Peter typed:

[snip]

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.

Whoa, please, Peter! You completely turn the discussion around, and
make it meaningless, when you use language this carelessly. There can
be NO SUCH THING as an "internal sponson". By definition, a sponson
is one of many kinds of *projections or protuberances from the hull*
of a vessel. By strict definition, it need not provide any floatation
at all, as the many small-gun sponsons that were hung off the edges of
the decks of older warships.

You are equating "sponsons" with "floatation chambers". And the value
you are ascribing to sponsons is the value derived from the feature
Timmy's *inflatable* sponsons' share with floatation chambers: they
hold air. It is realistic to say "sponsons act as external floatation
chambers"; it is meaningless to say "floatation chambers act as
internal sponsons."

Nearly no-one posting to this forum would argue against floatation
chambers in any kind of boat. Floating yer boat is crucial, and
floatation chambers ameliorate some of the problems inherent in
capsizing. You have turned the meaning of language around and are
fallaciously praising sponsons by saying the floatation chambers (very
good thing) acted as sponsons (a questionably good thing). Floatation
chambers have the salutory benefit of a *secondary* characteristic of
(Timmy's inflatable) sponsons, but floatation chambers do not
necessarily have the problematic *primary* characteristic of sponsons,
that they protrude beyond the hull and compromise the hull design.

-Richard, His Kanubic Travesty
--
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Richard Hopley, Winston-Salem, NC, USA
rhopley[at]earthlink[dot]net 1-301-775-0471
Nothing really matters except Boats, Sex, and Rock'n'Roll.
rhople[at]wfubmc[dot]edu 1-336-713-5077
OK, OK; computer programming for scientific research also matters.
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