Motorized wakeboard

Details Motorized wakeboard Motorized wakeboard

2001-11-14

2003-05-27

Swinehart, Ed (Department: 3617)

Ships

Motorized self-propelled waterski or waterscooter-type vehicle

Having standing rider

C441S074000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06568340

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND ART
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a wakeboard, more specifically, the invention relates to a motorized wakeboard.
2. Description of the Related Art
The invention is a non-traditional personal watercraft defying standard categorization.
Until now, those who enjoy riding certain watercrafts, commonly known as boards, in particular the boards that have the ability to jump, were able to: windsurf (also known as sailboarding) and wakeboard. Windsurfing is a form of surfing propelled by wind that applies a force to a sail. Windsurfer uses waves as ramps to jump above water surface and then uses the sail like a wing to control and to extend the jump.
Wakeboarding is a water sport in which a rider negotiates waves and wakes (waves created by boat) behind a powerful towing boat and executes controlled jumps that are the main attraction of the sport of wakeboarding. The wakeboard rider controls and executes jumps by skillfully using and coordinating both the hydrodynamic forces present on the bottom and side surfaces of a wakeboard and fins as well as by holding on to a towing rope that is attached to the towing boat.
A new type of board is gaining popularity: a kiteboard. Kiteboarding is similar in concept to windsurfing (sailboarding) but it utilizes a kite to pull rider along surface of water and into the air during jumps. Again, the main attraction of this sport is the ability to perform long and controlled jumps above water.
The windsurf board, kiteboard and other boards that use the forces of nature to propel them, have the disadvantage of being dependant on the right weather conditions. In most locations in the world, there are a very limited number of days a year that users are able to enjoy those sports. The wakeboard is not dependent on weather conditions, but its disadvantage is the requirement for a boat to pull the wakeboarder and at least one additional person to operate such boat.
Applicants have created several types of motorized boards for riding on water (further referred to as motorized boards) to free their users from the dependency on weather or other people and equipment. All those motorized boards, however, were created to simulate surfboards and allow users to enjoy the sport of surfing in the absence of waves. Surfing does not include and is not capable of jumping above water surface and, therefore, these motorized surfboards did not address the issues related to jumping. Many of these motorized boards are not capable of achieving the high speeds necessary to initiate jumps above water surface. The others that are capable of operating at high speed have a high moment of rotational inertia preventing riders from controlling their craft during the course of jumping. The controlled maneuvers of a board during jumping are the main attraction of jumping. Furthermore, this lack of the ability to control a craft after the craft becomes airborne is extremely hazardous for the rider. The most difficult and most dangerous part of jumping is landing. Consequently, to land safely, the rider cannot be at a mercy of the very initial phase of the jump, which is the time when the craft leaves water, but rider must be in control during all of the phases of the jump. All of the motorized boards lack the ability to control them after they become airborne. Any action causes a reaction. When a rider spins an airborne motorized board in one direction, the rider's body spins in the opposite direction. The larger the rotational moment of inertia of a motorized board the more a rider spins in the opposite direction than the direction of spinning of his board. The placement of the engine in the motorized boards, especially placement engine at a distance from the vertical axis that passes through rider's center of gravity, is the major contributor to the high moment of inertia of the devices. As explained subsequently, the high moment of rotational inertia of the motorized boards, requires the rider to rotate his body over 120 degrees to rotate the airborne motorized boards just a few degrees. This means that the rider faces the back of the board trying to perform this airborne maneuver. For most humans this is neither practical nor possible.
Also, the moving of a stem up and down is a form of rotation about a horizontal axis that passes through a board, perpendicular to the board longitudinal axis, half way between rider's feet. Because moving a stem up and down is a form of rotation about this axis, therefore the high rotational moment of inertia of the prior art boards has a detrimental effect on the amount of effort a rider has to exert in order to move a stem up and down (also known as rocking) or to control the angle of attack of the board, both during airborne ascending and descending. The effect of the rotational moment of inertia on ability to control a motorized board is subsequently explained in greater details in Description of Prior Art and in the Summary of Invention.
All motorized boards have engine positioned either in the front part of a motorized board (Bennet), central part of a motorized board (J. Douglas, A. Bloomingdale, R. Montgomery, J. Thomson, Von Smagala-Romanov) or in the very rear part of a board (R. Montgomery, E. Dawson, A. Sameshima, D. Bennet, H. Yoshitake). None of those positions coincide with the vertical axis that passes through rider's center of gravity, which is the axis that rider rotates his craft around while airborne. The rider's position depends on the board length. For the length of the standard board, which is between 2.44 and 3.35 m (8 to 11 feet), the rider position is approximately 0.3 to 0.4 of the board length measured from the rear of the board. The references discussed above show the engine in a position that does not offer good riding characteristics on water and offer even worse characteristics during jumping. While some of these references allow for moderately controllable surfing (U.S. Pat. No. 5,582,529 to R. E. Montgomery), none of it will allow executing very difficult and fully controlled jumps above water surface.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,548,778 to Von Smagala-Romanov discloses a self-propelled surfboard. The shielded propeller is located in a recess in the bottom of the board. The internal combustion engine is mounted within a cavity located centrally of the front and rear ends of the board in front of rider. The propeller is mounted closely behind the engine so as to be generally under the deck portion where a rider would stand. This limits the craft to be operated at low speeds only, commonly known as displacement operation. The reason for this is that at a high speed, also known as planing, only the very rear portion of the bottom is in contact with water, at which time the craft of Von Smagala-Romanov would ingest air instead of water into the jet pump, and would lose the propelling thrust. Von-Smagala-Romanov teaches in lines 23-24 of column 6, that shield around propeller ingests water through apertures in the shroud. This is a very hydrodynamically inefficient way of ingesting water, which further limits the output of his propulsion system.
The Von-Smagala-Romanov reference also teaches in lines 32-35 of column 6, that the craft has a fin located in the path of the water jet stream. This feature has two disadvantages: (a) it creates a very large resistance to the stream of water that floats around it at a very high speed, thus further reduces the propelling thrust, and (b) it loses the ability to work as a stabilizer and steering feature should rider decide to steer the board with body balance. The reason for this is that in order to steer with body balance, the fin must interact with the outside (stationary) water, not with the stream of water generated by the propeller. This stream always meets the fin at the same angle, regardless of riding conditions. In practice this stream of water always meets the fin parallel to the side surfaces of the fin, and effectively shields the fin from interacting with the outside water. Without a movable part of the fin of the Von-Smag

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