Flying boats at the boundary of naval and aeronautical engineering

Did naval engineers and aeronautical engineers argue over who should design flying boats?

Not generally; the work crossed both disciplines and developed specialist teams, often in firms that also built fast boats.

There is little evidence of a clean professional feud over who should design flying boats. The relevant work sat between naval architecture and aeronautical engineering, and some engineers moved across that boundary. Specialist groups grew up around the aircraft type rather than leaving it entirely to one older discipline. Companies that also built speedboats supplied a practical bridge between the two fields.