I like the wheel too. But one friend told me
it was not particularly helpful, but he could not
give me a good reason why not. I saw him use
it once and it seems to work well.

So when are you building this dink? Over the
winter for a winter project?
..
"DSK" wrote
Well, tippy is relative. The design does not have a flat bottom, but
rather an elliptical arc that is shallow enough to just let the bilge
ride above the waterline when lightly loaded, or when making waves. The
bilge is relatively wide & firm, not such a great shape for rowing
(rowing shells tend to have narrow hulls & slack bilges, which is why
they are so tippy) but better than a flat bottom & hard chine, and not
noticably worse for rowing (I hope) than the traditional slack-bilge
rowing dinghy because of the reduced wetted surface.

I monkeyed around with a hull plan program for about 6 months, looking
at the various numbers. I got to where the lines plotted to about 90% of
the stability of an inflatable (whereas a Fatty Knees is about 65%) and
the drag pretty much the same as the rowing dink.

The cost will be less than a brand new fiberglass rowing dink, too; but
it will still be a lot more than a Walker Bay or a plywood pram. In all,
I'm pretty eager to see what it comes out like.