Oru—folding origami kayak

 
Luomanen
 
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Luomanen
Total Posts:  468
Joined  05-11-2011
 
 
 
03 October 2012 11:26
 

http://www.orukayak.com/

This is a very clever piece of design!  It uses the corrugated sheet material that they make mail bins, and it looks like there’s a fabric skin outside that.  The fact that you can check it on a plane is kind of awesome.  Check out his video.

https://vimeo.com/20047767

I could imagine a 20ft proa that you could wheel around on a cart, or get in the back of a hatchback using this technology.  Its interesting to think about creating more structure by bracing the skin with little spars or pieces of cord in tension to triangulate the hull.  The aka/platform could also stiffen up the whole arrangement.  You could make a nice little T2 type of shape with this construction method, to eliminate the leeboard. 

If a 12 foot kayak is 25 pounds, what’s a 10:1 20’ hull weigh?  100 pounds?  Plus rig, aka(s), ama, and steering appendages.

Maybe Teh Pookie’s inflatable solution scales up better.

http://www.proafile.com/archive/article/teh_pookie

I’ve always been a fan of the sliding windsurfer-y rig.  The trick is getting it to move around the way you want to without it getting too complicated.

Chris

 
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Editor
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Joined  28-10-2011
 
 
 
03 October 2012 19:54
 

Wow, it’s made out of twin wall! I love that stuff. Sorta like a double hulled tanker on a very small scale.