Riley Taft set four goals before entering the College of Engineering: Live in a van, become an engineer, buy a boat and sail around the world.
The mechanical engineering major has achieved two, with graduation and circumnavigation left to go.
“Now, I’m building up everything I need to live a highly aquatic life,” said Taft, who lives in Morro Bay on the boat he plans to use for his nautical crossing. He exudes a surfer vibe, extols the virtue of living life freely and encourages his peers to follow their passions.
He’ll spend the next few months finishing school with a celestial navigation class, celebrating spring commencement and preparing for an eight-year journey that will take him to ports across the globe, where he plans to use his engineering skills to volunteer in nearby communities.
He’s also spearheading a senior project that could provide him with clean drinking water while voyaging – a pedal-powered desalination unit for his sailboat.
Three of his mechanical engineering classmates and an industrial manufacturing engineering lecturer have joined the effort, drawn by the unique nature of the project and opportunity to help Taft achieve his lifelong dream.
That’s Me!
Taft’s interest in sailing did not come from proximity to the ocean but from a book.
As a child in Buena Vista, Colorado, he read “Dove” – the true story of a 16-year-old who took his 24-foot sloop on a sailing trip around the world.
“When I was reading, I thought, ‘That’s me!’ even though I’m in Colorado,” Taft recalled.
The youngest of five, he gained insight from his siblings and inspiration from the nature that surrounded them, giving him a strong desire to live free.
His senior year of high school, he bought a Volkswagen van painting the exterior blue, overhauling the interior and rebuilding the engine with his dad. They had to pull out the engine four times but on the fifth try, Taft turned on Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon” and by the end of the album, they were finished.
He graduated as valedictorian of Buena Vista High, loaded up his van and headed to Cuesta College, with an eye toward Cal Poly.
In his three years at Cuesta, Taft took a range of courses, lived out of his van and became an ENGAGE Scholar through the cohort-based scholarship and mentorship program designed for engineering and computer science students at Allan Hancock College and Cuesta College.
He supported himself by tutoring Cuesta students in calculus, physics, nuclear system design and engineering. When the COVID pandemic hit, he took bike trips from California to Mexico and from Wyoming to California while continuing to tutor, carrying with him sheets of scratch paper and a solar charger for his phone so he could Zoom with students on roadside stops.
“I now see kids I tutored at Cuesta, and they say, ‘You pulled in clutch for me.’ It was a great way for me to get my foundations rock solid before Cal Poly,” he said.
Catching the Vision
Taft started studying mechanical engineering at Cal Poly in fall 2021 to hone his skills as an inventor, problem solver and trailblazer.
He also bid farewell to his Volkswagen van but not after inspiring at least 15 others to pursue the van life, including Nick Tanski, the founder of Cal Poly Van Life Club and Andrew Cummings, a former Cuesta College student who launched The Van Man – a Morro Bay business specializing in custom van builds.
“The van was always a steppingstone to a sailboat,” said Taft, who taught himself to sail and moved into a cutter rigged sailboat he’d bought from a longtime Morro Bay resident eager to see Taft finish the boat he’d begun.
The 31-foot sloop, with two head sails, a single mast, full keel and diesel engine is parked in a boatyard while Taft equips it for long voyages. The size of the boat prevents it from holding enough water for a long passage, which led to Taft’s idea for a desalination unit.
A group of his classmates are bringing that idea to life through a mechanical engineering senior project.
Brendan Dizon, Hudson Kispert, Allen Malfavon and Taft are designing a bike frame that will fit into the framework of the boat, where it will be attached to a unit that houses a $3,000 car wash pump donated by one of Taft’s boat neighbors.
Ocean water will be brought into the system via a rotary hand crank pump, which will prefilter the water and store it for bicycle-driven desalination. Taft estimates pedaling for an hour would produce 7 gallons of freshwater.
His project teammates are working to ensure the bike frame withstands the stresses as they create manufacturing plans and design reviews, with assembly slated for fall quarter.
“This was very different from the other senior projects,” Malfavon said. “I want to be a good problem solver and this project will help me do that to a greater degree.”
Dizon met Taft in an earlier lab class and was inspired by his outlook on life, and Kispert was excited about helping his peer.
“I’m all about creating change and seeing the impacts of that effort,” Kispert said.
Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering lecturer Kevin Williams is advising the team and co-sponsoring the project that he and Taft dreamed up while talking about their shared passion. Williams has lived on a boat since he was a student at Cuesta and regularly sees Taft while sailing.
The team will wrap up their project by the end of fall quarter, making four extra units with frame material donated by Taft that he plans to load on his sailboat for gifts to communities in need of freshwater.
He will continue to balance his schoolwork with sailing as he envisions a future on the open ocean: pedaling for freshwater from his custom chair within reach of an oil lamp, vinyl record player and Royal 10 typewriter to chronicle all his adventures.
By Emily Slater
