This isn't Francis' first try. When he started building this small motorboat, he already had a kayak, two canoes, one of which was a sailboat, a small Skerry sailboat/rowing boat based on the Arwen Marine design, and a Faucoaldi 5.0. For this new retiree, the construction in epoxy wood is no longer a discovery.
It was his last Valballa that prompted him to build this little motorboat. His coastal raid dinghy is equipped with a Torqeedo electric motor mounted on the transom. However, when the motor is raised, the base is at the back of the boat, exposed to shocks. A misadventure happened to her in the Gulf of Morbihan this summer when a non-manoeuvring sailboat came to board her from astern.
To avoid this, our made-up manufacturer imagined a kind of well in which the engine would come up, protecting it in the upper position. To validate his idea, before modifying his Faucoaldi 5.0, he decided to develop it on a small motorboat.
Francis has been kayaking for a long time. But today a problem with his shoulder prevents him from sailing on this medium. He has therefore thought up his future boat to accompany his friends: him, comfortably seated, them paddling! But this young grandfather of 5 grandchildren also imagines entrusting the helm to one of them.
"I didn't make a plan for this boat. I drew everything directly on the 5mm plywood sheets I had left in the back of the garage," Francis explains, "The bottom of my boat came from what is done in a kayak, then I have two plywood sheets to form a chine. The whole boat is stitched and glued before being laminated on the outside with 180g fabric".
The steering is provided with a system of pulleys and lines from the steering wheel. The engine, a home-made assembly, will be mounted on a home-made carbon tube and pivot of course. And as the whole should be pretty, the deck is covered with teak slat and varnish.
For propulsion, the manufacturer has provided an electric motor powered by 2 lithium batteries of 30 A each. With them, it will have an autonomy of 4 to 5 hours. "But without a high speed, barely that of a kayak," he says.
This small canoe is designed to accommodate one person. It is 2.40 m long. "I just weighed it. The complete hull is 20 kg. With the engine and batteries, I should be able to weigh less than 100 pounds." This lightness makes it possible to envisage a transport on the gallery of a car or even in a big station wagon.
It took 15 days of work to get to this stage of construction. Today, all that is missing is a few coats of paint and a little finishing touches before launching. But given the weather conditions and the current flooding of the Meuse River (the water point closest to Francis' home), the first tests will have to wait a little.
