Steven Roberts is looking for a geeky yet adventurous owner for his custom pedal/wind/solar-powered micro-trimaran called Microship. Roberts is himself really into technology and loves to go on adventures. I guess it is the amalgamation of the two that has led to the creation of this awesome piece of boat. The man got too bored of life and then one day decided to make his own recumbent bicycle and pedalled it across continental America!
But since he is a freelance writer, he need some device to write, store and transmit his work. The result was the Winnebiko, which was moderately laden bike. He improved this model and the result was the Winnebiko II. If that wasn’t enough, he then created the monstrous 580-pound (263 kg) BEHEMOTH. It stands for Big Electronic Human-Energized Machine just so you know.
In 1992, he got hooked to kayaking and decided to created his own super kayak. He managed to get a deal with the University of California, San Diego, in which he would get to use their facilities and in return engineering students would be allowed to assist him. The first design was that of a large central tandem kayak with two smaller kayaks joined to it by crossbeams, to serve as outriggers. This design became more elaborate and bigger through the years.
But he decided to navigate this into another direction and the result of that is this boat that has a pedal, sail and electric propulsion, hydraulically-retractable wheels, which allows it to make amphibious landings, a small sleep-aboard cabin, an 8-channel peak-power-tracker with a thruster control, LED navigation lights, stock marine VHF radio, and a 480-watt solar power system. Pretty cool!
