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Seaworthiness
On 11 Nov 2003 22:55:45 -0800, (Peter Ward)
wrote:
"Jacques Mertens" wrote in message ...
Yacht design and especially boat building materials have progressed since
the designs you list. They may have been the best 100+ years ago but it's
like saying that the Ford model T is the best car ever built!
Point taken; however, I can't help but note that modern mathematicians
are coming round to the view that the archaic 'oceanic lateen' sail
design - developed by ancient Polynesians over 4,000 years ago - is
actually more 'efficient' than the modern Bermudan.
That requires an extraplanetary definition of 'efficiency,' having
nothing to do with making boats go.
This must be the same "mathematician" that thinks a bumblebee can't
fly.
I would have
thought it quite possible that the 'ye olde worlde' designers may well
have hit upon the 'Platonic Ideal' of ultimate seaworthy hull design
via the school of very hard knocks & near-death epiphanies.
If you think the previous is possible, then this is equally possible.
Try some books like "Seaworthiness" by Marchaj or check books by Dave Gerr.
It is undeniable that the boats who rcae aorund the world today are more
seaworth than a Colin Archer.
I'm sure you're correct - but are they "more seaworthy" because of
superior design or superior construction or a mix of both?
The two are inseparable. Superior materials free up the design
constraints imposed by heavy, low-strength, materials.
There is no reason to doubt that highly-evolved old designs were
excellent adaptations to the possibilities of stone-age boat building
on, say, a Pacific island.
The same could be true of a Colin Archer for North Sea lifeboat
service in 1880.
I am quite sympathetic to experimental archaeology, having spent 12
years of my life making 17-century harpsichords, with ever-earlier
woodwoking techniques. There are musical reasons for adopting the old
ways and materials.
When it comes to sailing, I would rather just go sailing, and I want
the best-sailing boat I can afford.
Rodney Myrvaagnes NYC J36 Gjo/a
"Curse thee, thou quadrant. No longer will I guide my earthly way by thee." Capt. Ahab
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