Whenever there are boats around, I just can't resist firing away with the camera, analyzing various design details, and generally wishing I had hundreds of thousands of dollars to build up a fleet of my own.

We recently took a whale-watch cruise with Weigh West Marine Resort in Tofino, BC. A moment ago, I posted about the animals; now, here are the boats.

In the last few entries, I've covered the construction of the framework and hull for the Almaguin 400 test model, the towing rig, and some videos of the boat's behaviour. In this final episode of the series, we'll take a detailed look at what we've learned about this boat's behaviour from the model tests.

Computer simulations are pretty good these days, but there's still a lot they can't do. And as nice as it would be to have my own full-scale prototype of every boat I draw, that's just not feasible- there's never enough space or money for that. Models, though, are inexpensive, don't take up much room, and are fun to build- and, if done carefully with the right mathematical backing, can offer a lot of insight into how the full-size boat will perform.