Manually propelled water craft

Claim 1

A manually propelled water craft, comprising, in combination, an elongated, buoyant support member, manually rotatable paddle wheel mechanism at the front of said support member, a pair of buoyant, laterally-spaced flap members extending rearwardly of the rear end of said support member, and hinge means interjoining the foreward ends of said flap members with said support member and providing for swinging movement thereof with respect to said support member independently about a transverse axis, the underside of said buoyant support member being formed along its length with a deep, central channel opening into said rear end of said support member, said channel, short of said front end of said support member being bifurcated to provide relatively divergent, symmetrically-arranged front channel portions in the underside of said support member, said symmetrically-arranged front channel portions being arcuate in shape and having substantially the same depth as that of said central channel, said front end of said support member being symmetrically rounded and the foreward ends of said front channel portions being arcuately widened at their zones of opening into said front end of said support member to define, with said central channel, a streamlined central support member portion, said manually rotatable paddle wheel mechanism comprising, at each side of said support member, a pair of half paddle wheel members, each half paddle wheel member further comprising a pair of opposed paddle wheel vanes integrally formed with an axially extending hub portion having a length of approximately one-half the width of said paddle wheel vanes, whereby each pair of half paddle wheel members can be assembled by moving the inner ends of their hub portions into coaxially-aligned, abutting engagement with the associated paddle wheel vanes angularly mutually spaced by 90 circular degrees, means journalling said paddle wheel mechanism half pairs for rotation in unison about a common axis extending transversely of said support member, said paddle wheel mechanism further comprising, at each side of said support member, a crank handle portion eccentrically offset with respect to said common axis, said crank handle portions being eccectrically offset in diametrically opposite directions, said paddle wheel members journalling means comprising a transversely-extending recess formed in the upper surface of said buoyant support member, an axle rod seated within said recess and extending outwardly of each side of said support member, said paddle wheel half members comprising means for their attachment to the outwardly projecting ends, respectively, of said crank handle portion, and means for removably constraining said axle to rotational movement in said recess, said attachment means for said paddle wheel half members comprising aligned, axially extending through openings in the hub portions of each of said pairs of paddle wheel half members, said through openings being rhombic in cross-sectional shape, said crank handle portion being formed with outer end portions coaxial with said axle rod and of complementary rhombic cross-sectional shape to fit snuggly within the through openings of one of said pairs of half paddle wheel members to rotatively interlock said half paddle wheel member pairs with their respective crank handle portions.