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WISIL Hydrobowl 2003 Human Powered Boat Racing Pictures Races held Saturday 9/6/03 at Pierce lake, in Rock Cut State Park, Rockford, IL. Thanks to everyone who helped out with the timing, food, and setup! Pictures and captions by Warren Beauchamp unless stated otherwise. Race Report Event results. |
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Here's the business end of my
Sidewinder HPB. I reconfigured the prop stays and the rudder this year,
and after a few tweaks it worked much better. Everything held together
during the races and I was able to maneuver properly, which was a major improvement
over last year.
Most of these pictures can be clicked on for a bigger image. |
| Bob Buerger works on his twisted chain, retractable drivetrain. A system like this works great as it allows for removal of weeds from the prop, lets the boat be used in shallow water, and prevents damage to the drive system. |  |
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Here's a picture of Bob's 20 ft long Catamaran. The hulls are nicely shaped, and were constructed of pink foam, which was cut with a 20ft long hotwire, topped with luan plywood, and then covered with fiberglass. |
| Jake Free gets his Pro set up
and ready to race. Felicia looks at something in the water.
Picture by Dan Glatch |
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Blake Moran brought his cardboard Pro all the way from Canada to race in this year's Hydrobowl. It was nicely shaped, and used a compact twisted drive, and front and rear rudders. Blake did the 100 Meter sprint, and then decided that the cardboard was getting too soggy and decided to sit out the rest of the races. |
| Bill Murphy assembles his catamaran. For this year, Bill cut some of the rocker off the backs of the hulls (the back is toward the right) in order to make the boat turn better. He also faired in the twisted chain drive unit, as last year the round down tube kicked up a lot of water. |  |
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Here's a closer view of the elegant drive train. |
| Len Brunkalla gets Bill's old
boat, the "Transducer 5" ready to race. This is a great view
of the flat underside on this very fast boat. Len raced this boat and
came in third place overall.
Picture by Dan Glatch |
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Bob Buerger takes his new catamaran out for a test ride. |
| Aaron Stiles cruises by on his Canyak hulled HPB, with dual counter rotating props. He's working on a new plastic skinned space frame design which we hope to see next year. |  |
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Bill Murphy puts his catamaran through it's paces during the slalom event. |
| Jake Free gets ready to round a buoy during the slalom. Jake used a paddle to get his boat to turn faster. |  |
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Warren Beauchamp on the
Sidewinder cruises through the slalom course. I had to do some surgery
on the rudder between runs on this race as at first the boat did not
want to go straight. Moving the rudder so that the pivot point was at
the front of the rudder rather than 1.5 inches back fixed that, and the
steering was then wonderful, but my speed didn't increase...
Picture by Dan Glatch |
| Len Brunkalla raced Bill
Murphy's Transducer 5 this year, and come in 3rd place overall. He won the
slalom by 3 seconds, partially helped as seen here by leaning into
the corners.
Picture by Dan Glatch |
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Aaron Stiles cruises by again.
Picture by Dan Glatch |
| Jake and Len head back to shore. |  |
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A surreal shot of HPBs by the
shore. In the background are two canoeists who stayed for the whole
event.
Picture by Dan Glatch |
| The 2K crit starts with Warren
and Jake shooting out in front.
Picture by Dan Glatch |
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Bill and Len on opposite sides
of the course during the 2K crit.
Picture by Dan Glatch |
| Dan Glatch races Bob Buerger's
older HPB during the 2K crit.
Picture by Dan Glatch |
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Bob Buerger races his new boat
during the 2K crit. Bob's new boat reportedly performed extremely well
at the Steve Shutt Memorial Hydrobowl earlier this year, but he was
having some mechanical issues with it during this race, and was seen
tossing bits of the drive fairing off onto the shore during the crit
race.
Picture by Dan Glatch |
| Bob was also using a slightly
inefficient Bolly prop, and wants to change to the George Tatum prop he
has sitting on his kitchen table.
Picture by Dan Glatch |
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Three women came to from
Maryland to watch the races. In this picture, one of them (sorry I didn't get the name)
test rides Jake's Proa. Volunteeer Felicia Caruso rides Bill's monohull
HPB.
Picture by Dan Glatch |
| The woman from Maryland test rides Bill's monohull HPB |  |
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Jake relaxes after the races. Whew! |
| Hydrobowl
2003 Race Report This years Hydrobowl epitomized the term "HPB time". Even though Bob, Bill and I got the course all set up the previous day, and it survived the night unscathed, racing didn't get stated until after noon. This was partially due to HPBers performing last minute surgery on their vehicles, and partially due to the fact that it was such a beautiful day that everyone was just content to hang out and talk. The first race was the 100 meter sprint, which I won this year by going a bit slower than last year. I guess I was the only one who had eaten my wheaties that day. I think that the variable 5 MPH headwind hampered the 100 meter times this year. While by boat turned much better this year, I needed to do some tweaking on the rudder to get it to lose the power steering effect, which had my wandering around course a bit while running the sprint. Blake from Canada ran his beautiful cardboard Pro for this event. The entire boat was cardboard covered with all weather paint, including the seat. The only parts that were not cardboard were the drivetrain and rudders. He retired the boat for the year after a couple runs, when it started getting wet spots. He used this boat in the Canadian Cardboard boat races (which he dominates). He said he didn't want to have to rebuild it again before next years races. The next race was the 200M slalom. I did pretty well, but Len kicked my butt on Bill's battle worn, but still extremely fast Transducer 5 flat bottomed monohull. He used body english to roll into the corners, thus improving the all important tuning performance. After that was the 2K crit. Once again I did about the same as last year. I think my elapsed time was two seconds slower. Fortunately, what did not win last year, did win this year, as everyone else was slower. I lost my rear driveshaft support bushing about one lap into the race, and spent the whole race listening to something (I wasn't sure what had happended at the time) go clunka clunka for the rest of the race. I'm sure I would have gone faster if the bushing hadn't slipped. Jake came in second, with Len hot on his heels. Len and Jake traded places and bumped a couple times. This was a major accomplishment for Len as Jake's Proa is so wide you have to you way outside to pass him. After that we did a mass drag and then the Bollard pull. Jake, Bill, and Bob were all sneaky this year, and switched props before the event to ones that were more optimized for the low speed (stopped!) high torque testing. Then it was time to clean up and head to dinner. We rolled in to the Tai resturaunt after packing up some of the boats in the dark at about 9:30pm. Warren Beauchamp |
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