Hook Paravane 2

I made another hook paravane where the aluminum extends forward under the foam.   This lets me attach the string forward more.

Some videos.   The Sun was going down at my wave tank.

Hook Paravane

I read about a hook paravane some time back but did not fully understand it.   I decided I understood enough to make one that would work so today I made one and tested it.  At first the curve was not tight enough and it could not go fast.  After bending it a bit more it worked well.  It is mostly off to the side, like a good paravane (water kite) but a bit behind.  Because it is a bit behind the lower part acts like a plow pulling the paravane down into the water.  The upper part is positioned to lift if the paravane goes too far down into the water.  So the two balance each other and it does not go down too far or pop out of the water.  This is a very light device.  This makes pulling it out of the water and onto the dock or boat much easier.  It will also take much less space on the boat.  The maximum pull is less, so I am hopefull that it will not break the line when the mast pulls hard.

This was the shape after some more bending and it worked well.

I had to start out slow.

 This last video is with the most curve in the aluminum.  It seems to work the best.  I don't think this will ever jump all the way out of the water, so it will always keep tension on the mast.  This is much better than my pipe prototypes.

Future Plans

This design has great potential.  It is also really easy to make.  I now expect the final paravane design to evolve from this basic design.  In the past I have gone from toy sailboat, aluminum foiling catamaran, to pipe, to this hook.  These are big changes in design.  From now on I expect small changes to the basic hook design.  This is a very efficient design.  Lifting my big pipe paravanes back onto a tipping boat was a bit much.  This will make for a much more practical device.  Also, because it is so light there is far less chance that it would damage the boat in any way when you are pulling it out of the water.   I think the chances of making a product that other people would like went up today.  :-)

I made this design very fast today and did not take the time to make the aluminum resemble an air-foil at all.   Doing this will reduce the drag, so it is well worth doing now that I like the basic design.

I would like to have been able to try attaching the string forward of where it was, but there was no more aluminum under the foam going forward.  In a future design I will extend the aluminum forward another 4 inches under the foam.

I seems like other hook paravanes don't have a surface following thing like my foam.  I was hoping my foam would be out of the water more and only for slow speeds but it was always part of the function.   If the foam were not touching the water there should be less drag.  So if a hook paravane can operate that way it would be better.   

Lowering Mast with Solar Panels

As I was lowering the mast it became clear the spreaders wanted to pass through the solar panels.   This was a problem.

I detached the spreader (one bolt) and lowered some more.  Then the mast was about to hit the solar panels.  So I moved all the solar panels back as far as I could without hitting the mast support.  Then I was able to lower the mast onto the mast support without the mast hitting the panels.  In this picture it looks like I have a good inch to spare, but the mast jack is still lifting on the mast.  After it is removed there was only about a half inch.   That is cutting it close.

Then moved the mast forward onto its stand and reattached the spreader.    This means I will always have to undo the bolt for the spreader, but this is not too bad.   It could have been worse.

Solar Panels on Boat

One of the drawbacks of living in paradise is that shipping big things here can take a month or more.  So getting the right aluminum takes a long time.  Then when the welder needs more Argon gas, that takes a long time.   So living in paraside requires a certain amount of patience.  But I think it is worth it.  We now have the solar panels mounted on the boat.  Next we have to wire up the panels and the batteries.

First Sea Trial With 2 Paravanes

There are 2 paravanes with 2 yellow balls. Inside each ball is a fishing reel that can let the line out for the paravane automatically. This lets me toss in both paravanes at nearly the same time.

This video is the whole experiment. The left side reel let the line out at a slow speed. The right side must have had a higher drag setting on the reel as we had to move a bit faster to get it out. Eventually the fishing line knot on one of the reels came undone. I need to get better at fishing line knots. But the system for letting the lines out is getting reasonable.

One of the paravanes has been filed so that it stays down in the water better. I thought I had done the other but had not. Both of them came out of the water, so they're not the ultimate design.

My 11 year old son Ethan has become my crew.  He is learning fast  He is a great help to me!  This experiment was done on Monday July 15th.  We tried 2 paravanes a couple days before this but it lasted less than a minute, and we did not get video. 

Here is the view from Ethan's camera:

After a line comes loose we both have to focus on getting things out of the water.   One of us driving and the other grabbing things with the mooring hook.   So far we have always recovered everything.  The side that has not come loose we just wind in with the reel in the ball.   But we still have to get the paravane onboard and then stow things.   Anyway, no video of the recovery work.  :-)

Testing Direct Attach

Tested the paravane again this morning moving the point that the line attaches to the pipe back and up a bit.   Seems to work very well.   The lines should have less chance of getting tangled.  I doubt I will use the old method of two attachment lines to make a sort of bridle ever again.

Also note that yesterday's mod of making the bottom of the pipe pull down works well.  The paravane does not come out of the water like it used to.

Mods to Big Pipe Paravane

I used my powersander on the bottom leading edge of the PVC pipe so that is pulls down as it goes through the water.  I tested this today along the dock and the paravane now stays down in the water much better.

I also tried connecting the line directly to the side of the pipe instead of to two lines on the paravane. This works, even though I don't have the right spot yet. I just happened to have 3 holes on the pipe that were drilled in the wrong place. The right spot is a bit further back (maybe 2 or 3 inches) and a bit higher (maybe 1 or 2 inches). This will reduce the chance of lines getting twisted around something the wrong way. Probably easier to manufacture correctly too.

So maybe the Big Pipe Paravane is still a good way to go.