NORWAY — On the first full day of fall, in 70-degree weather, Matt Burke of South Paris and his 3½-year-old daughter Arianna were on Hobbs Pond in a pedal-powered watercraft he has been building over the summer. 

Burke’s wife, Bobbi, loves to kayak. He loves to bike. So he built a combination bike and boat so they can both enjoy what they love together. His creation is capturing the attention of just about everyone who sees it.

“I basically live for cycling, so anytime I can be pedaling, I’m happy,” Burke said.

The concept is simple, really. Burke affixed a bicycle, sans tires, to the top of a pontoon-like platform. The bicycle is hooked to a propeller system below the boat deck and pedaling moves the contraption across the water. He can pedal the boat forward or backward and turn left or right, though it takes just a bit longer to turn on the water than it does with a bicycle on land.

The inspiration for the bicycle-powered boat came to Burke in pieces. First, he found an old water skeeter his father-in-law had stored in his garage. It was essentially a seat set between two small, inflatable pontoons.

Burke took it on the water and tried to row around while balancing his daughter in his lap, but it proved to be an unfulfilling — and unsuccessful — endeavor.

“Mostly, it would just go in circles,” Burke said.

He tried to modify the water skeeter, but eventually gave up.

On the Fourth of July, he saw a hydrobike in Naples and his mind started racing with ideas of how he could build his version of the pedal-powered watercraft. In all, and thanks to some donations of materials and a little help from his friends, he has spent about $50, and many hours, on the project.

He visited Sebago Dock in Naples, where he got scrap pieces of dock foam to craft short pontoons. He notched a groove into the pontoon sides to cradle a deck he constructed out of 2- by 4-inch boards. The deck was attached to the pontoons with waterproof, expanding foam glue.

Burke took the wheels off of an old bike and attached the frame to the deck. He attached a steel driveshaft he purchased at a local hardware store to a model airplane propeller he bought.

During a test run, the driveshaft twisted, so he replaced it with a quarter-inch titanium rod a friend gave him.

“Every step of the way has been just enough to put it in the water to see if it works,” Burke said. He admitted there’s been quite a bit of trial and error to make the invention what he had envisioned.

It’s still a work in progress, but it’s closer and closer with each tweak, he said.

Burke has made adjustments to increase stability because he wants his daughter to be safe.

“We did a mile and a half on Norway Lake with 13 mph winds and whitecaps last week,” he said.

Burke, whose day job is as a land surveyor, said creating things might just be in his blood. The process is enjoyable, he said.

“There’s something about just building it,” he said. “I enjoy figuring it out myself. My grandfather was an engineer and loved sailboats. He built this wooden catamaran in his attic and then designed a way to remove the whole gable end of his house so he could move it. So it’s not my fault that I have these crazy ideas.”

When a friend suggested that Burke christen his invention the “Blue Goose” — the pontoons are blue — he decided there couldn’t be a more perfect name.

“It’s fitting because my grandfather had a 32-foot yawl, a two-mast, three-sail sailboat, moored in Casco Bay and it was called the “Snow Goose,” Burke said.

There are a few more things Burke said he would like to do to his watercraft to make it more stable and safer, such as adding a plywood deck to finish off the frame. After all, the purpose of building it was to spend time with his family, while adding to the 4,000 miles a year he already bikes.

“It’s Arianna’s personal fishing boat,” Burke said. “I’m just the outboard motor.”

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“I basically live for cycling, so any time I can be pedaling, I’m happy.”

— Matt Burke