: Ah yes, I thought that might raise a few questions. Well, it is still a
: mystery to me and I had a nice long view of the launching. According to
: his wife it is a human powered hovercraft that he has been working on for
: 14 years and it was the maiden voyage. Hovercraft? Not from what we could
: see. Maybe she was just having a bit of fun with us for not seeing the
: engineering marvel that it must be. It had both hand and foot cranks and
: the arms swept in and out. Curiously they could move independent of each
: other. There were slender rudder like foils on the end of the arms that
: could wag like a fish tail (or be locked in position relative to the arm)
: and also pivot up, presumably for shallow water. We assume this is the
: propulsion as well as steering mechanism. There was one heck of a lot of
: moving parts, adjustments, and cables. It also had skids on struts that
: could be lowered to rest on solid ground. After an agonizing period of
: adjusting, moving things this way and that, and copious note taking, he
: packed up and left leaving us pondering what we had just seen and
: wondering if we had been the subject of some bizarre study on just how
: long we would stand around waiting. I will leave it to ya'll to evaluate
: the nautical ramifications of such a design.

: Ted

I hope he keeps at it, sometimes the really odd looking boats harbor some very interesing and useful designs if they take the time (14 years!) to finally achive their goals

Bill H.