First something about that inadequate planning leads to add on’s that becomes abortions. This statement comes from Manie B. I fully agree. It is much better to figure out everything in advance and not do changes. If your plan is not complete the project will get a life on its own and you are not the master anymore but just someone trying to put it back on track.
My problem is that I am not smart enough to foresee all the implications of my complex project. My brain is to small to in advance figure out how all the details interfere with each other. Therefore I end up with add on’s. However I do not consider all of them bad. Some will even be of great value for my next project.
Every time there is a restricting rule someone will find a loophole. It is ridicules to measure the size of a boat by length. It leads to absurdities like my swim platform. But the fact is that the European Recreational Directive’s harmonized rules, the International Towing Tank Conference, the US Coast Guard, the Nordic Boat Standard and other recognized bodies ,according to common practice, exclude spars, bowsprits, and rudders, bolted on swim platforms, pulpits, and other fittings from the measured length. Ange’lique and MoeJoe argue that my swim platform has buoyancy therefore it should be included in the measured length. I do not agree. Rudders are not included in the measured length and they certainly do have buoyancy, especially big ones with a fat profiles, like for example, NACA 63-021.
If my planned voyage can help to stop the stupid habit of measuring boats by length it would be a good thing.
Once again, every time a simple rule is in use people find loopholes. A complication that plugs the loophole mends the rule for a time and so it goes until we finally end up with one designs and the yacht designer is out of business.
I have never before built a boat to a rule if you do not consider the hole in my mother’s basement that I had to get Bris I through to get her out.
Adding on buoyancy parts is ridicules. Bolgers Folding Schooner is a good example of what it can lead to.
As for the seas smashing the swim platform. They build 60 feet long ocean racing multihulls that keep together. My engineering problems are order of magnitudes smaller. Do not worry.
About the video of Manie Bs margarine box. It looks like it has a ballast ratio of close to 100% and a very low center of gravity and an extremely low rotational mass moment of inertia. I do not think Manie B will have problems with stability at large angels of heel. But still to my mind his experiment is misleading.
Above the rule of the door. Difficult to find loopholes in. The best I could do was to remove the frame.
Below the boat Bris I comes out spring 1972.