Finish on Scarab, ballast and turning turtle


[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ Previous # Next ] [ Start New Thread ] [ TarBoard ]

Posted by Jock on October 21, 2005 at 16:00:45 from 81.79.209.48 user Jock.

In Reply to: Re: Finish on Scarab and Trafalgar-apologia pro vita mea posted by Peter H on October 21, 2005 at 15:11:31:

... if a boat 'turned turtle' ie completely over, anyone in the boat is in real trouble. I may be wrong about this, but I note that when Swallow went down (a welcome return to AR, please note) it did not invert, and the Swallows more or less floated out. I wonder what would have happened if Swallow had 'turned turtle'?

Boats carrying ballast or with a ballast keel (like Swallow), sailed on inland waters, don't turn turtle. They dip their gunwales under and sink. In Knight's day boats were ballasted. You sat inside rather than outside your boat reduced sail as appropriate and you DID NOT capsize.

By AR's day people were getting more adventurous, they did away with internal ballast (Swallow's was an anachronism), you ballasted a small boat with your body weight by sitting on the gunwales and leaning right out. Boats did capsize, and turn turtle, but because they were light and floated it was no big deal. I believe that Amazon is capsized in CN. These days when children learn to sail. one of the compulsory elements in the course is how to capsize a boat (so that it turns turtle) and then how to right it and bale it out unaided.

So you see John wasn't trying to drown you, just to get you through a week's sailing lessons in one day.

AR made a big thing out of Roger learning to swim. As all of John's crew could swim so some of the really hairy things that they did like loading Swallow within an inch or two of her gunwales were relatively safe.

In today's egalitarian times we've dropped the being able to swim requirement, but insist on life jackets. However, even without a lifejacket you could come to grief if not properly trained to feel comfortable in water. The Altounyan children were made to jump into the lake fully clothed before they were allowed out unsupervised in one of their two dinghies.

All my children could swim. Our sailing and rowing expeditions were inspired by AR. We didn't as a rule wear life jackets. The exceptions were when rowing on the tidal Thames below Hammersmith bridge and when sailing between Great Yarmouth and The Berney Arms on the Broads.




Follow Ups:



Post a Followup

Name:
Eel-Mail:

Existing subject (please edit appropriately) :

or is it time to start a New Thread?

Comments:

Optional Link URL:
Link Title:
Optional Image URL:

post direct to TarBoard test post first

Before posting it is necessary to be a registered user.


[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ TarBoard ]

Courtesy of Environmental Science, Lancaster

space