On Mar 27, 3:31 pm, " wrote:
On Mar 26, 7:45 pm, Brian Nystrom wrote:

Probably because he's just a college kid. Hopefully, he's learning a
hard lesson in reality. Rule #1: Know your market.

Obviously, he doesn't...or at least he didn't. ;-)

My take was that it was a class in market research, and he was
doing...um...research on whether this product would make it in the
market. I took the survey and told him what I think of the product.
Did anyone else?

Not a chance. I gave him a polite discouraging reply, in case he is
on the up-and-up, but there is also a strong possibility that it is
our old friend at work again, under yet another false flag.

Even if Elliot IS on the up-and-up, there was no way I was going to
support him in this activity, because, as you may recall, our friend
used to grasp at any straw, take any quotation out of context, to cite
support for his project. I refuse to participate in any activity that
will lend respectibility to our old friend's activities.

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

Does anyone remember the Tribalance kayak? I seem to recall it was
designed by John Winters.

It also occurs to me that Elliott's invention might be just the thing
for getting handicapped paddlers out on the water.

Poor kid. Stumbling in here and getting dumped on. A learning
experience, no charge.

Steve

On 28 Mar 2007 04:58:20 -0700, wrote:

I took the survey and told him what I think of the product.
Did anyone else?

Yep, I did. :-)

Me too. Although the phrase "freaking sponsons" kept appearing in my
responses.


They wouldn't be bad for a canoe, especially a canoe used for fishing
or with ill behaved dogs or young children along. But there already
are almost identical devices (not inflatable) for canoes.

For kayaks I just don't see any utility whatsoever.
--

r.bc: vixen
Minnow goddess, Speaker to squirrels, willow watcher.
Almost entirely harmless. Really.

http://www.visi.com/~cyli

Steve Cramer wrote:
Does anyone remember the Tribalance kayak? I seem to recall it was
designed by John Winters.

The fact that almost no one remembers it should tell you something.

It also occurs to me that Elliott's invention might be just the thing
for getting handicapped paddlers out on the water.

You're giving him too much credit. It's not an "invention", it's merely
another take on an old idea, evidently from another non-paddler looking
to "improve" the kayak. What these "inventors" are forgetting - or just
don't get - is that KAYAK ARE DESIGNED THE WAY THEY ARE FOR A REASON
and the design doesn't need their "improvements".

As for adaptive paddling, you're correct. It's about the only real use
for such devices, but that's not how people try to market them. If he
had promoted his device as an adaptive paddling aid rather than as a way
to "fix" something that isn't broken, I'll bet he would have gotten
favorable responses.

On Mar 28, 10:11 pm, Cyli wrote:

They wouldn't be bad for a canoe, especially a canoe used for fishing
or with ill behaved dogs or young children along.

Cyli,

That's funny, as a canoeist my first thought was that they wouldn't be
bad for a kayak, especially for a kayak used for fishing or with ill
behaved dogs or young children along

OK, that's not true. My first thought was that Elliot has gone and
reinvented a product with limited application and zero appeal to
serious paddlers and posted a survey about it to a board that was
decimated (in the literal "reduced by 90%" meaning) by a mentally
unstable sponson manufacturer.

wrote:
On Mar 28, 10:11 pm, Cyli wrote:

They wouldn't be bad for a canoe, especially a canoe used for fishing
or with ill behaved dogs or young children along.

That's funny, as a canoeist my first thought was that they wouldn't be
bad for a kayak, especially for a kayak used for fishing or with ill
behaved dogs or young children along

OK, that's not true. My first thought was that Elliot has gone and
reinvented a product with limited application and zero appeal to
serious paddlers and posted a survey about it to a board that was
decimated (in the literal "reduced by 90%" meaning) by a mentally
unstable sponson manufacturer.

Actually the literal meaning of decimated is "reduced by 10%" not 90%.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimat...8Roman_Army%29

I'll give the whole sponson debate a wide berth.

//Walt

On Mar 29, 10:24 am, Walt wrote:
wrote:

Actually the literal meaning of decimated is "reduced by 10%" not 90%.
Seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_%28Roman_Army%29

Ooops, my bad.

I wish rpb still hadn't seen so many fine and fun posters drift away
as a result of the sponsonboy attacks (and trashing by burntnutjob and
others)

wrote:
On Mar 29, 10:24 am, Walt wrote:
wrote:

Actually the literal meaning of decimated is "reduced by 10%" not 90%.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimat...8Roman_Army%29

Ooops, my bad.

Ain't the intertubes eductional? (c;

I wish rpb still hadn't seen so many fine and fun posters drift away
as a result of the sponsonboy attacks (and trashing by burntnutjob and
others)

It's not just rbp, it seems all of usenet has seen a similar attrition
as people get bored, burn out, or move to web-based forums.
Whatshisname surely didn't help, and there's somebody like him on nearly
every usenet group. The moderation found on the web-based forums
prevents that kind of abuse, but it also prevents the coffee-through-the
-nose humor found in the great wilds of NNTP.

So where were we? Oh yeah - sponsons - which appear to be a safe topic
again: useful for a sailing kayak, unnessary for fla****er and
dangerous for whitewater use. My $.02.

//Walt

Geez, cut the guy some slack, woodja? It's a school project,
fercrissakes. He's not an inventor, he hasn't built any of these things,
he and his classmates just got an idea and went to paddlers (what a
concept!) to see if the idea had legs. Now he knows it doesn't. No need
to beat him up.

Steve

Steve Cramer wrote:
Geez, cut the guy some slack, woodja? It's a school project,
fercrissakes. He's not an inventor, he hasn't built any of these things,
he and his classmates just got an idea and went to paddlers (what a
concept!) to see if the idea had legs. Now he knows it doesn't. No need
to beat him up.

Steve
Steve,
I agree. Give him feedback but don't belittle him.
Al K