Annie Hill wrote:

''Moderation in all things''

Indeed, but let us not take it to extremes.

Sorry, couldn't resist that. And David is quite correct of course.

I like the new photo, Annie. Quite charming, and I don't have to look at a gaff-rigged boat (that invention of a malign god) any more.
I encourage others to revisit their profiles, and see whether they mightn't add a photo or two, and whether their details need updating.

Arne Kverneland wrote:

Stavanger, Mon 20110131

                 ..Moderation in all things...

David,

Your "Little Auk" dinghy is in my view as good a compromise as it can get. I am particularly happy with the movable rowing thwart and the side tanks. Together they both ensures better rowing and improved safety with some water on board. Now, if my eyes are not totally out of calibration, that dinghy is closer to 10 than 8 feet. If the length has to creep down to 8 or even below 8 feet, that’s when life gets difficult. I guess the result will have to look more and more like the Brick or the Duck to preserve stability and buoyancy... Or?

Arne

PS: How thick plywood did you use in "Little Auk"?

Her length is exactly 9ft. But, the transom is raked by 7" to avoid splashes when I land on a beach, and could be set vertical; and I don't think she'd mind losing another couple of inches. 8'3" would be OK as a length to retain most of her properties. I agree, below 8ft is where it gets difficult. She's built from 5mm multi-lam ply, with a thin glass sheath outside. If I could build again, I'd want to use 4mm ply with a carbon/kevlar sheath - both stronger and lighter.

In a tender, as in Life - moderation in all things. A beam that's large enough for buoyancy, but not too large for effective rowing. A flat bottom that's wide enough for stability but not too wide, carried back to the transom for stability when a passenger won't sit central, and when handling an anchor. Length enough for rowing speed but not too long for stowage. A bow that is wide enough for buoyancy but narrow enough not to splash too much.

Stavanger, Sunday eve.

Jeff, I had a look at your article about "Brunk" in NL 48. The photos show just those water-tight "side-benches" which will limit how far the water will slosh about! No wonder you boat doesn’t lose stability with some water on board (or have you removed them?).

And to both Annie and you; I certainly didn’t mean to say that the Brick or the Duck are no good, just that safe load-carrying capacity seem to have higher priority than easy rowing. What fascinates me with the Duck is how well it sails. It seems that its extreme hull stability lets you set so much more sail that it outweighs any increased hull drag.

Arne

Arne Kverneland wrote:

Stavanger, sun. 20110130

                          Mission Impossible

I and a friend started playing with boats - or "crafts" as we called them, when we were 10-11 years old. The type most in fashion with us was some sorts of flat, cross-planked "canoes". We quickly learned that 3 factors played a big role in increasing or robbing stability:

1)  Just a few inches to or from on the beam played a big role.

2)  The height of the thwart was also important, the lower we sat, the better, but since these crafts always leaked, we needed at least a bit clearance between the boat’s and our own bottoms.

3)  These flat-bottomed boats went from a very stable to a very unstable mode as soon as a couple of buckets of water inside started sloshing about.

When we at 13 were granted permission to use my father’s 14’ færing, our chances of survival went up a lot (our parents didn’t know about our "crafts"). If the færing got a bit water inside, it all collected along the keel so the boat did not lose stability that easily.

After this long intro, I think that if you are hunting for a small dinghy that both rows well and that is also a rock steady load carrier, then you are on a Mission Impossible.

Good row-boats all have narrow waterlines and some skills are needed to use them. If you want to carry "four men and a big, frightened dog" as Bolger’s 8’ Brick , then you can’t expect that it will row that well, only just so, because of its big wetted area. By the way, from my childhood experience; I recommend fitting such box boats with side benches with longitudinal bulkheads. That way, if you ship a few buckets of water, it will soon be trapped in the footwell in the middle and not destabilise the boat. A couple of tragic capsizes with car ferries maybe would have been avoided if the designers had played with leaky, flat-bottomed boats as kids.

Arne

PS: Maybe a deep, narrow-beam dinghy with an easily fitted outrigger could be a compromise?

Hi Arne,
While I certainly grant your point about box boats not rowing well, I would point out that the Bolger Brick and its descendant the Puddle Duck do not suffer from the instability you describe. Although both are flat athwartships, both are deeply rockered, the brick slightly more deeply than the Duck. If they get some water in them it just sloshes around in the belly acting like ballast while both ends balance neatly on the water's surface. Add to that that a Puddle Duck, if class legal, is unsinkable through airtight chambers either along both sides or across both ends. Wait a minute... did he say Class Legal? Yup. The Puddle Duck Racer is an internationally recognized one-design class, regardless of the rig. The only limitations that must be met are the bottom ten inches of the hull, plus the flotation. www.pdracer.com
P.S. Boy am I jealous of people who had places to play with real (real enough) boats when they were ten. I had a creek about four inches deep that I could step across, and a park department pool kids called the Boat Pond where we could play with battery powered boats.
Jeff