1980 Hughes 31 - Integrated Fin or Bolt On

[Don C L]

MistaSee, welcome aboard BTW. I think your research is interesting, but once you get a little more sea time in I think you may see things differently. Still working from your current preferences, there are many good possibilities. You might also review the websites bluewaterboats.org, atomvoyages.com and what's the mahina one?

[Scaramanga F25]

There are thousands of sailboats cruising around the world in boats with "bolt on keels".

[MistaSee]

I don’t doubt it, but is a bolt on fin and spade rudder the best choice? I would consider a fin with skeg rudder if integrated, if not, leaning towards a modified full.

[Jim Cate]

Mistasea, re the Hughes 31:

Please read the review linked by Gord May upthread... carefully! There are several serious issues discussed, things far more worrying than a bolted on keel. Things like the ill-fated OMC saildrive, the inadequate compression post under the mast, the barely adequate mast and rig and endemic hull to deck joint leaks... all of these individually are more serious than a theoretical (and undeserved) fear of bolted keels. Combined, well, I would not chose to go to sea in one.

However, as mentioned above, the Yankee 30 is a pretty similar boat, S&S design, better than average construction and with a still active fleet in California all these years after their launching. I owned hull 123 for seven years, back in the 70s. Raced and cruised hard in her, logging over 25,000 miles and including a round trip SF to Hawaii in 1983. A sweet boat to sail, easy to sail up to her rating even single handed (I did a lot of single handed racing in her) and as comfortable at sea as any 30 foot boat is likely to be. There were no issues with keel or rudder during my stewardship of the boat, and in subsequent years I've not heard of any such (beyond normal maintenance) in the fleet.

While "doing research" before buying is a good idea, research that isn't aided by some actual experience at sea can lead one astray, and I suspect that your prejudice against bolted keels, fins and spade rudders may reflect this.

I, too have prejudices about boat design. They reflect over 150,000 miles logged... every one of which were in boats with bolt on fin keels and rudders with full or partial skegs.

Keep on learning, get some sea time in various designs and then make a more informed decision on what to buy. Good luck in the journey!

Jim

[nuku34]

To the OP: There are 2 issues here that I believe you are confusing;
1) Construction: You mention losing the bolt-on keel as the #1 problem with cruising boats. This is NOT the case. Very few boats lose their bolt-on keels in the course of normal sailing. They just don't 'fall off" unless the keel bolts are in bad shape. You've been reading too many horror stories.

Sure, if you hit a rock at 7kts in the right way, you might loosen the keel bolts and/or damage the structure in the boat that the keel is attached to, but cheaply made fully encapsulated keels can get holes punched in them, water gets in, the lose bits of iron punchings that were dumped in there for ballast, rust, expand, and crack the keel open. A properly constructed encapsulated keel will have a cast hunk of lead in there and fully encapsulated in resin.

A properly constructed bolt-on, modest depth keel (not talking about an extreme racing boat fin with huge bulb on the bottom) will be extremely strong. My current boat, a 45 year-old 32ft balsa core fibreglass yacht with 5.6ft deep keel which is 6ft long where it attaches to the hull (with 5 X 1 1/4" bolts) got stuck on a sandbar in 30kt winds and 6ft seas. Laid on her side and pounded on hard sand for an hour. Got her towed off and guess what, no damage to the hull/keel attachment at all. Same argument with skegs. Some poorly constructed skegs have been torn off (along with the rudder) making a BIG hole in the boat. Modern spade rudders with big rudder shafts and really heavy duty rudder tubes and bearings are just as strong as most skeg-hung rudders.



2) Sailing performance (how the boat actually sails in all sorts of conditions): This has little or nothing to do with integrity of the build or type of construction; its a basic design feature. A hugely overbuilt heavy full-keel steel boat may survive going on the rocks or multiple 360 degree rolls, but she will sail like a dog to windward and you may end up on the rocks because the motor failed and you couldn't beat off a lee shore under sail. She will also be NO fun to sail. Unless all you want to do is somehow get from A to B, sailing ought to be fun, the boat responsive, feeling alive under you. My current boat, a 70's "racer/cruiser design, with moderate fin keel, skeg-hung rudder, moderate beam, 50% ballast ratio, is really fun to sail, goes to windward like a witch and is well-behaved on all points of sail. I've known ferro-cement boats of good design that sail really well (but I would never own a ferro boat myself).

Since you seem to have little actual sailing experience, all of the above about design/performance and enjoying sailing will probably not make much sense because you have to experience it, not just read about it in some book.

Again, I humbly suggest you get some experience before spending lots of $ on a boat based on other people's opinions.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

I've heard the expression as " Bob's your uncle and Penny's your aunt", and always thought it had fiscal meaning (a "Bob" was slang for a shilling IIRC, and a Penny is a penny coin).
Why this makes any sense is beyond my ken, but it is still a commonly used expression here in Oz...

In 1887, British Prime Minister Robert Gascoyne-Cecil appointed his nephew, Arthur James Balfour, as Minister for Ireland. The phrase 'Bob's your uncle' was coined, when Arthur referred to the Prime Minister as 'Uncle Bob'. Apparently, it's very simple to become a minister, when Bob's your uncle!

The difficulty with this suggested origin is the date. The phrase itself, isn't recorded until the 1920s, and doesn't begin appearing in newspapers, until after WWII.
It would seem odd, for a phrase to be coined, about the nepotism of an uncle for his nephew, well after both Ministers were out of office.

An article from the New York Magazine asked ten different Brits what the expression means, and got ten different answers

[johnn33]

Hallo
The gruesome background to Royal Navy's first use of fanny is Miss Fanny Adams' murder
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Adams
John