Hunter 356 bilge (twin) keel

[Ptlsnowboard]

Hello,
I am from the east coast United States (NJ) and have spent considerable time in Europe along the English Chanel. I recently looked at a Hunter 356 with the European bilge keel that is for sale near me in the US. I believe this boat may have made it into the number 2 spot on my list for purchase in a few short weeks, but I am unsure of performance of this particular model. I am familiar with bilge/twin keels having seen the 19.8 ft tides in Europe and the marinas filled with boats on their sides, however, I can't find any reviews of the Hunter 356 with the bilge keel. I am pretty sure there will be an issue with resale in 10 years or so when I plan to move up, but the price may be good enough to compensate for that now. I do a lot of long weekend, long distance (50-100km) cruises with my current Catalina and sailing performance is fairly important as 1 or two lost knots can mean hours difference in travel time. The boat is lacking AC or generator, but I plan to install AC myself immediately upon purchase. I hope the bilge keel and subsequent hull reinforcements doesn't prevent me from doing that easily. Any info, especially from owners of bilge keels is greatly appreciated. I am looking for sailing performance/characteristics and any issues you may have faced with an AC install.
Thanks,
Paul

[Steadman Uhlich]

I am curious why you would want a bilge keel boat on the East Coast of the USA unless you are somewhere where the tides are significant enough to dry out on low tide? Is there a specific need because of your local conditions? Where?

There are bilge keel boats used in the PNW (google Brent Boats), where I could see it would make sense, or perhaps some other places too.

Here is a search of the CF Archives on the term "Hunter 356" but you might need to do some digging to find the answers you want particular to the Bilge Keel issue and performance, though I am pretty sure that has been discussed in one or more threads on CF (I fuzzily recall reading some time last year).

https://cse.google.com/cse?cx=011403...356&gsc.page=1

Good luck on your decision and IF you do purchase that boat, I hope you will come back and write a report on the performance you see with it.

[Ptlsnowboard]

Thanks for the quick reply. I can't say that I'm excited about the twin keel but the asking price is quite a bit below the going asking rate and boat is in fairly decent shape with little apparent repairs needed. There is absolutely no 'need' for a bilge keel in the Chesapeake Bay 1-2ft tide or Delaware river 7ft tide, but again, this is a boat that is priced to allow me a larger boat within my budget. I am a bit concerned about the ability to sell or trade the boat in 8-10 years if/when I decide on another boat. I'm not a huge fan of Hunters or the rig with no back stay, but as I said, this boat is priced well enough for me to move into a slightly larger boat then my budget would normally allow. I can deal with the issues of re selling later, but the sailing characteristics are something that could make or break my decision to buy.

[Hamish_ct]

The reason the boat is priced right is because of the twin keels. It will probably depreciate more than a similar sized boat of the same year and size. If you like the boat, buy it knowing that the resale will be lower.

[Pete7]

Yes the bilge keeled yacht will be marginally slower, but to speed it up get rid of that fixed prop and stick some decent sails on it and you will be up to hull speed given a bit of a breeze.

Why has it got all those pit props around it? won't it stand up on its own keels?

[Ptlsnowboard]

I'm sure they aren't too familiar with bilge keels around here, so it's propped up on stands like every other boat in the yard. There is a sail drive with a 3 blade prop on it. It appears to be the standard 27 HP Yanmar, so I'm not sure what the saildrive is all about. The other keeled boats have a standard shaft drive.