Matt asks where the term comes from and when. I can remember a sales person from a caaone shop in Ontario talking about secondary stability back around 1979. He sold Sawyer Canoes . I suspect the term just evolved as a sales device. (Do I hear Nick's teeth grating :-) ) I never liked it but just could not get builders of my boats to quit using it so I gave up. nealer told me it was just too difficult to explain stability curves etc. Cheers John Winters *************************************************************************** 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/ ***************************************************************************
John Winters wrote: >>>>>Matt asks where the term comes from and when. I can remember a sales person from a caaone shop in Ontario talking about secondary stability back around 1979. He sold Sawyer Canoes . I suspect the term just evolved as a sales device.<<<<<< Canoes, Sawyer, & creative advertising B.S. This reinforces my suspicion that Harry Roberts may have had something to do with inventing this term. I looked for old Wilderness Camping and Canoe magazines that I might still have. I found and April-May 1978 Wilderness Camping. Harry's article in it didn't talk about that kind of stability but the following are some quotes from and article in that issue by Mike Galt. "Yes the narrowest of solo canoes should have stability. Not the dreary, raft like stability of the flat-bottomed standard canoe, but the lively dynamic stability of a living thing. Firm final stability however is absolutely essential in a touring boat. This is the feature that permits the canoe to roll through its arc, begin firming up and then STOP before the rail goes under. Final stability is the result of hull design and has nothing to do with width. Many racing canoes utilize excessive tumblehome for paddling convenience, sacrificing reserve and final stability." So in that partial paragraph Mike used "firm final stability" and "reserve stability" rather than "secondary stability" to describe essentially the same thing. His use of dynamic stability seems to be different than what I meant by it (which was a stable, secure feel in rough conditions--and both are quite different from the Naval Architecture definition). In the 1981 Canoe Buyer's Guide (from the fall of 1980) a Sawyer Canoe ad, that reads like Harry wrote it, says: "The Cruiser's freeboard flares outward, for a final stability and seaworthiness unmatched by any other fast cruising canoe." John are you sure the salesman used the actual term "secondary stability" rather than describing the same concept using other terms such as maybe "reserve" or "final" stability? Matt Broze www.marinerkayaks.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/ ***************************************************************************
I found an article by Cliff Jacobsen in the Nov. 1980 Canoe magazine (the 1981 Buyer's Guide issue) that says: "Canoes usually have either high initial stability (the boat feels steady when it sits flat on the water) and low secondary stability (resistance to capsizing) or vice versa." So that's now the oldest confirmed usage I now have of the term "secondary stability" relating to boats. In the same issue Tom Derrer (Eddyline Kayaks) writing about the design of kayaks uses "initial stability" and "less critical turnover point" to describe the same relationship. Unfortunately, I only have Xerox copies of the kayak models sections of the 1979 and 1980 Canoe Buyer's Guide so I can't easily check those to see if perhaps Cliff didn't have essentially the same article at the front of the Canoe models section of those buyer's guides. There is nothing like that in the Oct. 1977 Canoe (the 1978 Buyer's Guide issue) that I have. For those who are curious the 1975 Buyer's Guide was the first of those Canoe published. Anybody out there have any older issues of Canoe or Wilderness Camping magazines that might have articles on design or ads that mention the term? Am I the only old timer on this list who never throws this kind of thing away? I also went through the books I have that are older than that and found nothing about "secondary stability" in them. There is nothing in Derek Hutchinson's 1984 third edition of "Sea Canoeing" so I doubt it was in the earlier ones either. His latest fifth edition of the same book (now called the Complete Guide to Sea Kayaking) uses both secondary and reserve stability in it in its expanded kayak design section (while still repeating much of the information that is in error from previous editions). Alan Byde's (British) 1975 book about Canoe design and construction had nothing that I could find about it either. In his design articles in a recent BCU handbook Frank Goodman never mentions the term (that I could find anyhow). >From this I suspect the term originated in North America. Matt Broze www.marinerkayaks.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/ ***************************************************************************
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