Posted by Mike F on September 06, 2001 at 09:55:08 from 203.26.98.4:
In Reply to: Re: Capsizability of Swallow/Amazon posted by David Shelton on September 06, 2001 at 07:44:26:
Sorry, David, a gremlin got into that last post -- the word "before" was omitted before "built-in." In fact, neither of these boats had built-in buoyancy nor flotation. Indeed, such aids to non-sinking were pretty-well unheard of until after plywood had taken over as the dinghy construction material of choice, when the possibility of building-in watertight compartments as buoyancy chambers first arose.
Flotation aids like cork or kapok (in cushions or lifebuoys) was certainly around prior to this, but its use for actually keeping a boat afloat doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone until the advent of watertight compartments anyway, so that both seem to come more-or-less together.
In keeping with tradition, my dinghy Aileen Louisa carries neither built-in buoyancy nor flotation. But she does carry ballast, in the form of half-a-dozen small sandbags totalling about a hundredweight. Admittedly at fifteen feet she's a little larger than Swallow, but the carrying capacity of both is/was very great -- there's really no comparison between those boats and modern dinghies. Swallow carried a crew of four children, plus all their gear for a week's camping, without any trouble, and Aileen Louisa has been laden with eight adults and a littlie while still maintaining a foot of freeboard.
A few (more) photos of Aileen Louisa are viewable at the link for anyone who might be interested.