Re: [Paddlewise] Aleut superior designs

> Kev wrote:
>
>
> If this is true, then why did the Aleut Eskimos build boats
> with
> multi-chine hulls? I would suggest they may have thought
> multi-chine hulls
> were better than rounded hulls, and I don't believe for a
> second that they
> didn't have the technology to build a smoothly rounded hull.
> I am of the
> opinion that they arrived on their classic baidairka design
> after
> centuries of rigorous testing that would rival anything that
> we do today.
> Note that I am not saying necessarily that multi-chine hulls
> are more
> efficient than rounded hulls, but I am saying that they
> might  be better
> in an overall sense. <unsnip>

A few years ago, I built a baidarka in a class at Superior kayaks, and it
took months for my fingertips to heal from lashing on the eight chines that
give the hull its shape.  In fact, all those chines give the hull exactly
the round shape Mike is talking about.  And because the skin depresses
somewhat around the keelson, the boat effectively has a shallow keel, which
makes for good tracking.  I suspect  the Aleuts did NOT make "rounded"
hulls -- by which I think Kev means "smooth" hulls -- because that would
have required either dugouts or slats over frames under skin.
Skin-over-frame construction offered a terrific blend of strength, design
verstatility, and light weight.  And it could be accomplished with the
materials at hand -- driftwood and skin.  That's the culture-ecology
argument:  adaption constrained by environmental factors.  If you want a
(purely specultative) notional explanation, consider that 1)  all humans
think analogically, and 2) the analog for the kayak may have been derived
from the very animals hunted in it.  A seal hunter may have "worn" the body
of a seal, reploicating its skeleton and skin.  After all, much prehistoric
technology is known to have begun as art and only later been adapted to
utilitarian purpose.  Can't prove what went on in the mind of an ancient
Aleut hunter, but mind games can be fascinating.
Rick









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