Okay, I can't express this in formal technical terms, but I think Ralph may be right (upright?) in feeling that a sponsoned folding boat could be more stable and self-righting than a hardshell of equal chine and beam. (I mostly use hard shells so I'm not biased in favour of folding boats.) The displacement of a hardshell is essentially static, changing only as the entire boat moves. The sponsons of a folder, in contrast, are squeezed at the bottom as they are pushed deeper into the water, and therefore expand into greater width and stability in the higher parts. When scuba diving in a drysuit, I experienced this dynamic stability in an undesirable way; the air tends to be squeezed up to your ankles and away from your body if you swim head down, and you become very stable upside down! (Practise let me deal with this without having to fight the suit, but some divers never get the knack, and so wear ankle weights to prevent inversion.) Comments on and corrections of this theory invited, especially from the boat designers and boffins on the list. N49°16' W123°08' ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************Received on Fri Apr 09 1999 - 11:45:36 PDT
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