Re: [Paddlewise] Efficacy of Sponsons on Canoes and Kayaks

Coincidentally I was at the WoodenBoat Show this past weekend. My booth 
was adjacent to a fellow Gordon from Ontario selling rope. We talked a 
little about kayaks and he mentioned a fellow in his town who is 
interested in kayaks by the name of Tim Ingram. I mentioned some of the 
ruckus Tim had created. It turns out this man's wife is good friends 
with Tim's wife.

Apparently Tim has been very sick - mentally ill. I do not know the 
details, but I think it is important for us to understand that in the 
same way out bodies fail us and let us down, the same can happen with 
the mind. I think it is clear to us all that Tim let something that he 
was passionate about become an obsession. When in the depths of a 
mental illness the concept of "choosing" and "responsibility" for your 
own actions becomes hard to compute.

Gordon knew Tim as highly intelligent man with a wonderful, wry sense 
of humor who worked as a dispute mediator at a local prison and was 
apparently very good at it. It is ironic and sad that one aspect of 
Tim's obsession is he created a dispute that no one seemed able to 
mediate.

We should all try to remember that we are involved with kayaking for 
fun. At times many of us suffer from taking it all too seriously. I 
think one thing we can do is try to ignore the "poison" Tim has 
attached to the word "sponsons" and try to understand/evaluate them on 
their own merits. If Tim did anything wrong it was caring too much 
about something we all care about. If Tim took his actions while sick, 
he is no more responsible than a man with a broken leg is for 
scratching the floor with his crutches.

Nick

On Jul 22, 2004, at 11:26 PM, Matt Broze wrote:

>  I'm no friend of
> Tim's (being included among those he names as having the blood of a 
> thousand
> paddlers on his hands) but he did eventually take my advice and 
> recently
> updated his sponsons to get rid of some of their major downsides. Some 
> of
> the criticism of sponsons (difficulty of deploying the tangled mess 
> for one)
> was no longer applicable to the latest version. It's too bad that Tim 
> has
> already poisoned the word "Sponsons" so much that they are practically
> universally shunned and no one (except the government) pays attention 
> to the
> whole category any more.
Nick Schade

Guillemot Kayaks
824 Thompson St
Glastonbury, CT 06033
USA
Ph/Fx: (860) 659-8847
http://www.guillemot-kayaks.com/
***************************************************************************
PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed
here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire
responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author.
Submissions:     PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net
Subscriptions:   PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net
Website:         http://www.paddlewise.net/
***************************************************************************