Renewable Revolution

Posted May 19, 2018

I promised to write about this a while ago. 😇 Today, I'll see if I can set my experience down in print.   

Way back in 1975 I was an air traffic controller who had FINALLY gotten through three years of grueling training to reach the journeyman radar controller level. I lived in a simple $26,000 home I had bought in 1972. Now that I didn't have to worry about being washed out by some bigots from Indiana on my ATC crew (they had moved back to the "world" after their two year tour of fun and games with Puerto Ricans) in the FAA, I had a bit of time on my hands on weekends...

Idleness is the devil's workshop, they say. I don't know about that. Sometimes doing stuff gets you into a whole lot more trouble...


You see, I didn't know beans about sailboats (that hasn't changed much  ). I have related here about my mishap on a 34' sailboat my airline pilot brother bought.

I hated sailboats. I said I would not get in one again until they had gimbled cabins. :icon_mrgreen: Going sideways was not my idea of getting from point A to point B in a boat. BUT, I had observed that there is a sailboat type out there that did not go sideways. 🧐 This is called a catamarran. Yes, the smaller ones like the Hobie Cat can have a pontoon get airborne if you are not careful. But, generally speaking, they do not go sideways.

So, I decided to build one. I mean, how hard could it be? I had an airplane pilot's license with single, multi-engine and instrument commercial (plus flight and ground instructor tickets) ratings in addition to knowing how to add and subtract, so what's the big deal with sailboats? Why do they cost so much? I looked at all the sandwich fiberglass stuff and keel weight and hull speed design and all that.  BORING...

Also, I wasn't going to spend all kinds of money and rile up the neighborhood by building a big boat in my yard. Besides. I was on a budget and didn't want to spend more than a hundred bucks or so.

But all that said, I wish to be brutally honest with you. I had an excess pontoon problem.

Now, what in tarnation is an "excess pontoon" problem?

You see, my airline pilot brother (Gilbert - he is seven years older than I am so I had the mistaken idea that he knew what he was doing) had decided on a get rich quick scheme. This involved marketing Aquaskims.
Aquaskims are pontoons that you put your feet into like giant shoes and swish over the water with.

Gilbert thought they would make a great replacement for dingies that sailboat owners used while they are anchored to get to shore for suppllies. This was a really dumb idea for many reasons but Gilbert didn't think so.

Gilbert claimed Aquaskims were more portable than a dingy and lots of people would love them just to walk on water. So, he bought a BUNCH of them.

No, it wasn't for the "volume" discount. You see, they would not sell him one or two pairs. He had to buy a sufficient quantity to fill a 40' long standard shipping container. 

You can put a lot of them in a 40' shipping container.

Gilbert thought they would sell like hotcakes. They didn't. Despite our best efforts to sell them here and there, people had trouble maintaining their balance so they did not go for them.

Aquaskims were made of foam with some plastic flaps beneath to help you move over the water surface. I practiced a lot on a lake with them. You need strong legs and a keen ability to balance. You have to keep your center of gravity in exactly the right place or you flop into the water. Getting back on is impossible once you are in the water, even if the water is dead calm.

In ocean conditions with any wave action whatsoever, it is impossible even to walk on them.

I nearly made it all the way across the Condado Lagoon (coastal ocean lagoon about a quarter mile wide with fairly flat seas) as a publicity stunt but fell in the water a few feet short of the dock.  Below is a picture of the Condado Lagoon:


I started out from the dock next to the third building (left to right) towards the ocean side of the lagoon and walked to nearly where that obelisk thing is now on the near side.

My legs just kept opening (doing a split) and I no longer had the strength to keep them together. The muscles you use to do this are almost totally NOT used when walking or running on the ground because the friction of your feet with the ground keeps your legs from sliding apart. Slip-sliding on water to move forward on pontoons is very slippery business. We got a few sales that day but nothing to brag about.

People found it was dangerous to try to get into them in a swiming pool because if you fell sideways or backwards you could hit your head on the pool concrete side. Sailboat owners could not easily carry groceries in bags while balancing on the Aquaskims, even in dead calm waters. I could carry stuff but it was tricky. What I would do to try to sell somebody is that I push a 14' Boston Whaler I owned off a dock at the Levittown lake and let it go out 50' or so. I would then get on the aquaskims, walk to the boat, and tow it back in with a rope. People were not impressed.

I had already tried water skiing with them. THAT was nightmare! The pontoons want to go anyway but straight (those fat foam hulls zig and zag continuously  ) when the boat towing you tries to pick up to normal speed. Of course you can be towed along at 5 mph. That is something you certainly can't do with regular water skies, but I was pretty sure that wouldn't catch on as a fad. People like to go fast and all that. 

Gilbert's get rich quick sheme was dead.

Guess who was elected to store most of them?

So, as you can see, I had an excess Aquaskim pontoons problem.

This is when I got the strange idea that you could make a tiny catamarran with the Aquaskims.

Experienced sailors know something I was not too clear on (to put it mildly). Sailboats need TWO, not just one, connnection with the water beneath them in order to steer them AGAINST the wind.

Yeah, you need a sail. However, the sail just creates leverage on the mast to move the boat with the wind, period. If you stick a rudder in the water you will not get the boat to point in the direction you want to go unless you have something in the water for the rudder to exert leverage on. That thing is called a keel or a centerboard in a normal sailboat.

In a catamarran it's a bit more complicated. The pontoons can be a sort of a leverage point, but they have to be sticking well into the water and they need a certain design (as in the Hobie Cat). Aquaskims are rounded and stubby. They are designed for maximum floatation. This is no good for leverage traction in the water.

But I hadn't figured that out yet. Experience is really a very good teacher.  :laugh:

I had all these pontoons and I needed to make somehting with them. I figured a cheap mini-cat would sell and I could get rid of all those pontoons I was storing.

So, being a methodical fellow , I went to a hardware store and bought a bunch of PVC pipe, a grommet kit, some grommets, "sail" cloth (blue shower curtain plastic), some eye screws and some cord and began my project.

This is what those Aquaskims look like:


I made this PVC frame with some patio furniture straps for the deck: The four support points beneath would be just pushed into the pontoons through the top foam.

Next I added the rudder and began attaching the rigging eye screws.


I then grommeted the sail and attached it to the PVC mast with line and some rigging to be able to raise and lower it. The PVC large pipe ring at the top of the mast could be raised or lowered with the line through the eye screws. I know, VERY CRUDE. But that system actually worked. True, I only took the boat out once and none of this rigging (or any other part of this PVC mess contraption) was built to last, but it goes to show you how cheap you can really go in a pinch.     


Finished with my Mini-Catamarran Agelbert Folly, I took it to the Levittown lake for a shakedown cruise.


I lowered into it from the concrete dock and sat in the middle, more or less. You've got to do that so the pontoons don't upend in the front. The pontoons sat a little lower than I expected in the water.  Well, I had a bathing suit on so having a wet ass was no problemo. 

Of course I considered that my ass dragging through the water would slow me down a bit, but I was not going to sweat the small stuff. Onward and forward!

I raised the sail, held the boom position with my right hand with an attached line and held the rudder with my left hand. The wind was behind me so I moved off the dock and enjoyed running with the wind.

I said to myself, IT WORKED!   

I was wrong. Eddie can tell you all the stuff I did wrong, but I will mention a few. 

When I tried to tack, I could not tack. The boat just slid along sideways, no matter what I did with the rudder. I could run with the wind and slightly at an angle, but that was it. I needed a keel of some sort. I did not have it.

Also, had the wind been any stronger than the light breeze I had that day, the PVC thin mast would have bent too much or broken. I had some rigging to keep it steady (not shown in my 3D sketchup file screenshots - I had a line on either side to the frame), but it was not enough for the stiffness needed to propel the boat in a reasonable wind.

My sailboat would not tack.👎 The mast was wiggly.  The mini-cat was a failure. I was stuck with a lot of pontoons. 

But, it was quite educational. I hope you enjoyed this anecdote.

We live and we learn.