The AKA bars aren't very strong, if they break your pretty screwed. Without one AMA if the boat fills with water, the bow sinks, you become a barge, your not going anywhere fast, make for shore anyway you can (swimming, draggin the boat)
Last summer on lake Hartwell we had three adults on board, winds were around 22mph. Bunch of water in the hull, the entire rear half of TI was underwater. Very sluggish and hard to control the boat, we made for shore and pumped the boat out. Forget about upwind sailing, downwind only when swamped. If your offshore and it's an offshore wind you won't make it home, (that's one reason we have motors, for emergency backup). FE
Edit: A few yrs ago we were running the rapids on the Huron river (Ann Arbor MI) in kayak mode with our TI. Wifes sis got hung up sideways in front of us on a couple big boulders and swamped her sit inside kayak. Wife opened the hatch to get her camera to get a pic of her sis struggling, we had no place to go, and got caught up sideways on the same rocks, the boat filled with water (thru the hatch). The bow sunk to the bottom and became very heavy, we couldn't lift it easily, the flotation blocks in the rear did their job (boat becomes a bobber in deep water (we tried out filling the hull and practiced swamping recovery in our heated pool afterward (not a bad idea to practice everything, and entertaining to the neighbors). We were only in waste deep water in MI, it sure took us a long time to get the boats drained, (way harder than I ever thought it would be). The banks in that area were 3-4 ft vertical mud. LOL I'm sure all the locals enjoyed all our stuff that floated downstream (another lesson learned to tie everything down).
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