On 31-Aug-2003, "Michael Daly" wrote:

Then kindly explain why there are plenty of examples of Inuit and Aleut craft
that _do_ have round bottoms. The Netsiligmeot kayaks were used on lakes
and rivers and were round bottomed. Aleut baidarkas and kayaks like the
King Island were round bottomed. However, the Eastern Arctic paddlers,
who specialized in sea mammal hunting in rough conditions chose the
hard chine.

An apology here - I mixed up "round bottom" and "round chine" in these
examples. The Baidarkas and such of the western Arctic are round
chined, not round bottomed. As such they don't have the stability issues
of a round bottomed kayak. However, the point I'm trying to make is that
the Inuit and Aleut can and did make a wide variety of boats and were
clearly in a position to choose their designs according to their needs,
contrary to what Willy-boy contends.

Mike