In article ,
Morris Dovey wrote:
On 3/12/2010 11:09 AM, Robatoy wrote:
On Mar 12, 10:57 am, Morris wrote:
On 3/11/2010 8:15 AM, Robatoy wrote:

15-20 knots and 6-ft chop wouldn't even get my old Hoby 16 airborne. I
miss that thing, but I couldn't take the pounding at this age.

Just wondering...

If I reworked a Hoby as a jet boat, how much power do you guess it might
take to push it along at, say, 5 and 10 mph?

I might be about to set my beer aside and try something goofy...

Jet? As in water jet or Jet Jet? *s* But you wouldn't be talking
fluidyne here, eh?

Yup - fluidyne water jet. I've been doing a lot of re-design and it
appears that I can boost both the efficiency and the oscillation rate to
the limits of mechanical check valves.

With a platform like the Hoby, I think I can mount a tracking solar
concentrator and have 3-4 kW of input power to work with and (perhaps)
50% of that in pump power.


That'll give you a theoretical roughly 2HP. Enough to move it around,
but -not- with much speed. Think 'trolling motor'.

OTOH, if you can fit one concentrator/fluidyne, maybe you can get 2-3 of
'em on board. Now, you're approaching the capabilities of a 5HP outboard.
That should be enough to leave a wake -- at least a small one. grin

My problem is that I'm not sure that'd be enough to pull a twin-hull
platform.

Heh - it just occurred to me that if I needed a horn, I could disconnect
the pump and use the engine (at say, } to warn off the jet
skiers.

That hurts just to *think* about it.