Moving a boat with Telekinesis

[CeeDub]

Salutations!

Suppose a character with Telekinesis sits in a boat and wants to move that boat with his TK. I'd rule that the standard formula from B18 for movement in water applies, i.e. 1/5 Basic Move, rounded down, quite possibly limited by the vessel's top speed stat. But what should Basic Move be? Obviously, TK Move equals TK ST, modified for encumbrance. But what is the encumbrance? This is where I'd turn to B353, only to find that there are no weight divisors for boats given here, only things with wheels and skates.

Are there source books that answer this question?

[Anaraxes]

LTC3 has rules (p39) for muscle-powered watercraft plying canals and rivers, such as barges pulled by draft animals with tow lines. Effective weight divisors 8-12, depending on streamlining on a "square raft to canoe" scale. Remember to add the flow in the river.

(By "add" I mean vector sum; it's of course subtraction if you head upstream, and unlikely that you're going cross-river enough to care.)

[AlexanderHowl]

I concur. The encumbrance would be based on the weight of the boat and the divisor for shape. TK 40 would give a character a BL of 320 lbs, which means that its Extra-Heavy encumbrance would be 3,200 lbs. If we assume a divisor of ten, a character with TK 40 could drag a boat that weighed 10,000 lbs as if they were moving Heavy encumbrance, which would give an effective TK Move of 16 (TK Level * 0.4).

Now, if you wanted to pick up the boat and move it over the water, you would need TK 80. You would treat it as Extra-Heavy Encumbrance, which would give you a TK Move of 16. If you attempted to drag it like in the previous example though, it would only count as No Encumbrance, meaning that the character could drag the boat at a TK Move of 80 (TK Level * 1).

[CeeDub]

Well, just goes to show that GURPS really does have rules for everything, if you know where to look. Many thanks to both of you!

[AlexanderHowl]

You are welcome, it is an interesting question.