On a pedal and a prayer

by taking the most advanced pedal powered craft ever across the Atlantic in record time. Simon Lott reports.

Pedal. Eat. Sleep. Repeat. This is the life Bentley engineers Mark Byass and Mike Sayer can look forward to when they step into their Project Torpedalo craft on 4th December to compete in the Woodvale Challenge Atlantic Rowing Race. The event features around thirty boats attempting to cross the Atlantic from La Gomera in the Canary Isles to Port St Charles Marina in Barbados, a total of 2,933 miles. Competing out of class, Project Torpedalo will be only the second two-man pedal powered craft in history to transverse the ocean, with the pair hoping to demolish the current record set at 111 days. In fact, the team expects to be close to the pace of its competitors and is aiming for an all time quickest ever human powered crossing for a pairs crew of just 38 days.

Equally ambitious is the fundraising target set by Byass and Sayer, who are aiming to raise £250,000 for the Motor Neurone Disease Association and Make-A-Wish Foundation UK through sponsorship of the attempt. Helping to reach this target, virtually all of the project’s suppliers are working for no cost, so all the money raised will go directly to the two charities.

Peak performance

Travelling completely unaided, the craft will need to carry over 300 items of equipment including solar panels to power all the electronics and most importantly, a water desalination unit and 300kg of food. The pair will pedal continuously in two hour shifts at an average speed of 3.3 knots (or 3mph), equalling a total of 4.5 million rotations over the course of the voyage. Some of the more unusual statistics are equally enlightening. The total amount of energy put into the pedals will be equivalent to 15,000 miles by bicycle, or enough to make 4,400 cups of tea. The pair can also look forward to an average five hits to the face by flying fish and can expect to produce 1,100l of sweat between them.

The project began life in October 2009 when Sayer and Byass were working on a project car in their spare time. “We realised we could use the skills to do something a bit more worthwhile,” explains Byass, “so we decided on a charity project, and I also needed a project for the final year of my engineering degree. We started thinking perhaps we’ll go London to Paris by pedalo, but then became more ambitious. When we contacted the race organisers they actually said they’d been waiting for years for someone to do this.”

Besides the sheer physical demand, the pair will also have to overcome other strains. Byass states that actually, the biggest challenge for him will be boredom. “By the time we get there we will have trained our legs enough and got into the routine and sleep pattern, but I’ll be sitting in a reclined seat staring at nothing but two shades of blue for 12 hours a day.” There is also the problem of skin rash caused when seawater dries onto clothes and leaves abrasive salt behind in the fabric. The solution to this problem however is elegant in its simplicity. The pair will be pedalling naked, which may provide a surprise for any passing cruise liner!

Inspired design

The first challenge was finding suppliers willing to contribute to the project and most importantly someone who could manufacture the craft itself. After nine months of searching, Poole-based Norco GRP stepped up to the plate after a chance meeting. “Just before we found Norco we we’re just losing hope in finding someone to build the boat,” explains Sayer. “We always knew it would be the hardest part of the project to organise because it’s the largest piece of work to be done. Plenty of people were interested in the project but wouldn’t or couldn’t commit, and we had been in good negotiations with one supplier before it fell through.

“With time getting short, we visited the Composites Engineering show last October. When we came across Norco’s stand and were instantly impressed. We visited the site soon after and worked out the outline of the work. Managing director Mark Northey then came to our launch evening in London at the start of November and gave the go ahead that evening.” Northey adds: “It’s just one of those rare things that you have to do. The motivation for the project really came across when I first met Mike and Mark, but the thing that really hooked me was the design.”

While the concept remains the same, Project Torpedalo bears about as much resemblance to a plastic swan in the park as a golf buggy resembles a Formula One car. In fact, one of the initial draws to Norco’s stand was the stealth-like jet boat it had built for the opening sequence of James Bond adventure The World Is Not Enough, from which the dark, svelte form of the Torpedalo craft appears to take many of its styling cues.

Not, of course, that there is much room for style when you are designing for outright performance. Sayer continues: “Because we would have more hydrodynamic drag than the rowing boats due to the drive leg and propeller, we had to claw back quite a lot of that disadvantage through the hull design. We built six different models and had them tank tested them at Newcastle University. We also scanned our bodies and built the hull around the movements we would need to make throughout the voyage. Through refining our design the hull alone is now 40% less resistant than the rowing boats, but with the drive leg it’s about the same. We’re trying to make everything as equal as possible with the rowers so our effort is comparable.

“More recently we have been finalising the aerodynamic shape above the waterline so we are streamlined downwind and don’t have any more wind assistance than the rowing boats in tailwind conditions. So far we’ve proved we actually have a bit less, which will be particularly satisfying if we do beat them.”

It is perhaps testament to the motivation of both Sayer and Byass that considering that both peddlers’ experience of marine design was very limited prior to the project, they have since been approached by a veteran Atlantic rower to assist in the design of his next boat.

Coming together

By February all of the manufacturing resource had fallen into place, with the Torpedalo Manufacturing Consortium lead by Norco and consisting of Curvature Group providing a male pattern of the whole craft, John Burn , Sika and SP Gurit providing materials and Bentley providing machining services for parts such as the drivetrain and propeller. Norco itself will be building the 8.3m long craft, which consists of a nose and main hull which make a monocoque structure as well as the rear end, top deck and several hatch areas, bulkheads, floors and a multitude of ancilliary parts.

Production itself should be a fairly rapid affair, taking approximately three months from the beginning of February in time for display at the Liverpool boat show from 29th April to 8th May. Then sea trials will begin and all the electronics will be fitted. Sayer adds: “We were particularly impressed not only with the quality of the samples that Norco produced, but also the short amount of time it would take to manufacture, which is partly down to the CNC methods, moulds and the whole set-up at Norco. Some companies we spoke to anticipated it would be well over a year of work, so we were very surprised when we were told three months.”

For Norco, the project is a nice conclusion to work going on to diversify the company’s capability. “We’ve been involved in CNC projects over the last few years and are now taking on projects from start to finish, assembly and fit out,” explains Northey. “While being in the marine sector, glass fibre production is our core offering, we’ve now taken on finite carbon fibre composite structures with new processes such as vacuum infusion, resin transfer moulding and prepreg methods.”

Carbon fibre finesse

Despite this, early tests on samples produced at Norco have surpassed expectations with external analysis confirming the quality of lay-up. Due to the project’s one-off nature and to keep costs down the craft’s core structure itself will be hand laid and consist of a sandwich carbon fibre and foam material produced in a two shot operation. While this structure itself should be safe enough, it also has a thin woven glass coating of 160gsm to ensure against any water ingress.

Weight is also a crucial factor. Norco’s composite projects manager Henry Nicholson-Cole describes: “Most one-off racing boats are built male moulded which is cheaper but adds a lot of filler and weight, but we’ll take moulds off the male plug and make a female one. That’s gives us a mould of the outer surface so theoretically there shouldn’t be any filler, and that’s a saving of 20kg alone. Furthermore we have also been able to reduce the weight through clever use of peel plies.”

Completing the main manufacturing process, the underwater sections will also be copper coated to prevent ecosystems forming, which as well as creating drag and possible damage can attract larger predators. “Part of the design brief was to compartmentalise the hull so if a section is breached we will still float,” describes Byass. “One boat last year had a Marlin drive its beak straight through the keel, which is like being hit by a car with a spike on the end, although the metal desalination unit will also hopefully offer some protection if that does happen.”

Fit for purpose

Having now been through the first part of the process, Sayer concludes that: “Approaching companies to do the work for free was incredibly cheeky, but when we met Norco we were both so impressed with the company that if we had the money, we’d use them anyway so it’s been very lucky for us. It’s big enough to do what we need to do quickly but not so big that we can’t deal directly with the managing director.”

With the craft now well into production, the focus will now turn to training and fundraising before the pair really find out how they and their unique vessel perform when the race gets underway in December.

If you would like to sponsor or donate to Project Torpedalo and help the team reach its goal of £250,000 for the Motor Neurone Disease Association and the Make-A-Wish Foundation, please email Mike Sayer at mike@torpedalo.com or visit the project’s website.

www.torpedalo.com

Much more than marine

Norco GRP claims to be the UK’s largest manufacturer of marine parts in glass fibre and composites supplying around 1,250 different mouldings per week from shower trays and wet bars to complete hulls and flying bridges. With 150 employees, it offers rapid prototyping and scale modelling; 5-axis CNC and traditional pattern making; direct and indirect mould tooling; hand lay-up, resin transfer moulding (RTM) and vacuum infusion; various finishing processes; assembly and complete fit out. In recent years the company has grown in capability and diversity and has recently invested in a new 37m CMS CNC machine to take on larger cutting projects.

Examples of key projects include the huge hull pattern and mould from which the upcoming Oyster 885 will be produced. The whole structure has been CNC cut for absolute accuracy and no deviation throughout the structure. “This is much more cost-effective than the traditional method and gives greater accuracy,” explains Northey. “The leadtime is also hugely reduced. This would have taken over eight months to produce but utilising the CNC machine we can finish it in sixteen weeks.”

In another building engineers are completing three 9m glass fibre hydroelectric turbine blades for Atlantis Resources Corporation to be installed off the coast of Pentland Forth in Scotland. Having had problems with component failure, the renewable power company turned to Norco to develop the design. The components are so rare that when Norco produces its fourth blade for another project, it will become the largest producer in the UK.

The company also takes considerable pride in its extensive training facility, which runs dedicated NVQ level 2-3 courses. “The marine industry is seen as the lower end of the composites industry which is a shame because it’s a great skill set,” describes Northey. “The application of such a diverse set of materials and processes is a fine art and requires a lot of hand-eye coordination and attention to detail.” There are a dozen apprentices in the centre at any one time taking the 12 month course. They are then placed into the main areas of production for a further 18 month in-house development programme.

www.norco.co.uk