
Thomas wrote:
That's what I say every time a soon-to-be kayaker is interested in my Hobie Outback …great drive, great stability, great rudder, great design, great customer service, TOO HEAVY.

There is a trade-off with the weight of plastic kayaks. Heavier kayaks tend to be stronger and less susceptible to damage. Light kayaks tend to be more fragile. I tend to prefer beefier kayaks, and don't object to a bit of extra weight because of the additional strength it provides. However, I don't regard the Revolution as a heavy kayak. Perhaps somebody with some time on their hands can dig up the weights of various Hobie Mirage Drive kayaks, without the drive, and the weights of some paddle sit-on-top kayaks of similar length.


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 Post subject: Re: Pros and cons
PostPosted: Tue Oct 21, 2014 7:28 pm 
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Oh, the weight is usually not an everyday problem for me when on the water. Weight is a pain when you are transfering from car.

It's also a disadvantage when trying to portage or jump a barely-under-water log …or when racing to keep up with long sea kayaks with experienced paddlers. My kayak friends, with their lighter, longer yaks, think nothing of portages. Meanwhile, I'm weighing whether I should, or shouldn't proceed in some situations.

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 Post subject: Re: Pros and cons
PostPosted: Wed Oct 22, 2014 2:51 am 
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Fjones wrote:
I just pedaled my Revo13 115 miles down the Apalachicola River with 11 other standard paddle kayakers.

Well that is a nice and long trip!
Fjones wrote:
The kayak performed well in all water conditions. It slices through waves without any problem and is stable in rough water. That said, it is a heavy kayak and had trouble keeping up with the other kayaks, especially going against a tide.

Yes plastic kayaks are heavier than fiber glass kayaks, and also more durable. But when you go on a multi day trip you have lots of extra gear on board. So there are possibilities to even out the diff with some extra care about what kind of (and amount) gear you use.

Standard sea kayaks have often a better glide in the water and therefore needs less energy to propulse. In the mirage driven kayak you use bigger muscles and normally you can keep up with sea kayaks in matter of distance per day. But maybe not in average speed.

I have participated in some races (with my Hobie Adventure) and for me there are some limits I can't pass. Maximum speed for a 10 km distance (about 6,2 miles) I can hold is 5,7 miles/hour (9,2 km/h). If I try to go harder my energy drains out fast. For distance between 40-50 km (about 25-30 miles), I can hold an average speed about 7,2-8 km/h (4,5-5 miles/hour). Surfskis are the fastest and normally I don't have a chance to beat them in any distance. Normal standard sea kayaks contains a wide range of properties and the fastest I cannot match. Also depends on their "engines" of course. But I beat some of them.

When I go out with my friends (about my age and maybe a little less trained than me), not racing, they are absolutely NO match for me. They sit in standard sea kayaks and I can go circles around them.
I count the Hobie Adventure as a fast kayak. Very fast if you consider length, width and weight.

You really need to be a good paddler in a fairly fast standard sea kayak to beat me.
(And of course, there are lots of those... :oops: )

br thomas


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 Post subject: Re: Pros and cons
PostPosted: Wed Oct 22, 2014 5:59 am 
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Location: Sarasota,Key West FL
Longer and narrower kayaks like surfski's and proa's will always beat out a recreational kayak. There is a formula to calculate the hull speed on a displacement hull, this is physics and pretty hard to work around. I suspect that's why our TI ( in kayak mode) which is 18.5 ft long is by far the fastest kayak we have ever owned. Whether the kayak weighs 40 lbs or 100 lbs I'm not sure makes much difference speed wise it's all in the hull shape and most important length, obviously a narrow hull has much less drag than a fat hull. Portages and getting the boat to and from the water is where the light boats have an edge. You also need to consider durability, I couldn't see myself running down rapids and bouncing off of every rock via the brail kayak method in anything except my roto molded Hobie. I'm an old canoe guy and much prefer our TI kayak over any canoe we ever owned, and the amount of gear we can load is massive. My opinion is Hobies kayaks give us the best all around design, basically we use our TI for everything, we can be far offshore scuba diving one day (with the sails, AMA's, and engines) then the very next day kayaking the Sante Fe river in kayak mode (true story).
My wife and I are not macho or purists to any single method of propulsion. We are destination people that want to get from point a to point b expending the least amount of energy possible we are just average physical ability (no athletes here lol)). This is why we selected Hobies line of boats, not many know this but every Hobie kayak is designed from the ground up as a fine sailing machine. By exploiting every possible power source available to you (wind/sail, paddle, peddle, and auxillary propulsion (ie.. Evolve) my wife and I can travel ten time the distance we ever could before expending much less energy. We take turns pedaling, then when our legs get tired we paddle, if we get any usable wind we put the sail up and use that. When we have great distances to cover we fire up the engines and use all propulsion methods all at the same time ( we can travel between 100 and 150 miles on one gallon of gas). Keep in mind our goal is to get from point a to point b as quickly as possible, we are not purists to any single form and many times are using all of the propulsion modes at the same time. Instead of averaging 4 mph speed we often average 8-10 mph speeds, we realized early on that the ICW system and the keys are huge and use all the tools available to us to get to our destinations and nobody does that better than Hobie. We have been kayaking for many years and I don't recall ever taking our Hobies out without a sail kit strapped to the side of the kayak, if there is any usable wind we have those sails up in a heartbeat exploiting any method we can to propel the kayaks, and always have a blast every time we go out , literally every weekend all year round we are on an adventure somewhere. We love the lifestyle (the Hobie life), and would never trade it for anything. And most importantly we could care less about how others do it, this works for us and we have nothing to prove to anyone else. I see many Hobie kayak owners sailing their boats with the mirage drives removed, pretending they are a sunfish or a laser, "why" when the Hobie is so much more capable than the others.
My 2 cents
Bob


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 Post subject: Re: Pros and cons
PostPosted: Wed Oct 22, 2014 7:26 am 
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Location: Omaha, Nebraska
Where are those "Like" buttons when you need them!

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 Post subject: Re: Pros and cons
PostPosted: Wed Oct 22, 2014 9:04 am 
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Joined: Tue Nov 19, 2013 11:48 pm
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Location: Missoula, Montana
Kal-P-Dal wrote:
I have participated in some races (with my Hobie Adventure) and for me there are some limits I can't pass. Maximum speed for a 10 km distance (about 6,2 miles) I can hold is 5,7 miles/hour (9,2 km/h). If I try to go harder my energy drains out fast. For distance between 40-50 km (about 25-30 miles), I can hold an average speed about 7,2-8 km/h (4,5-5 miles/hour).

Those are impressive average speeds, particularly over those distances. In my 13' Revolution I can hit 5.7 mph for a few seconds in a sprint, but I couldn't maintain that speed for 10 km. Have you pedaled a 13" Revolution, and if so, what do you think is the difference in speed between it and your Adventure?


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 Post subject: Re: Pros and cons
PostPosted: Wed Oct 22, 2014 12:20 pm 
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pmmpete wrote:
Kal-P-Dal wrote:
I have participated in some races (with my Hobie Adventure) and for me there are some limits I can't pass. Maximum speed for a 10 km distance (about 6,2 miles) I can hold is 5,7 miles/hour (9,2 km/h). If I try to go harder my energy drains out fast. For distance between 40-50 km (about 25-30 miles), I can hold an average speed about 7,2-8 km/h (4,5-5 miles/hour).

Those are impressive average speeds, particularly over those distances. In my 13' Revolution I can hit 5.7 mph for a few seconds in a sprint, but I couldn't maintain that speed for 10 km. Have you pedaled a 13" Revolution, and if so, what do you think is the difference in speed between it and your Adventure?


Those figures relates to my BEST performance. On a race you allways perform a little better than you actually are.
I have no experience of the Revo 13. I will pass the question on to Roadrunner. He knows the diff between the Revo 13 and the Adventure. You can also search the forum for Roadrunners posts and you will find all the answers.

best regards
thomas


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 Post subject: Re: Pros and cons
PostPosted: Wed Oct 22, 2014 1:48 pm 
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Location: Sarasota,Key West FL
I've owned several revo 13 kayaks (the revo is my favorite Hobie kayak). The length of the kayak has everything to do with it's maximum speed to a point, as the wetted surface area must also be factored in. If you have two boats about the same length, as an example the revo and the pa, the narrower boat will always be faster. Same with similar width, but different length boats like the revo and the adventure, the adventure will be faster.
The hull speed for a 13 ft boat is 4.867 knots.
The hull speed for a 16 ft boat is 5.4 knots
The hull speed for an 18.5 ft TI is 6 knots
The formula is 1.34 times the sq root of the hull length at the waterline.
http://www.anyboat.com has a calculator.
Hope this helps
Bob


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 Post subject: Re: Pros and cons
PostPosted: Wed Oct 22, 2014 2:32 pm 
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So based on the hull speed formula, an Adventure has a hull speed which is about 1.1 knots per hour (1.27 miles per hour) faster than a 13' Revolution. Which helps explain why Kal-P-Dal is able to pedal his Adventure faster than I can pedal my Revolution. In addition, if he's a racer, he certainly has stronger legs than I do, and is willing to push himself harder than I push myself when I'm out fishing.

So Fjones should trade in his 13' Revolution for a 16' Revolution! Then he'll be able to keep up with all those paddle kayakers.


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 Post subject: Re: Pros and cons
PostPosted: Wed Oct 22, 2014 2:42 pm 
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Did you deal with any headwind on the trip? That is another area where the MirageDrive excels over all!

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 Post subject: Re: Pros and cons
PostPosted: Wed Oct 22, 2014 2:48 pm 
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Location: Sollentuna, Sweden, Europe
fusioneng wrote:
The hull speed for a 16 ft boat is 5.4 knots


Yes that is correct. In theory.
I can reach 5,4 knots for a short period of time. Even go faster.
But that speed will drain ALL my energy very fast.

I can't go 10 km under one hour. (10 km and 1 hour=5,4 knots)
I can go 5 km with an average speed 9,4 km/h and 10 km with an average speed 9,2 (or very near that).
And there is my limit.
Somehow the REAL effective speed for the Adventure (and ME) is about 9 km/h (NOT 10 km/h=5,4 knots).
This is my PERSONAL limitation but I can really feel this limit as a physical wall.
When I lower the speed to 7,5 km/h I can go all day.
(With an empty Adventure on flat water, no wind)

BR
thomas


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 Post subject: Re: Pros and cons
PostPosted: Wed Oct 22, 2014 2:56 pm 
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Location: Sollentuna, Sweden, Europe
pmmpete wrote:
So Fjones should trade in his 13' Revolution for a 16' Revolution! Then he'll be able to keep up with all those paddle kayakers.


No. He will not. As I said before:

"You really need to be a good paddler in a fairly fast standard sea kayak to beat me.
(And of course, there are lots of those... :oops: )"

But he will beat some of them! :D

@ mmiller
No I have not raced in that weather conditions against standard sea kayaks.
Yet! :mrgreen:

BR
thomas


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 Post subject: Re: Pros and cons
PostPosted: Wed Oct 22, 2014 4:49 pm 
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Actually the calculations for determining hull speed can become quite complex, and can be worked around with clever hull design. That 1.34 calculation is only a general rule. one factor is the length to beam ratio, if a cat hull or AMA has a length to beam ratio of greater that 16 to 1 then the displacement formula doesn't apply at all (it's impossible to create a bow wave). There is another category called 'fast displacement' that most racing catamarans fall into, this is a length to beam ratio of 8 to 1. A hobiecat H16 falls into this category, so the hull speed calculations don't really apply to cats, and on tri's you can ignore the displacement on the AMA's because the length to beam ratio is too high.
You can also fake out and delay the formation of the stern wave by having a wide spherical rear stern on the boat that's cut off to about 5-10 degrees from vertical. What this does is delays the formation of the stern wave (most planing boats have this feature).
Here is a video of my Tandem island hull planning on the water (notice there is no bow wave, and the stern wave is about a foot behind the boat (the stern of my TI is modified to be able to plane), I also added an additional 100 lbs of floation to the stern of the boat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1OjgyqBsXk
[youtube2]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1OjgyqBsXk[/youtube2]

We spent a week at a resort in the keys a couple years ago and in the cabin next to ours they had two Kamanu composites racing proa canoes, one was a single seater ( http://www.kamanucomposites.com/aukahi) and the other was a tandem, both boats were over 24 ft long and weighed less than 24 lbs (I lifted one up, it was unbelievable). I had our Tandem Island and both of us went out every day. We talked quite a bit during the week, these people were world class pro racers (BTW those boats cost way more than a TI). I have to admit I was humbled every single day, as they left me in the dust every day, I couldn't begin to keep up with them in light winds even with all my 260 sq ft for sail and flying my giant spinnaker ( I didn't have my wing sail or my twin engines at that time), that experience is what inspired me to invent my wing sails, and my hybrid propulsion systems, so if I ever meet up with them again I at least don't look like a total dufas, I'm pretty sure I could beat him now with my current setup, but it took a couple years of thinking to get there ( LOL).
Lessons learned:
If a world class surfski or racing proa challenges you to a race, it's best to fake an injury.
Bob


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