Swing keel maintenance, reliability and performance.

[Greatketch33]

I had a Catalina 25 swing keel, the keel can swing down via cable crank and back into it's pocket by same mechanical means.

The knocking I heard was silenced by placing shims between the keel and pocket. Catalina Direct sold these shims.

I replaced the cable every two years as part of maintenance.

The swing keel offered many advantages in the shallow lake I sailed. Never grounded to the point of getting stuck.

Great ketch
Herreshoff 33

[Polux]

Originally Posted by giant

T...
Polux thanks for your input I know you seem to cop some flack on this site due to your "progressive thinking" and I suspect English is not your native tongue.

Yes you are right.

In what regards the cruising keels you are talking about and regarding offshore cruising boats, the ones I know, till some years ago, had part of the ballast on the keel, part on the bottom of the boat. If you are interested in an older good offshore boat with those characteristics go to sailnet and look for a guy that have just finished a circumnavigation on one. I believe he has a good boat. Don't remember the name of the boat or member but everybody knows him there: very nice guy.

Regarding boats with all the ballast on the swing keels, that is the new trend and there are several boats with them; Pogo, Jeanneau and now RM too. Look at this beauty:

RM1070 – RM Yachts

Regarding this ones the performance regarding a deep keel is not affected for having a Swing Keel.

[shipleft]

The "swing keel" or center-board is used on a lot of lake and ocean-going sailers. It has some distinct advantages ie:shoal water sailing (possible grounding warning!) and trailering, and on some types of boats they are faster (they can be raised on a downwind run for less drag) and in some instances can point higher than a fixed keel. As you have read, they do have some serious dis-advantages, knocking(curable with plastic shimming), some possible harmonic vibration noise at speed or water-slap in the box, leaks around the box and pivot point, lifting cable breakage and corrosion of the plate(anodes required), they do require somewhat more points of maintenance than a fin or full keel. The best rig I have experience with was a fourty foot Rhodes that had a half keel, full-length, with a swing keel made of heavy 3/4" plate, fast boat and could pass over bars and shoals that had deeper boats swinging miles out to avoid.

[rmw2007]

Thanks for the info shipleft, that is why I was looking at the sabre, it looked heavely built, and well engineered. Pretty nice below deck as well I guess that the issues you have mentioned are solve able with maintenance
Ross

[ytquest]

I got a Catalina 22' for my sons first boat. Think it had a 100lb. swing keel. It was a great boat for him to learn in, as it would round up on a knock down. We did not have any problems with the pin or cable as long as you inspect it for frays.
I picked up a Bombay 26 (swing keel) CB - not weighted. After reading the two log's that came with the boat. I found it had been cruising the east coast of Fl. and the Bahamas, Keys for 20 years. She is a cat rig -w- running back stays ---SWEET RIDE !!! Setting it up for a nice small cruiser for him and his family.
I to was not sure if it was appropate for cruising but she draws 5 1/2' board down and 22" up. We took a knock down with a 70+ wind sheer and never took on a drop of water in the cockpit, although we did lose our prim on the diesel raw water. She carry's 2800lb's of ballast ( new lead ) in the 14" keel - not the CB. Thanks for the info. this just reaffirms what I have read about Bombays and Island packets.

[LouTai]

Hi,
Though I have no long experience yet with this -been sailing with shallow fixed keel/center board boat from 2011.(keel design quite alike Shannon´s centerboard models for example) The centerboard may very rearly "bang"
if partly/mostly swinged -this can be minimized by using adjustable plastic "quiding blocks" inside keelbox. I have changed (just for sure as old was a bit corroded) galvanized lifting cable of board in previous spring. A side this cable to be renewed every 1 to 6 ? years depending conditions, only things I know has been done since 1985 by earlier owners was once renewing the plastic (POM) pivotpin holding centerboard in place + those "quiding blocks" and fill-welding some "memories of rocks" from edge of the centerboard. I have not noticed any significant drawback in perfomance due to this keel desing and it is sometimes fun to see faces of other boaters in our shallow Finnish archipelago.

[ken rickards]

Hi I have an Adams/Radford 13.68m aluminium sloop cutter rig which was designed for the 1989 Brisbane Osaka race.The aluminium swing keel is about 3ft front to back, 2.5" wide and the depth increases from 1.5m to 2.9m with keel down.It has 65lb of lead in encapsulated in the base of the keel for lowering.2 people can pick it up and carry it just.I use the keel fully down when hard on to the wind.It holds it's line much better.I have it half way up on a broad reach and fully up down wind.I sometimes have it up on a broad reach if the sea is not to bad or a bit of sideways movement doesn't matter.I also i can't not deploy the keel further if there is a strongcross current unless I proceed down current or take the sideways weight of the pin and bushes.I have a 63 mm hollow pin located in fibre bushes.The keel never makes any noise.I however have reasently managed to host an oyster garden in the keel housing over here in Ao Chalong Thailand which is hard to clean out being only 3 inches wide.This has never happened to me in Australia.I think the Australian oysters are scared of the dark.The lifting mechanism is a double rope down through a SS pulley and back over another pulley with 1 anchored end then to the cockpit.The rope travels down a 1 inch tube witch is covered with timber on the corner of the galley sink so looks neat.It is nice to have the option of a swing keel to get in close to anchor offset with more maintenance like having to get up inside the housing not only for oysters but to take of antifoul when it gets to thick etc.Our yacht has done more than the 98,000 nautical miles registered on the paddle wheel stowe meter.I hope this helps in some way