A riddle for you

The DOD came up with something. But after spending millions of taxpayer dollars on it and studying it from all angles, they still couldn't figure out what to do with it. So they gave it to the Army.

The Army painted it green and put wheels on it. But it kept turning over and laying upsidedown. Besides, the GI's couldn't figure out whether to salute it or not. That was the last straw. They gave it to the Marines.

The Marines didn't have any problem saluting it. They'd salute any rock on the parade field. But they couldn't figure out which side of it was up. Not even the officers could. After painting it camo grey, they gave it to the Navy.

The Navy piped a captain aboard it and threw it in the water. It promptly turned turtle and floated there upsidedown. The captain couldn't quite figure out how to sail it upsidedown, so he suggested selling it to the public. The Navy turned it over to the public.

The public loved it. They mounted a sail on it and took it out to the middle of the Pacific. It still floats better upsidedown than rightsideup, but hell, the public will buy anything. Guess what it's called?

 

A catamaran . . .

 

Is that the answer? And if so I'm not sure I get it. Otherwise I give up.

 

Getting it

I'm poking fun at the cat owners, to see if I can't get their goat. None seems to have risen to the challange. Obviously, they've slunk away to hide their faces somewhere, tales between their legs, since they know when they've been thrashed mightily and shamed sorely.

You see, a catamaran is only a house boat, not a real ship. In the event that all its weight stays above its pontoons, it floats just fine. Unfortunately for house boat owners, when that weight gets down below its pontoons, it stays there. To put it bluntly, a catamaran floats better upsidedown than it does rightside up.

Now, if something floats better upsidedown than rightside up, it is obvious to a logical person that you've got your signals mixed at the very beginning. All along, you should have been calling the top the bottom and vice versa. The standing joke is that cat owners don't know their downsides from their topsides. They can't figure out which part of their craft is really up. They can't even figure out if it has an up. If they did, they would be forced to conclude, as any logical person would . . . . well, you get the point.

Oh, well. Some people will be logical only when all other alternatives have been exhausted.

 

Just meaningless and inaccurate phrases.

I prefer facts. Facts are stubborn, and may be analised.

Cats are used since a long time, more than 1000 years; polynesians almost crossed the Pacific and spread over a zone from New Zealand to Hawai (some say until Japan) with catamarans...not too bad.

The people of the Marianne Island used even more frightening; flying proas. The french admiral Pâris described them and he accounts that the islanders used them to cross from one island to another and the better time he registered was 160 nm. upwind in less than 15 hours with a 25 feet proa. Not bad in 1865 when a occidental 25 feet sail boat was no better than 5 knots.

In closer times to us there are a lot of cats: sail cats (Club Mediterranee mad a world circumnavigation by the three caps at a average of 18.25 knots, and had no problems of stability in the roaring forties), fast ferries (like the Juan Patricio 56 knots speed crossing every day the Mar de Plata), patrol boats (australian), fishing boats and so on.

I guess that my numerous colleagues in naval engineering are not so stupid guys to use an ill fated design. As many others, I have spent four years in a naval engineering school to learn a few facts about stability of boats (and other objects, moving or no) and your ratiocination is meaningless.

I have heard already that 40 years ago, you're late, too late. Like would say Lenin (not a good guy) you opinion is now in the garbage can of naval history.

Very few objects are self righting; in boats just a few sailboats (which often sink while capsized) and some special rescue boats. The others capsize: warships modern and antique, cargos power and sail, yacht power boats, fishing boats etc... A lot of them are crossing the oceans without special fear.

The important is not self righting, but the stability you can get, so the quantity of energy needed to capsize becomes so great that the event becomes unlikely, unless fault of the skipper or special conditions.

Do not take the self righting possibility as a virtue, it's only the side effect of the poor initial stability of most monohull sailboats. To keep it on the good side (well not totally upright as we can constate by the heeling and rolling rate) tons of ballast are needed. It's deadweight and in terms of wasted energy very inefficient.

This analysis is shared by 99% of the naval engineers and architects. The remaining 1% are in asylums.

You love monohulls, it's your right, you hate multihulls, it's also your right. Like in all engineered objects there is a balance of advantages and disadvantages.

But think twice before making assertions of false enginering logic, read in some old mag.

Maybe you should design a self righting car for yourself, as it corresponds exactly to your same false logic about multihulls.

 

Ilan Voyager

No need to blow your top

Read it in the spirit it was meant to be.

You have another riddle, tarrysailor :?:

 

Ilan he's just joking! He's teasing catamaran owners for fun, he doesn't really mean it. I like catamarans (and proas!) and I laughed very hard because I thought it was so funny. Just think about it, you could put a house on your catamaran and it would be a house boat!