Actually Tony, I think you are fundamentally wrong in two lines of reasoning.





That is the same as arguing that spinnakers don't use "broad seaming" because here the edges are now glued together rather then stitched when of course the identically designed spi's of 8 years ago and older did use "broad seaming" as they were the last ones to use stitching.

Incidentily, there are are many examples of descriptions becoming to include more general situations then the one that gave them their meaning initially. For example welding. Was defined initially only for steel, but now includes all kinds of other metals and also plastics. In the latter case the proces doing the joining is significantly different from metal welding, although both methods achieve fixation by locally smelting parts by heating.

Interestingly enough a weld on a thin sheet of plastic is called a seam again. Think of any inflatable rubber boats were many people easily say things like : "The skin ruptured on the SEAM". Your argument would even have it that the use of the word SKIN is wrong here as only animals have skins. Another example of an identifier covering more and more general situations AND having been accepted as such by many many many years.

The core intent of broad seaming is to introduce more cloth locally where a flat sheet has to cover a longer distance from egde to egde when forced into a 3D shape. The usage of stichting is not a key part of this, it is just a way of fixing the panels together out of a series of alternatives. Using a different method of fixation like glueing doesn't chance in any way the intent and result of broad seaming. In that sense Rolf initially used this identifier and he was totally right in doing so.

Actually, this practical reason is the same as shaping as only a shaped sheet of material can follow a 3D surface in a smooth manner. So shaping was the intent here because of the practical need to have it follow a 3D surface smoothly and it was done by a method that as good as everybody calls .... .

Hence my earlier argument, does a rose by any other name smell less sweet.






Again, the erronous corellation is made between something being expensive and something being more performant.

To this reasoning I gave the counterexample of a kilogram of aluminium (or lead) weighting the same as a kilogram of gold. The fact that gold is much more expensive does not in any way make it perform better or prefered or even a precursor to an arms race.

In fact both gold and lead have very similar ballastic properties, yet we all shoot lead at olympic contests and not with golden slugs ! That is without the gun classes having any rules against the use of gold in slugs.

The F16 rules work in the same manner. Mister Bartelli can have his beams made of gold or platinum if he wants too, just as his shower taps are, but when staying within the set of F16 rules these beams won't preform any better then cheap aluminium ones. Now, Mr Bartelli is not stupid and so he won't even try. If any other fool does then the only result he will achieve is wasting alot of his money.


Additionally, some people are great sailors but that does not in any way make them equally skilled or knowlegdable engineers or scientists. The same works in reverse of which I'm a good example myself. You will not see Micheal Schumacher telling his engineers how to do their job and not be laughed out of the stable. Making suggestions is all fine, but persisting at making obvious fawlty suggestions is making a fool out of oneself.

Wouter