: Bill,
: In my post I mentioned one unplanned and many pre-planned dumps. To clarify,
: these were wet exits and involved righting the boat, re-entering and
: pumping out. I have never experienced an undue amount of water in the
: boat. As I said, it's a matter of technique and practice. I no longer
: expect to find myself outside my boat but I practice it anyway, just in
: case. Also, my roll is still not bombproof and probably not very elegant
: but it works most of the time. I'm not advocating bulkhead free boats,
: just pointing out that bulkheads are not as essential as beginners are
: sometimes led to believe.

Depends on where you paddle and what the water conditions are there I guess. In generally rough waters sans bulkheads it can be impossible to pump out a boat that fills and also nearly impossible to paddle once filled. I've got one that has float bags and no bulkheads (well two, the whitewater boat doesn't have them either, but also has no volume) it doesn't go out in really bad conditions because my roll is the pits

Bill H.