What type of keel do you prefer?

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by Polux

You are right about that. Now try the same with a boat with a deep full keel and a boat with a very narrow foil and a torpedo keel. Noticed the difference?

The reasons are the same, less submersed wet area, less tripping effect and easier to skid on the water surface dissipating the energy of a capsized wave.

Yes.

All styles have their properties and these can be pros or cons depending on what we want from our boats.

b.

[Curious Sailor]

Glad this question is still going... A lot of knowledge out there!

[Don C L]

OK, now I am no expert on metacentric height or limit of positive stability, but it just seems to me that a shallow draft, wide beam boat will be initially stable but if knocked down will recover more slowly than a narrower beam deeper keel boat. I am kind of thinking of a boat that is narrow like a length of pipe, held down by a deep keel, compared to a wide flat piece of wood with a shallow keel (and ballast.) The latter will stay upside down longer, right? Also, we aren't talking about tipping a boat over in a tub are we? The boat and keel are moving through the water and when reaching the bottom of a wave, the wave itself is not static and is lifting the boat up onto its side, which would mean the rail is grabbing at the wave more than the keel, no? And if the wave is breaking the top of the wave is pushing on the upwind rail. Almost seems like a wider beam and flatter bottom could be more trouble in a knockdown?

[TheThunderbird]

In the Med, where tacking upwind is the norm, I love a really deeep fin keel, to control the draft downwind, and to nail into waves.

Many sail the caribe, but I would not like to have a shallow draft under my heels.

Nice boats don't love staying too close to the shoreline

[Curious Sailor]

Originally Posted by TheThunderbird

In the Med, where tacking upwind is the norm, I love a really deeep fin keel, to control the draft downwind, and to nail into waves.

Many sail the caribe, but I would not like to have a shallow draft under my heels.

Nice boats don't love staying too close to the shoreline

What it like in the med? Drops off quickly right?

[TheThunderbird]

Originally Posted by Curious Sailor

What it like in the med? Drops off quickly right?

And gets back equally quickly.

70% of sailing is upwind, with short waves.

So few Cats here..

[malbert73]

Originally Posted by Don C L

You might go back to that article by Ted Brewer about centerboarders. Sparkman and Stephens and Charlie Morgan designed quite a few centerboarders that were pretty stable, "bluewater" and still popular designs for shoal draft designs.

Mine is an S&S design with relatively deep fin (nearly 5 feet draft) and CB, with over 40% B/D ratio. The boat sails just like a moderate fin keel boat and goes upwind fine without CB. But the foil shaped board pivots down to continue the leading edge of the keel, and lowers to nearly 9 feet of draft to really turbocharge upwind performance (about 8-10 degree better pointing esp in breeze). I love that the stability and keel depth are substantial for bluewater, but not so deep to limit shallow areas.

So I am biased like all on this thread, but for minimal maintenance (replace pendant every 5 years, check pin every 10) a well designed CB system can give you best of both worlds.


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[JTHAW]

I loved my 35' morgan CB 'r I sailed from Fl. to the Bahamas and then down the thorny path , island hopping all the way to Bequia and back to Fl...late '70's early eighties.... always picked my weather windows, 4'2" draft..8' or so board down....Great!!
now... My new to me old boat is 4'1" draft, with CB removed many years ago with a bit of xtra ballast she's about 43% ratio...only way I'd go..she's really stiff....but I'm sailing only Fl. Keys, Bahamas, and mostly western Carrib'n, hopefully again in the near future...
at 1st look I was a bit disappointed that her board was deleted...but then I remembered my earlier designed Morgan 35 c board bumped back and forth in any moderately rolly anchorage...a bit annoying..
tho I would think that the much larger, newer designs and gobs more expensive boats probably don't have issues..
I think the distant shores English built?..Southerly 49' Cb on TV is fantastic...perhaps 2.5 ft draft board up? maybe less?......awesome!!!

[JTHAW]

meant to say..eastern caribbean in above post, not western

[Curious Sailor]

Originally Posted by Curious Sailor

What it like in the med? Drops off quickly right?

Good to know.. Thanks!

[Polux]

Originally Posted by TheThunderbird

And gets back equally quickly.

70% of sailing is upwind, with short waves.

So few Cats here..

You should not say that about cats otherwise they will ask you if you have lots of experience sailing a cat to be entitle to have that opinion

About cats I don't know but if you look at the boats that are designed by countries with only med waters (Croatia, Italy) you are going to see that they are narrower than the typical French boat, with a bigger B/D ratio, more suited for upwind sailing and very good in light wind sailing because those are two situations that you will get plenty on the med.

The draft on most med boats is also considerable and here a 40/45ft boat 2.0m draft is the average. Lots of boats with 2.3m deep draft.

I have a friend that used to say that on the med there is no wind or too much wind. He had a very heavy boat. Typical med boats are able to sail in very light wind but also designed to go upwind in very muscular conditions.

Three years ago I was entering Zante port under very muscular conditions and moored my boat on the side of a steel boat with a nice old French couple that asked me about the conditions outside (F7/F8). I said it was not bad downwind but really very nasty upwind.

That started an enjoyable conversation, the guy was a two time circumnavigator and ended up saying that the worst conditions he had sailed on it was on the med.

Sure on the med you can stay out of the nasty weather at port or at anchor but it is not a place to be taken lightly, I mean to take your chances with, since conditions worsen far quicker than on an Ocean and you can pass from a F3/4 to a F10 in some hours.

The weather reports are not to be trusted too. Much more inaccurate than Oceanic ones sometimes with huge differences on the force of the predicted wind. Also lots of weird meteorologic phenomena.