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Posted by Chris Davis - UT on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 at 19:00:33 :
Gordon posted a link to an on-line archive of the US Field Artillery Magazine. Look what I found while browsing the Jan. 1942 issue.
"With nothing more than a piece of salvage canvas, the "Scrapping 13th" (13th Tng Bn FARTC) has paddled weapon carriers and ton and a half trucks all over Robeson Lake on the Fort Bragg reservation. …
An "I.C." Model-A Ford tractor was first to be tried. It was sunk twice before the men acquired the technique of getting the canvas folded properly. But after several trials, the right procedure was found. If the tarp was folded around the vehicle in a manner commonly used to wrap a package, water seeped in the folds, so next the four corners were brought toward the diagonals and tied. This worked fine and there was no seepage in the folds.
A weapon carrier was tried next on the same piece of 18×24 paulin. This time the scheme worked without a hitch. On the second trial the vehicle was afloat three minutes after arriving at the water's edge.
In nine minutes the floating weapon carrier was paddled 80 yards. The vehicle was kept in the water for over an hour. At one time there were eleven men aboard, giving it an additional 1,600 pounds weight. When it came time to disembark, only three minutes were required to get the vehicle moving under its own power.
The water line was found to be six inches under the fenders with the vehicle sitting level. There were about ten gallons of water in the tarp after an hour's time. This was attributed to leakage around the many patches on the salvaged canvas."
The article goes on to detail how to compute the cavas size and how to get it into the water. Add this to the balance beam at next year's rally mabey?
:)
Chris
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