Thread: Across Europe in a sort of "PDR" motorboat

Thanks for that Brian. I sat and watched that with my wife yesterday. That's something I would love to do myself.

Cheers, Kev.

Very good movie, with many clever jokes.

Mick.

Wow ... I got completely suckered by that, Brian. I have things to do but sat down and watched it right through.

Biting Midge who sometimes appears here is spending several months a year living on an ex hire boat on the canals of France, Germany and I think they did some deliveries up to Holland (other people's boats). He keeps sending me photos of really tiny and simple motorboats and saying that "you should consider"... etc

This video really makes me think how easy it really is. The hardest thing really is getting the motor!!!

Very nice. I have been thinking of disposable boats almost everywhere I have been in the last couple of years. I am thinking of building a Goose here in Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia to sail out to the islands.



I stole the image from the scubazoo.com website. Lots of ppl scuba here.

There is a huge potential for doing these types of trips ... an exciting byproduct of the building technology.

MIK

What a great little film and adventure. Reminds me of Sandy MacKinnon's "The unlikely voyage of Jack de Crow" - from the UK to the Black Sea in a Mirror dinghy. One day...

Phil Thiel has spent many holidays on the French canals and his special slow boat style of low cost pedal drive and outboard drive designs are designed for "low cost an go".

PEDAL - POWER AFLOAT



and his larger design



and all about his self build pedal drive design

PEDAL - POWER AFLOAT

Brian

Lucky I'm up in the middle of the nite!..............thankyou very much for this......just what I've been looking for!

There is a very good 7 page article about Phil Thiel and his designs in Wooden Boat Magazine Oct 2011 No222. You can buy digital downloads very reasonably from their website. WoodenBoat 211-Current - Issue #222 Sept/Oct 2011 DIGITAL
just $3.95.

In the article the writers son built the Escargot without a problem having never built a boat before. She uses just 8 sheets of ply. Less than I would have imagined. They used a Honda 2.3 to drive her, borrowed from dad.

Could see MIK designing a very nice version. One could axplore and live on it in the warm climates.

Grüne Flotte * Home * Charterboote im Revier in Germany build them and hire them out.



and two people cycle along the canal



Brian