> Many writers about canoes and kayaks exhibit a callous disregard for > research and prefer their opinions over reality. This is an interesting discussion. FWIW, which I don't say is much, there is a parallel discussion in sailing circles. For example, Nat Herreshoff is regarded by many as the greatest yacht designer (I don't know if they used the word "naval architect" back then, or if he would have disliked the term....) in American history. His boats are beautiful, and frequently quite fast (when he designed them to be). Yet "science" was not really the basis for his work; it was more "art." And intuition, or something. These days, naval architects debate the scientific vs the ... whatever the other thing is... constantly. I guess the big racers are pretty much dictated by advanced science, engineering, etc. But to my eye many of them are downright ugly. And as we've seen, well, they may have a tendency to break in half (tch tch tch). To me, kayaks and canoes have a great beauty to them, and the "artistic" is a major component of a good design. I don't personally like Derek H's designs -- I think they look silly. But I do like other designs that I suspect are at least as devoid of scientific calculation. Boats, after all, are things of beauty, and fortunately there are many different notions of what is beautiful. Mark *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced/forwarded outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu Oct 12 2000 - 06:19:00 PDT
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