Ballast-a raw nerve

Bernard Johnson (slithytove@earthlink.net)
Wed, 16 Jun 1999 18:55:40 -0700


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West Wight Potter Website at URL
http://www.lesbois.com/wwpotter/
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It seems I hit a couple of raw nerves with my "ballast" letter.

"I am going to apologize in advance for the tone of this message - I am
feeling very cranky and have been snapping at perfectly nice people all
day."

My turn to snap........................

My priorities are MINE and I really don't care if I am the only person
in the world who thinks they make sense.

I have no desire whatsoever to "go fast" that is why I bought a boat to
potter in.

Though I like the boat, and think it looks as cute as hell, I am open
minded enough to point out that "the King has no clothes", the Potter
HAS deficiencies, one of them being it is very tender, not being much
different than a wooden centerboard dinghy, and I fail to see the
advantage of a hard chine apart from allowing construction out of
plywood. No boat designer in his/her right mind would set out designing
a boat (that was to be made of fiberglass) with a hard chine.

The only value of a boat being light is that it is easier to trailer,
but I fail to see that an extra 200# is going to substantially affect
gas mileage. As to the increase in difficulty of launching and
retrieval, I feel I am wallowing in power using a Nissan Sentra. I used
to launch and retrieve my Ensenada 20 with a VW Beetle! Boat and
trailer weighed 2000#.

Regarding the benefits of fixed ballast with respect to roll stability,
even elementary analysis shows a marked benefit due to the rapid shift
in the position of the center of buoyancy. Very rough calculations
together with best guess estimates of the position of center of buoyancy
at various angles of heel show (as might be expected) a substantial
increase in ultimate stability, but also a surprisingly rapid and
increasing addition to early stability. Fixed ballast has the added
beauty of being there WHEN IT IS MOST NEEDED (i.e. at 90 degrees) as
opposed to intelligent ballast, which ballast along with all it's
intelligence, has by this time been dumped unceremoniously into the
water. (Same ballast, after the boat having reached a substantial angle
angle of heel, intelligently fell to the opposite side of the cockpit
and actively aided the overturning moment). Said fixed ballast would
certainly be an asset should the boat turn turtle.
One has to assume that anyone proposing to add fixed ballast to a boat
such as the Potter has enough sense to FIX it.
On the matter of the boat going slower, what is the difference between
200# of ballast and a 200# passenger? Apart from the fact that a
passenger takes up a lot more room and gets in the way a lot? I suggest
that more energy is needed to power a boat with 300# (say two people) of
passengers than with 200# of ballast.

Finished snapping, but still feeling cranky.

Regards (I think), Bernie Johnson