Oci-One Kanubi wrote:
(William R. Watt) typed (perhaps without
thinking?):
no BS. I put sponsons on a 7.5 ft sailboat. Keep them above the waterline
where they don't add to hull resistance through the water. Without teh
sponsons I'd never get back into the boat after a cpasize.
Craig Smerda ) writes:
....oooh Timmy's back! Wheeeee! Just as fall set's in, the rat's try
getting back into the barn. Well good luck getting rid of the little
critter again.
Ditto Mary's experience, sort of. I can remember, when I was in first
or second grade, my dad and me righting a capsized Penguin-class
dinghy (11'5").
It does depend a lot on the design of the boat. Boats like the Sunfish are
trivial to get back on since they hardly take on any water when capsized.
The small sailing dinghies I've used are only a little harder, but they all
had flotation installed under the seats on the sides of the cockpit which
acted as internal sponsons when swamped. OTOH, someone had converted an
old rowboat for sailing which only had a little flotation - mainly in the
bow and stern. When swamped it had barely enough stability to stay upright
by itself and promptly rolled over if anyone tried to get back in.
Additional sponsons would have been useful with that design.
'Course, my dad was a sailor; it's obvious that you
ain't. On the other hand, no-one in this forum, to my knowlege, has
ever said that it is unreasonable to choose sponsons as part of yer
emergency kit; we don't say sponsons are utterly worthless, we say
that mandating their usage is foolish and that the safety and rescue
programs that the lunatic rants against are a more effective way to
save lives. ...
Whereas, under a controlled training program, the degree of exposure
is increased only gradually, concomitantly with the increase in the
skill and experience needed to deal with the inevitable problems.
The first seakayaking self-rescue class I took involved training in the use
of both paddle-floats and inflatable sponsons. My impression is that
sponsons are included less frequently these days, probably largely as a
result of Tim's rather acerbic 'sales technique'. It's unfortunate since I
do believe there are situations in seakayaking where sponsons are a good
device to have available.