Well, you shouldn't be.

I'm absolutely stringent in applying the scientific method to these situations and indeed won't accept generic gutt based story-like explanations. More often then not these are wrong by mechanism of oversight. Several people on this forum however take this stringent stance as some personal affront when indeed it isn't.

On the other hand when comments are well founded in science then I will say so immediately without having earlier dealings colouring this judgement. Afterall, a person can be wrong at one moment and absolutely right at another. We all learn and we all have moments of absolute glarity. Therefor each comment should be judged on it own.

By the same token, I will readily and publically admit to being wrong when proven so. And indeed I have done so in the past in the few instances were this has turned out to be the case. To my own relief these instances have been rather few indeed.

I have been around in academic circles for quite a while now. I have worked on real life test setups many times (where models are validated or disproven), have instructed people and students in such environments and indeed this is what I have learned. Sometimes the teacher learns from his pupil even when this pupil had been wrong many times over in the past.

The only "completely unbiased" and "fail-safe" judge or criterium in all of these cases is the scientific method and that is why application of it is soooo important. Hence my total dedication to that.

Now back to the numbers and thinking up tests. Maybe we all together can advance catamaran design understanding this way.

Wouter