How big a boat for swing keels?

[seasick]

If you're happy with your Oday I recommend stepping up to the Oday 25. It has internal ballast with a light centerboard on a rope lanyard. These sail well but you might want a vehicle with heaps of braking power and trailer brakes. Something like an F250. We loved ours on the lakes of Central Oregon. This 25' is strongly build and very seaworthy and very close to standing headroom. Best of all they won't break the bank.

[hamburking]

If you are just asking about swing keels, then the paceship 29 is pretty good. I owned one, and enjoyed it. We have thin water here (thousand islands, east end of Lake Ontario) and the shallow draft was awesome. However, I doubt it would trailer well.

The older Pearson 35 (197x) is another swing keel boat with shallow draft and good reviews.

[SkiprJohn]

Seaward 26RK is a top of the line trailerable that I have a lot respect for but I'd say budget wise the Catalina 25 is a good one too.

[Sdwcheney]

I would have to vote for the Hunter 260, or Hunter 26(older model) water ballast. I have seen them in the Bahamas with FL numbers.

[Scout 30]

Can you tell us what you have for a tow vehicle & it's rated towing weight? The boats being recommended are pretty big & you'll need a big vehicle to pull them. Most displacement figures are dry weights so you also need to add the weight of your provisions, fuel & water plus the weight of the trailer. Rigging the boat can also take quite awhile so it's not something you'd want to do for a day sail.

[UNCIVILIZED]

Size isn't really a factor in terms of how big you can go & still have a swing keel, until you get up to say, the 70' range.
As, for example, these guys make some Sweet, shoal draft boats which ain't small. This one's a bit over 40', but they make'em bigger. http://www.rm-yachts.com/rm-1270

Here's a different style of shoal draft, a Sharpie
Hogfish Maximus - http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/sai...pie-34759.html
Loose Moose Sailboat http://www.bing.com/search?q=loose+m...15450884EE688D
Loose Moose II Sailboat http://www.bing.com/search?q=loose%2...375C477212B247

Originally Posted by Snowdog2

Hi Polux,

Thank you for that recommendation. The one limitation I have is that my mooring and the whole marina is limited to 28' length. And you are correct, that I did not provide enough information. I am definite looking for a used boat. Perhaps the safe/stable aspect is more of an issue with smaller boats. There were some boats that I looked at when I purchased my first boat, that just seemed much more tippy than others. Just stepping on the boat caused a much bigger shift from side to side on some boats we looked at.
On this point, you're confusing Initial Stability (what you feel when you first step onto a boat), with Ultimate Stability.

Also, at a certain angle of heel, pretty much every boat hardens up (resists further heeling) a Lot. - Typically somewhere prior to 30 degrees of heel. And the ways to find this out are to;
- Look at her engineering & performance diagrams/stability graph & calc's, - Or, more practically, take her out for a test sail.
- But you can also perform an ad hoc Inclining Moment Test at the dock. Meaning, seeing how much force it takes to heel over to various angles. The easiest ways being; by stacking folks on her gunwales, or by attaching a halyard to a stout fixed object, & cranking away on it's winch.

BTW, there are some fairly easy ways to quantify these tests as well. Plus, of course, the subjective, by feel, method.

Weight, balast, and beam each had an impact.
They all do, as does the shape of the hull. And to clear up one fallacy of thinking in this thread. Wide beam can contribute to Initial Stability, but isn't the final factor in Ultimate, or Usable Stability.
Maybe I am wrong, but I expect boats used for racing tend to give up some stability for speed.
This depends upon the design, & to what, if any racing rule she was built. And some designs/designers of racing boats don't much give a crap about "rules", & thus design in as much stability as is practically possible.

Joel pointed out however, that a wide beam in a longer boat might create challenges in trailering, so that is an interesting consideration I need to look into.

Thanks again,

On trailering & width, check the rules & reg's for where you'll be towing. As in a good number of states, you can tow things up to 10' wide, simply by hanging a Wide Load sign on it's rear.
And trailers for Catalina 30's aren't even that tough to source.

Also, regarding swing keels. Keep in mind that there are plenty of large boats with fixed keels, that draw only 4'-5' (some even less). And by large, I mean upwards of 40'. The same holds true for the size of boats which are easy to legally trailer.

Some 40'ers have been purpose designed to fit inside of a Cargo Container for shipping. So, yeah, narrow AND shoal draft. http://containeryachts.com/

PS: Some shoal draft boats, additionally use water ballast, in order to boost their stability.

[Nicholson58]

Originally Posted by Snowdog2

Hi,
First time posting here. I couldn't find much on this topic in the archives. I have a 19' O'day (not the Rhodes type) Which I chose as my first boat because of its stability and safety (7'9" beam). I have a mooring in a harbor that limits boat size to 28'. I would like to be able to continue to trailer my boat in and out of the harbor beginning and end of seasons and if i want to put in somewhere else. What is inspiring this move is that we just completed ASA 101, 103 and 104 in the Caribbean.

I am wondering how large a boat is realistic to have that has a swing keel, and if there are particular brands that i should be looking for a reasonably stable/safe boat. Currently we don't go very far and always return to our mooring at end of the day, but we want to be able to actually travel to other harbors like Boston, Nantucket, and others. (Cape Cod area).

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Our swing CB takes our draft from 6'-8" to 13 feet. We are 58 feet. The hoist is 24 VDC & cable operated. Our original was damaged so we commissioned a new one.

[Azul]

Since you want to trailer your boat, strongly consider how much extra work and weight you want to deal with. A 19 foot boat is easy for one person to step the mast and almost any vehicle can pull it. My Sanibel 18 is like that. It is a lot more work to put up the mast on a Catalina 22, and it is at the limits of what my SUV will pull (3500# with trailer.) Overall, it is about twice as much work as the smaller boat. There are many threads on the Catalina forums comparing a 22 to a 25. A Catalina 25 with a trailer is about 6000#, more of a two person job to put in the water and takes about an hour to launch, about twice as long as a C22.

I'm probably going to put my C22 on a mooring or in storage with the mast up when the weather gets better and use the Sanibel 18 for trailering to new venues.

Having a swing keel does make it much easier to launch the boat, pull the boat behind a vehicle (less windage) and it is nice to be able to beach the boat.

No way would I want to trailer a 25 foot sailboat for a trip shorter than a week. Too dang much work.

[Snowdog2]

I want to thank everyone for their thoughts and input. I can see that trailering could be a problem with too big a boat from the comments. However, the time to set up the boat is not a problem as we would generally just set it up for a whole season (May to October). In addition, we have no significant hills and only would trailer for 5 miles to our mooring, meaning we could exceed the recommended weight, though we do have one vehicle that is good for 5500 lbs.

There were many pieces of the puzzle I had not considered, so again thank you everyone.

Steve (Snowdog2)

[Scout 30]

If you're just using the trailer for storage you might be able to rent a tow vehicle. My snow bird neighbor pays a guy from the local marina to pull his 28' cabin cruiser to the storage lot for the summer.

[chris mac]

Just remember the 5 miles to and from are easy. The ramp is not. That is not a good place to find out you are under powered.

[OS2Dude]

How are you defining a 'Swing Keel'?

Center Boards pivot, but have little weight to them. The ones I've seen lift into a shoal keel where the ballast is and can be raised by hand.

Swing Keels also pivot, and have the weight in them which helps the stability when it is lowered. From what I've been told it usually requires a motor or winch to raise.

Both kinds react differently when up, partially deployed and fully deployed.

A Lifting keel (Dagger Board) rises vertically. Seaward (and others) make a series of boats with a lifting keel that can allow the boat to go into some very shoal water. (Last look their largest was a trailerable 42' boat. Owner raisable deck mounted mast. Wide Load though.)

My O'Day 23 had a centerboard/keel and was easily trailered. It was a bit small. (4' 6" headroom when hatches closed)

[UNCIVILIZED]

FWIW, I've had, & or been on 35'ers, where the mast could be stepped & raised via 1.5 guys (sans crane) in 1/2 hour.


And regarding the launch ramp thing, & vehichle engine output. Much of the time it's not that the vehicle runs out of grunt. But that the tires run out of grip. Especially if there'a algee/slime on the ramp. So that many times, the best solution is a 2nd vehichle connected to the one on the ramp, which is up on flatter, dry ground.


So long as there are good, clear comms between the drivers, as well as a knowledgable 3rd party, who can see everything at once. Then it's a pretty low stress event.
--> Assuming, that is, that both vehicles have the appropriate tow points, & you have a Serious towing strap/line.

[Snowdog2]

OS2 Dude,

I am only beginning to understand the differences between swing keels. I don't understand the pros and cons of a water ballast for example. I was thinking in terms of a shoal keel, with a swing keel that probably would not have a lot of balast, but I have a lot to learn in this regard. Fortunately I am not in a hurry and am open to learning what I need. Using a winch to raise the centerboard would not be a problem necessarily. Currently, with my O'Day 19, I just pull a rope.

Thanks

[Polux]

Originally Posted by OS2Dude

...

Swing Keels also pivot, and have the weight in them which helps the stability when it is lowered. From what I've been told it usually requires a motor or winch to raise.
...

Some small boats like the Seascape 27 use a manual hydraulic pump to raise the swing keel.