Pedal powered hydrofoil looks like a lot of fun

After reading a bicycle-powered hydrofoil build we posted a few days ago, [James] sent in the project that earned him an iron ring from Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada. It’s a pedal-powered hydrofoil made of carbon fiber and a Titanium drive shaft [James] and five other students in a mech eng senior design class built in 2005.

The Halifoil, as the team called it, is based on a recumbent design and uses twin carbon fiber hulls to keep the rider out of the water when not pedaling. The use of carbon fiber foils and Titanium drive shaft keep the weight down so the rider can easily accelerate to a speed where the hulls come out of the water.

Compared to the last hydrofoil we posted, [James]’ build is much heavier, but one is much better suited to sitting in the middle of a lake, then pedaling to the shore while flying above the water.

Even though the project is several years old, it’s still a very cool build. [James] was kind enough to post the videos of his build residing on the Dalhousie servers on YouTube; you can check those out after the break.

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Hacking the trampofoil to be pedal powered

We’ve seen a few different versions of the “trampofoil” before. That’s the contraption that utilizes a hydrofoil and human power to scoot you across the water above the surface. It is somewhat difficult to explain, so just check out the first video after the break to see how the original works.

Today, we stumbled upon a cool video where someone is attempting to make a pedal powered one instead. Their first prototype, shown above is literally just a trampofoil with an added seat and pedal powered prop. They did manage to take it a step further though and came up with a second prototype that has a better designed hydrofoil as well as using a bike frame for the main structure. This looks really fun as you can see in the second video below.

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